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Communication, Media, and Development Policy
Analysis, Ideas and Debates on Development Policy Issues from Communication and Media Perspectives
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HIV infection and AIDS epidemics control = "Disaster Readiness"
Well spoken!
Take the public health HIV/AIDS disaster on the African continent, which is also being felt in Asia.
The locals were the best to handle these disasters with support, financially only, from the international world.
I talked the following "possible solutions" in the late 1980s and early 1990s which were opposed aggressively by the African leaderships, that believed ALL SOLUTIONS came from the north or the developed countries:
1. 1990 - Wide community voluntary counselling and testing
2. 1992 - Pictures in AIDucation
Today in 2009 some "best practice" intervention strategies have been:
1. Livingstone Anti-AIDS Project, Zambia - 1989
2. Athlone Hospital AIDS Awareness Programme, Botswana - 1990
3. Athlone Hospital Health Resource Centre, Botswana - 1999
4. A-Z OF TUBERCULOSIS, England - 2005
5. Community Resource Centre, England - 2007
What was the secret?
I fore saw, expected, experienced and lived the epidemics!
Dr Edwin Mavunika Mapara,
AIDucator
Disaster Preparation and Generational Change
Remembering the US-based civil defence training efforts of my childhood, I note that my adult children didn't have that experience as they passed through public schools. Instead, they had lock-down drills related to threats of humans with guns. Though that may be due to changes in perceived disaster risk, the training was a top-down decision in both cases, leaving the communities at risk regarding natural disasters which actually occurred. I suspect that a generational "forgetting" is a distinct possibility both from the top down and the bottom up, even in empowered communities whose capacity is built in areas of disaster management. When we depend on human capacity, that is a risk that isn't often mentioned.
There are so many good,
There are so many good, recent (last 4 years) examples of how access to technology and information have helped people survive, heal, and rebuild in natural disaster situations. This seems a no-brainer. The key here seems to be that not only do people in natural disaster situations need access to technology and information, but they need to be empowered - through a shift in the architecture of disaster relief - to be able to create their own new foundations. This Imogen clearly indicates in the title of her piece. I'm just not sure that's the argument she is following through on. She seems to be arguing one thing in her title (empower the people) and another in the piece (information is the key).