"The Ugandan government, academia and NGOs need to change their attitudes towards customary law if rural women are to have equal rights to land, argue Judy Adoko and Simon Levine, from the Land and Equity Movement in Uganda"
Friday, March 27, 2009
Rural women still have few rights to land in Uganda | Katine | guardian.co.uk
Rural women still have few rights to land in Uganda | Katine | guardian.co.uk:
Circumcision Is Found to Curb Two S.T.D.s
Circumcision Is Found to Curb Two S.T.D.’s - NYTimes.com:
"The study, a randomized clinical trial published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, assigned more than 3,000 uncircumcised Ugandan men who were not infected with H.S.V.-2 to undergo immediate circumcision or to be circumcised 24 months from the start of the investigation. A subgroup was similarly evaluated for H.P.V. infection.
At 24 months, 114 men of the men initially circumcised and 153 of the noncircumcised tested positive for H.S.V.-2. After controlling for various health and behavioral factors, the researchers estimated that circumcised men had a 25 percent reduced risk of infection. The results do not apply to their partners."
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Get Your Walk Score - A Walkability Score For Any Address
Get Your Walk Score - A Walkability Score For Any Address: "We help you find a walkable place to live by calculating a Walk Score for any address."
Boxed Water Is Better!
Boxed Water Is Better!:
"Part sustainable water company, part art project, part philanthropic project, and completely curious. Boxed Water Is Better, is a boxed water company.
Started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit - we found that it shouldn't be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So we looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable, and beautiful."
Earth Hour This Saturday
Earth Hour This Saturday:
"When, on this Saturday on 28 March 2009 from 8:30-9:30 pm local time, people around the world switch off the lights, they will be participating in Earth Hour. Created and organized by the World Wildlife Fund, the goal is to raise awareness about the climate crisis and how it's affecting the world we live in. For one hour, with the participation of millions, Earth Hour is an effort to help push critical legislation that pertains to the global climate treaty. This year Human Scale is joining to help the cause as well. Click here for more information about Earth Hour and sign up to be apart of this amazing effort."
Hans Rosling (again)
I posted this at the start of the semester, but please be sure you've seen it because we'll speak about it next week. Pay particular attention to the example of Uganda and the internet discussion in the last 2 minutes:
Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen | Video on TED.com
The next year at TED Rosling gave a follow-up presentation with a fascinating discussion of the correlations between technology and health in development goals. If you're interested, watch it here. Additionally, you can go play with TrendAnalyzer, the software developed by GapMinder and acquired by Google at GapMinder World.
Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen | Video on TED.com
The next year at TED Rosling gave a follow-up presentation with a fascinating discussion of the correlations between technology and health in development goals. If you're interested, watch it here. Additionally, you can go play with TrendAnalyzer, the software developed by GapMinder and acquired by Google at GapMinder World.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
NY Times: Cities Deal with Shanty Towns
Like a dozen or so other cities across the nation, Fresno is dealing with an unhappy déjà vu: the arrival of modern-day Hoovervilles, illegal encampments of homeless people that are reminiscent, on a far smaller scale, of Depression-era shanty towns. At his news conference on Tuesday night, President Obama was asked directly about the tent cities and responded by saying that it was “not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”
While encampments and street living have always been a part of the landscape in big cities like Los Angeles and New York, these new tent cities have taken root — or grown from smaller homeless enclaves as more people lose jobs and housing — in such disparate places as Nashville, Olympia, Wash., and St. Petersburg, Fla.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Symposium on Environment and Health at AMNH
Dear Mary and Annie,
we have finished our preparations for the symposium and the final program is online. The link for the symposium is http://symposia.cbc.amnh.org/health/ and the program can be found at http://symposia.cbc.amnh.org/health/agenda.html
Poster abstracts, which include quite a few works done by students, are at http://symposia.cbc.amnh.org/health/posters.html
There is a free event on the evening of April 2nd.
Please let me know if you have questions or comments and I hope to see you at the museum!
Best,
Andres
Andrés Gómez, DVM, PhD
Center for Biodiversity and Conservation
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St., NY NY 10024
212.313.7081 | agomez@amnh.org | fax 212.769.5292
Center for Biodiversity and Conservation
American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at 79th St., NY NY 10024
212.313.7081 | agomez@amnh.org | fax 212.769.5292
Monday, March 16, 2009
Book on Climate Change and Health
Hi, all
I would like to introduce one textbook which provides the discussion of global environmental change, including climate change, and public health. It gives us not only the fundamental background of fields, but also tips how to explore knowledge through the Internet. It links many useful websites and academic papers.
The book is more broadly discuss the global environmental change, it also has the section of climate change and public health. One of the editors is Dr. Paz Jonathan, an expert of climate change and health. I took his course and used the textbook last year at UW-Madison. If you are interested, I will bring it next time.
Title: Ecosystem Change and Public Health: A Global Perspective, Dr.
Joan L. Aron PhD (Editor), Jonathan A. Patz MD MPH, The Johns
Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (May 16, 2001)
I would like to introduce one textbook which provides the discussion of global environmental change, including climate change, and public health. It gives us not only the fundamental background of fields, but also tips how to explore knowledge through the Internet. It links many useful websites and academic papers.
The book is more broadly discuss the global environmental change, it also has the section of climate change and public health. One of the editors is Dr. Paz Jonathan, an expert of climate change and health. I took his course and used the textbook last year at UW-Madison. If you are interested, I will bring it next time.
Title: Ecosystem Change and Public Health: A Global Perspective, Dr.
Joan L. Aron PhD (Editor), Jonathan A. Patz MD MPH, The Johns
Hopkins University Press; 1 edition (May 16, 2001)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
How did the Briton cross the road?
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine : "Stephen Dowling
BBC News
The green man, an icon for pedestrians across the UK, could be joined by a countdown clock as part of London's plans to ease traffic flow. But from Cairo to Chicago, how people cross the road speaks volumes about a country's cultural values.
You only need to step outside your hotel when staying in a foreign city to know that when it comes to crossing the road, there's no such thing as an international standard. Every country does it differently.
In Cairo, pedestrians seemingly take their lives in their hands, striding out into oncoming traffic in the Middle East's most chaotic roads .
In Bangkok, crossing the street means playing chicken with armadas of scooters and cars that see pedestrian crossings as an obstacle course."
BBC News
The green man, an icon for pedestrians across the UK, could be joined by a countdown clock as part of London's plans to ease traffic flow. But from Cairo to Chicago, how people cross the road speaks volumes about a country's cultural values.
You only need to step outside your hotel when staying in a foreign city to know that when it comes to crossing the road, there's no such thing as an international standard. Every country does it differently.
In Cairo, pedestrians seemingly take their lives in their hands, striding out into oncoming traffic in the Middle East's most chaotic roads .
In Bangkok, crossing the street means playing chicken with armadas of scooters and cars that see pedestrian crossings as an obstacle course."
The Recession's Green Lining
Since climate change was mentioned as a project idea by one of the groups yesterday, I thought people might find this article interesting.
The Recession's Green Lining
A global downturn is doing what activists couldn't: closing dirty factories.
The Recession's Green Lining
A global downturn is doing what activists couldn't: closing dirty factories.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Reflection Paper 3
Forgive me for running out of time today to hear your ideas regarding what it means to be pro-poor. As promised, this will be the basis for the third reflection paper due in 3 weeks (!) at our next formal class to be held on April 1, 2009 (this is not an April Fool's Day joke!) In your own words, what does it mean to be pro-poor? How would societies be restructured if this formed the basis for newly instituted policies and the practices that flow from them? Enjoy your spring breaks and team sessions, and see you next month (gulp!) Mary
How to stop the drug wars | The Economist
I read this lead article t in the Economist this week and was interested by the tag line. "Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution." The magazine stands by its position, that legalising drugs, will do the least harm to the greatest number of people, especially those who do not use.
Gawad Kalinga!
A friend of mine here at Columbia is from the Philippines and has worked with "slum upgrading" and a very interesting organization in her home country called Gawad Kalinga. They work with communities to support land tenure and also community participation in rebuilding or revitalizing their own homes. Similar to Habitat for Humanity, the residents pay for their new homes within the same community by investing "sweat equity" and helping fellow community members build their own homes. I encourage you to check out their work. One of the other interesting aspects is that they make everything really bright to make a more uplifting environment! See image here.
The Strange Allure of the Slums...
The Economist, 3 May 2007
NO CONTINENT is urbanising faster than Africa. Why? One answer is partly statistical: Africa has been the slowest to get started. Another is that parts of Africa, such as the Sahel, have been affected recently by severe climate change, making marginal land unfarmable. And in countries like Angola and Congo years of fighting have propelled millions to the cities. But a fuller explanation is needed....
The full article can be found at:
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9070714
NO CONTINENT is urbanising faster than Africa. Why? One answer is partly statistical: Africa has been the slowest to get started. Another is that parts of Africa, such as the Sahel, have been affected recently by severe climate change, making marginal land unfarmable. And in countries like Angola and Congo years of fighting have propelled millions to the cities. But a fuller explanation is needed....
The full article can be found at:
http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9070714
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)