Archive for 'health'
Hot, humid and deathly - Writing about health in Mozambique
Posted on May 18, 2010, by Kudzai, under General, health, human rights, women, men and more.
Life is frail in Mozambique. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues
Guest blogger Mercedes Sayagues
The health page was laid out late at night last week. I had a headache so I went home around 7 pm to lie down. Around 9:30 the editor called: our turn for layout.
It was unbearably hot and humid. The newsroom is in the basement of an old house. The proofreader was sitting on the steps to the garden. “Catching fresh air?” I asked. (more…)
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Infertility: A painful emotional journey
Posted on March 23, 2010, by Kudzai, under General, reproductive health, women, men and more.
Not everyone is able to have a biological child. Credit: Kirstin Paliza/IPS
Guest Blogger Tapuwa Ayeh
Like many women, I have always wanted to be a mother and motherhood was supposed to be part of my life journey. Well life is not always going to be what you planned. For years, I went through a painful emotional journey of trying to get pregnant, and alas, failing at every attempt.
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Fifteen years after Beijing
Posted on February 23, 2010, by Kudzai, under HIV/AIDS, harmful practices, health, human rights, media, politics, reproductive health, violence, war rape, women, men and more.
Kudzai Makombe
Women live longer than men but these extra years are not always healthy, says WHO. Credit: WHO/UNAIDS/K.Hesse
With the Beijing +15 review coming up next week at the Commission on the Status of Women, it seems an appropriate time to have a look at where we are globally in terms of gender equality and women’s empowerment in line with the 12 Critical Areas under the Beijing Platform for Action.
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Out of darkness: facing breast cancer
Posted on December 28, 2009, by mercedes, under General, culture, health, media, women, men and more.
Guest blogger: Paola Rolletta, IPS stringer in Mozambique.
I feel neither more “good” nor more “patient”. I am a hard-headed woman, as always. Attached to life, as ever!
Paola Rolletta by Luis Abelard
The day when my friend Pigi, my oncologist, told me that I had breast cancer, I cried desperately. The first thing I did was to phone my partner to tell him this piece of news, of which I had had some premonition. And I understood that premonition really exists.
Curiously, I did not wonder “Why me?” My reaction was: “This cursed disease has hit me too!” (more…)
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Fabrications around AIDS in 2010
Posted on December 26, 2009, by mercedes, under General, HIV/AIDS, arts, culture, health, media.
By Mary Crewe and Pierre Brouard
Center for the Study of AIDS, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Fabrications is the theme of the 2010 calendar produced by the Center for the Study of AIDS. The gorgeous images are digitally manipulated African textiles.
The notion of “fabrications” was inspired by the many stories of the AIDS quilts – designed to tell a story about someone who had died of AIDS, to honour them and to create a memorial to them that could be used as part of the fabric of people’s daily lives.
A fabrication is in this sense both a physical construction of fabrics, but also a psychological and social construction, the story of a life.
We need to tell people’s stories but we also need to acknowledge that we use stories to make sense of AIDS, to cope with it, to fashion it into something bearable, to give it meaning. (more…)
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Famous and infamous births
Posted on December 21, 2009, by mercedes, under General, arts, children, culture, health, human rights, media, politics, religion, reproductive health, stereotypes, violence, women, men and more.
By Paula Modersohn Becker
When is a photo of a woman giving birth considered pornographic? Take your pick:
A. When it is shown in a pornographic magazine, film or website.
B. Never.
C. When it is emailed to government officials urging action to improve public health.
One could argue about A and B but this blog is about C.
Earlier this year, in Zambia, Chansa Kabwela, news editor at the feisty opposition newspaper The Post, was charged with circulating pornography with intent to corrupt public morals. (more…)
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CEDAW!
Posted on December 18, 2009, by mercedes, under General, culture, harmful practices, health, human rights, politics, religion, reproductive health, violence, women, men and more.
Ask the woman sitting next to you in the bus, train, plane, taxi-brousse or donkey cart what is CEDAW, and most probably you will draw a blank look. C’est quoi?
Yet CEDAW - Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women - has likely impacted on her life and her daughters, if she has any, in many ways, from pension and inheritance rights to the passport they hold.
Quilt made by women of Kyrgztan. (Unifem)
CEDAW, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 30 years ago today, is the global Bill of Rights for Women, the first international human rights treaty devoted to gender equality.
Through its 30 articles, CEDAW has boosted women’s rights worldwide in many ways.
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Living a woman’s life
Posted on December 4, 2009, by mercedes, under General, adolescents, culture, health, media, politics, women, men and more.
Today at noon my daughter graduated from high school. In the afternoon, the email brought news about very dear friends.
Motherhood, sisterhood, friendship.
In Paris, the Chilean researcher, novelist and feminist Ana (Nicha) Vazquez Bronfman had died, aged 71. She was a beacon for a generation of Latin American women for her insights on identity and gender. One concept she elaborated specially was “transculturation” - the permanent construction of identities in this world of global migration. In 2006 she wrote superbly about sexuality among the elderly – transgressions and secrets, she called it.
In Rome, my friend and fellow journalist Paola Rolletta underwent the next to last chemotherapy session against breast cancer. She was jubilant to see the end of the chemical bombardment. Like antiretrovirals, chemo saves lives but is no picnic. (more…)
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WORLD AIDS DAY 2009
Posted on December 1, 2009, by mercedes, under General, HIV/AIDS, arts, children, gays and lesbians, harmful practices, health, human rights, media, politics, religion, reproductive health, stereotypes, truth commissions, violence, war rape, women, men and more.
We share the wish of Marie Mendene Owono: SEND AIDS AWAY.
By M. Sayagues
Marie Mendene is an extraordinary activist from Cameroon and one of the first African women to say publicly that she lives with HIV, in the 1990s, when AIDS was a disease of shame and blame.
This is one of my favourite photos about AIDS in Africa. I took it at Sunshine, her NGO in Douala, in 2003, before antiretroviral treatment became widely available. Only a few Cameroonians in cities could get the life-saving pills.
The day I took the photo, Marie had queued for seven hours and received only half of her monthly ARV pills. She was understandably upset about the poor logistics and delivery of medicines. AIDS magnified all the inadequacies of health systems.
That was then. Today, nearly three million people in Africa are on ARV treatment. This seemed like a dream then, but activists were campaigning hard to make it come true.
Marie had a clear vision of activism. “We should go beyond the begging bowl and the appeal to compassion, beyond the stage of being used to do prevention and awareness, and become part of real-decision making around AIDS,” she told me.
Marie is to the right in the pic, with a fellow activist.
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Watchdog citizen journalism against gender violence
Posted on November 27, 2009, by mercedes, under General, culture, harmful practices, human rights, media, politics, stereotypes, violence, women, men and more.
The sisters can do it by themselves. By A. Vilanculos
The buzz in Mozambique during the recent elections was not the TV debate among presidential candidates debate (there is none) or their programs (all vague).
What had tongues wagging was citizen’s journalism, dispatches by ordinary folk about electoral irregularities from the Rovuma to the Maputo rivers.
Good stuff: government cars illegally used for campaigning, with cellphone pics of their registration plates (until officials wised up and started covering up plates and ministry logos with party posters). Reports of youth tearing downs other party’s posters, fistfights, intimidation, and police lack of impartiality. (more…)
