I just ran across a very inspiring article about the impending election in November. Seems that the number of projected homeless people voting this year is quite impressive. As home foreclosures and a “hung over” economy (in the words of George W.) press on, more and more Americans are being forced to live on the streets and in homeless shelters. Driving the force of homeless voters are the victims of foreclosures, who seem to have the most incentive to vote. Micheal Stoops, the executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, says:

“Low income and homeless people are more energized than I have ever seen before. There’s a lot of interest in voting because of what’s happening in this country.”

So far, the favorite seems to be Obama, who has vowed to aid the more than 35 million people living below the poverty line by raising the minimum wage and offering tax breaks. Until November, victims of the mortgage crisis can at least find some hope in the Hope for Homeowner’s Act, which was just recently passed by Congress. For more info on the Act, click here.

Please join Global Vote, an online democratic voting forum that engages people in the discussion and involvement in global issues, for a fundraising party on Wednesday, July 30th at 7 p.m. at the Galway Hooker Pub. The private party, which will feature drink specials and prizes, will take place on the second floor. Suggested donation is $20. Galway Hooker is located on 36th St. @ 5th Ave.

Besides raising funds for its programs, Global Vote is hosting this get together to celebrate the launch of their new web site www.theglobalvote.org Remember to vote! And hope to see you on the 30th.

I felt the need to comment on a short piece sent to me by Esther Eshiet regarding the current state of communication on HIV and AIDS in various parts of Africa. In reviewing an article written by PlusNews on June 18^th 2008 in Johannesburg South Africa the article provides support for a very import and noticeable fact, first that HIV is spoken about negatively by the people in Africa and second [has quoted Felicity Horne statement] that “ ‘language can neither be separated from our thoughts and feelings, nor from the social context in which it is used… words and images create different conceptual realities of the phenomenon”’.

The author informs us that billions of dollars have been spent on communication strategies, yet local insight into the ‘disease’ and views of it on the street remains negative; (Paragraph 1). Apart from the information given that ‘HIV is often spoken about as a thief”, among other terms such as ‘landmines’ ‘sickness of this generation’ and ‘little bug’ (mini dictionary from IRIN/PlusNews), the most important take home message that I felt the author wanted us to know was that organizations in Zimbabwe (and most likely other developing countries and nations) “argue that the slang used to describe the virus –which is almost uniformly negative- reinforces the stigma and fatalism that has proved so difficult to erase over the past 25 years of advocacy” (paragraph 8). [The author states that] Felicity Horne (a academic who studies ‘AIDS and language’) recognizes that while communities tried to break the silence of this ‘disease’ informal or slang terms for the epidemic were proliferating and were beginning to construct a response (undoubtedly negative) to the pandemic.

My response

There is very little doubt that communication efforts in much of Africa has failed and that negative views still perpetuate the air like a foul smelling odor that cannot be displaced.

Without a doubt obviously the latter (slang and negative stigma) continues to hinder attempts to successfully encourage people to get tested, support self education, participate in media efforts to show that people can live with the disease, and other efforts to reduce the incidence of spread and possible violence against those infected and affected. (This author understands and has witnessed this in other countries;) However as pro-health as this author is, as a social scientist I spend my time asking a lot of questions and looking at the not so obvious. I also understand that most things that people fear, slang is and will be continually used to describe, so I ask ‘why should we expect that HIV will be addressed any differently’ (other than negatively).

To address a state of existing and ‘disease’ any differently is to ‘neutralize’ it. If it is neutralized is ceases to be a ‘sickness’ or ‘disease’. Do not misconstrue what I am saying. I am not supporting slang, negative connotations of HIV or any ‘disease’, or that it should be ‘neutralized’. I am bringing to your attention the important question. “Why should there be an expectation that HIV is going to be addressed differently (because of improved ‘communication’), when to do so is to neutralize ‘it’ and make an assumption that society wants to see the state of existence as ‘normal’; assuming such is a big presumption.

I fail to understand why people would assume that foreign investment in “improved (Western influenced) communication” brings “understanding” and thus diminishes fear. There is of course the assumption that there wasn’t “understanding” prior to another change in communication strategies for the so-called ‘billion dollar investment’ above. There are four styles of learning, and three major forms of communication. There is one organ responsible for fear, the mind. It seems to me a lot of assumptions were made when billions of dollars were invested in communication strategies; a lot of assumptions are made that ‘understanding HIV’ -something you only see the results of and not the process in action- should make one less afraid, and further assumptions are made that people don’t ‘understand’ and that is why they are perpetuating the negative. [We know that misunderstanding creates fear, but communication doesn’t always eliminate fear; if it did would not most people welcome death (painful or painless) after conversations with the ‘bringer’ of death?] In simple sincerity reversing the format of the question I ask, “If communication eliminated all fears wouldn’t most people accept the possibility of death, if they heard a whisper that “it” was ready for them?”

Original Article Titled: AFRICA: Mind your language - a short guide to HIV/AIDS slang (posted 6/18/08 IRIN PlusNews -Global HIV/AIDS news and analysis)

Globalhood organization Global Potential is currently in the Dominican Republic with its 10 selected students and GP leaders and mentors. Check out their blog , which documents their journey, challenges, and accomplishments. The blog is a forum for students and their mentors to post their progress and share with us their exciting journey to changing the world!

A recent Partners in Health article (click here to see the full article) outlines yet another derailed foreign aid program, this time in Haiti. Seems the Inter-American Development Bank allocated more than $50 million 10 years ago to bring clean water, the most basic of human needs, to the country. Now, a decade later, the public-water system remains even less productive than it was before, and, despite millions of dollars in aid, clean water has reached even less people than it did before the aid. In fact, since 1990, the number of people without access to drinkable water has increased by 7 percent.  

What exactly is going on here? For one, Partners in Health claims that the U.S. government was more concerned with the political relations and stability of the country for its own hegemonic purposes more than it was concerned with getting people access to clean water. Evidence from the IBD shows specifically that officials used the funds to attempt to overthrow then-president Aristide.

The focus on crumbling Haiti’s then-government largely out-shined the fact that Haitians were literally dying from lack of clean water. The country is also still gasping for air from the enormous debt it has incurred since its founding.

This reminds me of a blog I wrote a few weeks ago on the state of various African countries and the similar situation of corrupt government. Despite the fact that more than a billion dollars has been funneled across the continent in the past handful of years, the economical status of its people has done anything but improve.

Surely there is a better way. We must stop shelling out billions of dollars that so often winds up in the hands of those who need it least, with no system of accountability when the funds miss their intention by a long shot.

What shall be the solution?