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Category Archive for 'video'

Video Spotlights Lives of Four Kenyan Health Workers

By Sarah Kalloch (Wednesday, Mar 10, 2010)

We’re just a month away from World Health Day (April 7th) and the official launch of advocacy for the Global HEALTH Act of 2010. So far this month, through this blog you’ve learned about the Global HEALTH Act and gotten some great facts about the health workforce crisis (and how many people are waiting in line for an I-Pad — impressive!). Today’s post includes a few more resources that highlight the impact of Africa’s health workforce shortage. Check them out and share with colleagues.

PHR made the following video in collaboration with our Kenyan partner group, the Health Rights Advocacy Forum. In this 6-minute video, four health workers at Mbagathi Hospital talk about the challenges they face every day — and why they stay and practice medicine in their home country. This moving video can be shown on campus or at your workplace to stimulate discussion and urge people to take action.

For more personal stories, check out Africa’s Health Care Worker Crisis: Views from the Ground, a PowerPoint presentation that outlines six main drivers of the health workforce crisis in Africa and explores these challenges through the eyes of four Ugandan medical student leaders. Feel free to use this to make a presentation on campus or in your community, or use facts from it to drive home the need for action.

And watch our slideshows of Dr. Fred Katumba and Clinical Officer Jane Byarugaba following them through a typical day as they provide health care to the rural poor in Southwestern Uganda. Dr. Katumba’s work has propelled Lyantonde District to #2 out of more than 90 districts in terms of health outcomes — a phenomenal accomplishment and testament to Dr. Katumba, his staff, and the millions of hard-working health professionals who help communities realize the right to health every day.

(Cross-posted from PHR's Health Rights Advocate.)

Posted in: africa, aids, fred katumba, General Human Rights, Global HEALTH Act, Health, Health Rights Advocacy Forum, Health Rights Advocate, health workforce, Jane Byarugaba, kenya, Lessons from Kenya, phrstudents, powerpoint, resources, Students, Uganda, video, Women, World Health Day
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Campaign on Gender-Based Violence Begins by Honoring Darfuri Women Refugees

By Jonathan Hutson (Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009)

The Save Darfur Coalition honored Darfuri women refugees at the Farchana Camp in Chad to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25 and to kick off a global campaign of activism against gender-based violence.

Women refugees in Farchana Camp in eastern Chad drew up a groundbreaking, one-page women’s empowerment document known as the Farchana Manifesto, which outlines the needs and challenges women face in the camp, along with demands for participation and accountability in shared decision-making.

The document was written in June 2008, after seven women suffered torture and public humiliation. They were bound, whipped and beaten with thorny sticks of firewood because they worked outside of the camp to earn money for their families. Shamed as prostitutes, these women had their goods, money and food ration cards taken away by force. Though there is no proof, it is likely that at least some of these women became pregnant as a result of rape.

In response, eight Darfuri women authored a one-page document in Arabic to shed light on the plight of women refugees and open a dialogue with the world. This document made its way from the Farchana camp into the hands of Physicians for Human Rights and is published on PHR’s site DarfuriWomen.org, along with a video about the Farchana Manifesto.

In November 2008, PHR sent a team of four experts — three doctors and one human rights researcher — into the camp to report on the lives and needs of the women living there.

The team discovered that out of the 88 women interviewed, 32 had experienced sexual violence. Many who shared their stories had never previously spoken about the attacks for fear of isolation, stigmatization or retaliatory violence.

“The women of the Farchana Refugee Camp have confronted and continue to suffer from violence,” said Niemat Ahmadi, a genocide survivor and liaison to the Darfuri diaspora community at the Save Darfur Coalition.

These women have greatly amplified the courageous voices of victims of sexual violence in the camps. Despite the suffering, they remain determined to seek justice for themselves and for women around the globe.

For each of the next 16 days, the coalition’s campaign will honor a leader in the fight to empower, protect and uplift Sudanese women and promote a corresponding action. The campaign will conclude on December 10 (International Human Rights Day).

The Save Darfur Coalition is asking that activists observe the 1st day of the campaign by reading and sharing the Farchana Manifesto with their networks.

(Cross-posted on DarfuriWomen.org)

(Cross-posted from PHR's Health Rights Advocate.)

Posted in: chad, Conflict, Darfur, farchana camp, farchana manifesto, Health Rights Advocate, international day for the elimination of violence against women, international human rights day, save darfur coalition, video, Women
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Congrats: Obama Announces End of the HIV Travel Ban

By Sarah Kalloch (Friday, Oct 30, 2009)

Today marks a victory for PHR and all of you who have been working to lift the US HIV travel ban. This morning, while signing the fourth reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act, President Obama vowed to “publish a final rule that eliminates the travel ban effective just after the New Year.”

Obama said:

Twenty-two years ago in a decision rooted in fear rather than fact, the United States instituted a travel ban on entry into the country for people living with HIV/AIDS. Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease — yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic — yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it.

The final rule will remove the HIV infection from the list of “communicable disease of public health significance,” no longer require HIV testing as part of the US immigration screening process and eliminate the need for a waiver to enter the country as an HIV carrier.

Please read Obama’s statement, his first public address about HIV/AIDS where he illustrates his commitment to make the United States a global leader in tackling HIV/AIDS and erasing its stigma. Also check out PHR’s press release on this important victory.

Said PHR CEO Frank Donaghue:

Today is a great day for human rights and for people living with AIDS, their friends and their families. The HIV Travel Ban made the United States a pariah in human rights circles, and harmed our reputation as a world leader of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Starting in 2010, people living with HIV will no longer be prevented from entering this country, no longer turned away at customs, no longer forced to hide their condition and interrupt medical treatment, and no longer be treated by our government with contempt.

We’re celebrating in Cambridge and DC; we hope you are too. This is an amazing victory for all of you who have worked so hard to promote and protect the human rights of people living with AIDS!

(Cross-posted from PHR's Health Rights Advocate.)

Posted in: aids, barack obama, frank donaghue, General Human Rights, Health, Health Rights Advocate, HIV travel ban, immigration, phrstudents, ryan white care act, video
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PHR News Updates

By Benjamin Greenberg (Friday, Sep 11, 2009)

Check out the latest news from Physicians for Human Rights:

(Cross-posted from PHR's Student Blog.)

Posted in: aids, aids news, burma, cia, colleagues at risk, doctors, health care, human rights, kennedy, Official PHR Posts, pepfar, prevention for women and girls, right to health, sebelius, sri lanka, Student Blog, torture, travel ban, video
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Sri Lankan Government Coaching Burmese Junta?

By Richard Sollom (Friday, Sep 11, 2009)

Remember the calamitous end to Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war back in May? Some 16,700 non-combatants were wounded and several thousand more were killed during the final onslaught. Fighting between the 150,000-strong Sri Lankan Army (SLA) and the 7,000-strong Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) armed forces resulted in 300,000 displaced minority Tamils.

Although both sides committed mass atrocities, recent video footage of apparent executions (warning: this video contains graphic images) of 9 Tamil POWs supports widespread allegations of war crimes by the SLA.

But the international community, most notably the UN Security Council, remains idle while it should be launching a commission of inquiry.

Now shift your attention to Burma where eerily similar events are taking place. Murder, torture, forcible displacement, enslavement and rape comprise the military’s arsenal of abuses inflicted against minority populations. Last week, in a Washington Post op-ed, Chris Beyrer, MD, and I described such recent attacks that resulted in the flight of some 30,000 Kokang (an ethnic Chinese minority group in Burma) to Yunnan Province, China.

Though it can’t be confirmed, it seems as if the Burmese junta is reading the SLA’s play book on how to pull off a swift and murderous end to its own decades-long civil war. Curiously, following the military victory over the Tamil Tigers, the President of Sri Lanka, General Mahinda Rajapaksa, made a state visit to Burma to meet with President Than Shwe. Perhaps the two military dictators met only to discuss a bilateral agreement on tourism. But I doubt it.

(Cross-posted from PHR's Health Rights Advocate.)

Posted in: bilateral agreement, burma, child soldiers, china, Chris Beyrer, colleagues at risk, commission of inquiry, Conflict, EJE, execution, General Human Rights, Health Rights Advocate, Kokang, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa, murder, Myanmar, POW, rape, Richard Sollom, sla, slavery, sri lanka, Sri Lankan Army, Tamil Tigers, Tamils, Than Shwe, torture, United Nations Security Council, video, washington post, Yunnan Province
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