Social Bookmarking Soulmate

    Through a long, competitive search on Diigo and Delicious, I have found my social bookmarking soulmate! Her name is Aldona Van Haesevelde. Her profile on Delicious is cedocaafrika.

    She tends to focus on human rights and health issues in Africa. For example, she explores the impact of anti-homosexuality laws on the prevalence of HIV. This is incredibly useful to me because I am writing a research paper on this topic and its impact on Uganda. In addition, I intend to explore these topics in this blog. Because her interest in Africa coincides with my interest in Africa, we are social bookmarking soulmates. Even though she mainly focuses on Sudan, Senegal, and Angola, she has tagged Uganda and other African countries numerous times. Her bookmarks for Uganda provide useful information to readers who want to understand the health of Ugandans from a human rights perspective. I will refer to her bookmarked pages in my future blog posts. Thus, readers of this blog might find it worthwhile to look at the different pages she has bookmarked.

    She also explores health and political issues individually through bookmarking various political pages and health research pages that are unrelated to one another. Her bookmarking topics include health, politics, crime, warfare, justice, culture and rights. I can tell from the way she tags her pages that she approaches her understanding of African communities in a holistic way. This holistic approach is a public health approach. Because I am in the public health field, her holistic tags and bookmarking align perfectly with my interests. Her holistic approach to African issues is the same approach I wish to emulate in writing this blog about Uganda. 

    She has 470 tags for 2500 public bookmarks. These tags are very organized as she labels pages by both date and topic. If a topic is complex, she appropriately adds multiple tags in order to identify the complexity of the issue.  Her organized tags have enabled me to search for very specific topics within her bookmarks. This is very beneficial to all people who don’t want to read through 2500 webpages to find the topic they are looking for. Her thorough and organized tags allow me to enter a few key words and access all of the pages related to them.

    My soulmate, however, is less thorough in her comments. Most of her bookmarked pages do not have any comments. If they do have comments, they are very short, generalized descriptions of the page. Other comments seem to categorize the pages. At one point, I found a comment labeling the page for her PhD work. This leads me to believe that many of her bookmarked pages are organized and categorized solely for research purposes. However, she has been bookmarking consistently since 2009. This reveals sustained interest in African issues for a significant period of time. There is no way of deciphering whether her research led to her passion for Africa, or if her passion for Africa led to her research. Either way, her bookmarking is a very useful tool for my studies. 

    Because she bookmarks consistently, her profile is very up-to-date on current events in Africa. This makes her profile a practical resource to consult, as one can regularly rely on her bookmarks to learn about what is going on in Africa.

After looking through her bookmarks, I have found some wonderful sources:

Gem # 1: From personal survival to public health: community leadership by men who have sex with men in the response to HIV

http://www.blodbankinn.is/library/Sameiginlegar-skrar/Gagnasafn/Klinisk-svid-og-deildir/Blodbankinn/MSM-upplysingar/HIV_MSM_4_Lancet_2012.pdf

    This article highlights the important of the connection between personal and community health as drivers of health advocacy. The “passion and urgency brought by MSM communities have led to the targeting and expansion of HIV and AIDS research and programming, and have improved the synergy of health and human rights, sustainability, accountability, and health outcomes for all people affected by HIV”. This article details the importance of involving the homosexual community in HIV programs in order to ultimately reduce HIV prevalence.  

Gem # 2: The Framework Convention on Global Health: A tool for empowering the HIV/AIDS movements in Senegal and South Africa

http://www.hhrjournal.org/2013/10/01/the-framework-convention-on-global-health-a-tool-for-empowering-the-hivaids-movements-in-senegal-and-south-africa/

    This article discusses the “right to health” approach taken by civil society in South Africa and Senegal in the context of combating the HIV epidemic. This right to health approach will empower HIV movements to secure the expansion of HIV treatment and prevention services.

 “The movement’s ethos expresses the idea that promoting and protecting health and promoting and protecting human rights are inextricably connected.”

Is Gay OKAY?

"Don't be gay. It is wrong to be gay. If you're gay, you are a 'sick genetic freak'. If you're gay, you will face life imprisonment. If you're gay, you deserve the death penalty...."



As an American citizen who values freedom and equality, these ideas are incredibly foreign to my mind. Obviously I know that people still hold these views, but that still doesn't really eliminate the shock factor for me. Aren't we in a "progressive age"? This kind of hatred and ignorance is repulsive. In some sense, we can read those statements in a mocking tone. It's laughable how outrageous these ideas are. We sort of feel enlightened and "above them". A part of you reads those statements and thinks "how could anyone in this day and age possibly believe this ?" 

Until you realize that these statements are real....

 America has come a long way in terms of securing gay rights and passing anti-discrimination laws. This isn't to say that America is perfect and everyone advocates for sexual equality. There are people who still hold these beliefs, and there is a struggle every day against hatred and discrimination. However, we are lucky in that we have made progressive strides as a country. We have paved the way to wide acceptance of gays, and discrimination is illegal. If you're gay, ITS OK! You can live your life (although of course there are still tragic cases of discrimination, social ostracism, and murder). BUT all extremists aside, as a country, we have accepted homosexuals and advocated for their rights. We recognize everyone as equals, and there isn't a penal system that kills you or imprisons you for your beliefs. We are allowed to openly discuss sexuality whether we are engaging in conversation, surfing the internet, watching films, protesting, etc. We are allowed to have gay pride celebrations and awareness campaigns. I am allowed to write this blog post in the first place. These are little things that contribute to the advancement of gay rights. These little things are often overlooked because we have our sights on further progress. For example, we've used these conversations as a springboard to legalize same-sex marriage. I'm not saying everything in America is just peachy, but other countries are far from seeing this kind of equality.

When we take off our rose colored glasses of American privilege, we start to see the harsh realities of the world we live in. For the purpose of this blog, I am going to focus on some current events in Uganda.

"In 2011, prominent Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home after a newspaper splashed photos, names and addresses of gays in Uganda on its front page along with a yellow banner reading 'Hang Them'".

Yes. This was a REAL newspaper article inciting the community to kill all of the gays. This wasn't just an open declaration of homophobia. This newspaper took it to the next level by providing names and addresses of the gays in Uganda. Because Uganda has historically opposed homosexuality (e.g  legislation banning gay sex between men), this article was a death sentence in itself. Based on the subsequent events, the death sentence became a reality.

This terror progressed when Ugandans demanded a law sanctioning the death penalty for homosexuals. I am glad to say that Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni denied this demand. However, life imprisonment was the next punishment placed on the political agenda.

In December 2013, the Ugandan Parliament passed a bill for the lifetime imprisonment of homosexuals.
Other crimes include:

• Failure to report homosexuals
• Conducting same sex marriages
• Promotion of homosexuality (even merely talking about it without condemning it)

Fortunately, a massive amount of backlash opposing this anti-homosexuality ensued. Rights activists around the world marched for gay rights in Uganda. For example, Kenyans protested the Ugandan bill by wearing rainbow wigs and masks. Consequently, Museveni refused to sign the bill in January 2014. He doesn't support homosexuality, but he believes that these "sick genetic freaks" have a "right to exist".  

In calling homosexuals "sick genetic freaks", Museveni disputed the view that homosexuality is an 'alternative sexual orientation'. Instead, Museveni reasoned that "You cannot call an abnormality an alternative orientation'". This means Museveni viewed homosexuality as a genetic mistake. Only in this context would Museveni tolerate the existence of homosexuals.

However, that was January and this is February. Museveni was hot and then cold when he declared that he would sign the bill. 

When a team of Ugandan scientists told the president that there was no definitive gene responsible for homosexuality, he decided homosexuality is a behavior learned through life experiences. Because this behavior is "wrong", there is no reason it should exist. Without scientific justification for homosexuality, there is tremendous pressure to sign the bill in order to preserve Uganda's moral fibre.

 Fortunately, Museveni does not advocate for the harshest punishments suggested in the bill. Because of this, he  is currently seeking a compromise with Parliament.

To complicate matters more, the US got involved. Surprise! Since the US has been one of Uganda's largest foreign aid donors, President Obama is using this power to influence Museveni. He told Museveni that if he signs the bill, relations between the US and Uganda will "become complicated". This pressure might prove to be significant in this crucial struggle to squash the bill. 

Only time will tell of the fate of homosexuals in Uganda.

If you want to know more about the status of gay rights in Africa, check out this map and link below. 

Here is the link

Netvibes Search: A Collection of Ugandan Health Topics

In order to understand what health is like in Uganda, it is important to get a sense of current events. What is happening in Uganda? How does this contribute to the overall picture of Ugandan health?

I did a Netvibes Search and found 10 interesting articles:

Sexual and Gender Based Violence

http://allafrica.com/stories/201402121334.html

This article reveals how the Ugandan government inadequately addresses sexual and gender based violence. Many women, especially those living in war torn territories, are voiceless victims of this violence. Last year, almost 20% of Ugandan women reported that their first sexual encounter was against their will. This statistic highlights the brutal reality of the issue.

Women in rural, war-affected territories are more likely to suffer a violent attack because there are limited police officers to patrol the region. Some officers are even perpetrators of these attacks. This injustice is perpetuated by the harsh recognition of corruption within the judicial system.  An active and dedicated judicial system is required to overcome this issue, but the Ugandan government has failed to reach successful reductions in sexual and gender-based violence. Consequently, many women are left voiceless and hopeless in their search for justice.

This traumatizing revelation is worsened by the fact that sexual and gender based violence seems to be normalized in some communities. Under a twenty-year insurgency led by Joseph Kony, the LRA abused the women of northern Uganda on a daily basis. When guns ceased to fire in 2005, there was hope for restoration. This restoration is yet to be reached as women continue to suffer victimizations.

Here are some troubling facts:

• Minister Ronald Kibuule says that women who are indecently dressed should be blamed for their rape. Furthermore, officers should prosecute women victims rather than the rapists.

• In 2011: 7, 690 girls were defiled, 520 women raped and 251 women were murdered.

Anti Homosexuality Bill

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765647418/Gays-in-Kenya-protest-against-Ugandan-bill.html 

http://news.yahoo.com/uganda-activists-fear-aids-setback-amid-gay-clampdown-035733845.html

http://globalequality.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/op-ed-demonizing-gays-in-africa/

The Ugandan parliament passed an anti-homosexuality bill that called for the lifetime imprisonment of homosexuals. Politicians and policy makers frequently voice the idea that gays are “abnormal” and should cease to exist. These harshly prejudiced ideas are forcing the gay community underground, causing a possible setback in the fight against AIDS. If homosexuals are not acknowledged and given appropriate care, they will be a neglected group of society prone to sickness and disease. 

Fortunately, there has been Ugandan outrage and backlash against this anti-homosexuality bill. This backlash has surpassed Ugandan borders as Kenyans recently wore rainbow wigs and masks to protest the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda. This activism successfully convinced Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni to reject the bill. However, rejection of the bill does not mean that the Ugandan president approves of homosexuality. While he believes homosexuals have a right to exist, he also brands them as “sick genetic freaks”. According to Museveni, lesbians are victims of “sexual starvation” because of their failure to find a man. This highlights the critical need for more activism in terms of securing gay rights and challenging stigmatized perceptions of the homosexual community.

Agriculture & Environment

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/2014/01/23/preventing-hunger-biotechnology-can-only-help/

http://allafrica.com/stories/201402100003.html

            Developing countries, such as Uganda, have suffered wars, droughts, and other causes of famine. Fortunately, the Green Revolution enabled developing countries to import cheaper grains and grow high-yield seed varieties.  Without this revolution, crop yields would be 23.5 % lower while food prices would be between 35-66% higher. These realities are crippling in the developing world, causing an 8% increase in malnourished children. A chain effect would open the door to increased child mortalities and susceptibility to disease.

            However, there is a current need for further improvements. The improvements made by the Green Revolution cannot effectively address “rising population and loss of productivity brought on by ecological disruptions such as environmental degradation and frequent droughts”. The only solution to combat these environmental changes is an increase in biotechnology tools. Increased biotechnology tools will enable farmers to grow higher crop yields with higher nutritional content. In addition, the crops will retain the ability to withstand harsh environment conditions (biological and physical stresses).

HIV

http://news.yahoo.com/ugandan-army-winning-hearts-minds-foreskins-141432863.html

http://allafrica.com/stories/201402120124.html

http://news.yahoo.com/uganda-plans-drug-boost-aids-fight-153015103.html

            In the 1980s and 90s, Uganda was praised for its successful attack on HIV. President Yoweri Museveni was one of the first African leaders to speak openly about AIDS in order the address the issue. He launched government run public awareness campaigns that ultimately reduced the HIV rate from double to single digits.

However, complacency surrounding the issue caused the prevalence rate to increase from 6.4 to 7.3 % in 2011. This reignited the flame of activism in the battle against HIV. As a result, the Ugandan government plans to double its expenditure on anti-retroviral drugs (ARV), costing about 120 million dollars per year. This policy will enable 1.3 million people, compared to 600,000 people, to receive free ARVs.   In addition, doctors will focus on early detection and treatment in order to reduce overall community viral loads. Early detection and treatment is a continuation of successful US Center for Disease Control (CDC) projects implemented in Uganda. This will ultimately lead to successful improvements in “surveillance, laboratory and emergency response systems”.

Fortunately, the government and health professionals are not the only people involved in the HIV reduction movement. In Kampala, Uganda’s capital, army troops have been celebrating national army week with a public health drive that distributes condoms and conducts free circumcisions. Both condoms and circumcision have proven to reduce the risk of contracting HIV.

Child Mortality

http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30012&Itemid=114

Unicef, the UN’s children fund reported that Uganda is ranked 39^th out of 194 countries with the worst under-five mortality ratio. This translates into one child death before age 5 for every 14 children born in Uganda. In order to effectively address child mortality in Uganda, health professionals must subdue poor nutrition, low birth weight, and HIV (190,000 children infected).

Although these numbers are depressing, the availability of data brings hope to the cause. Proper research can help professionals identify which children are most neglected and where disease is most rampant. Further research will only increase the opportunities for placement of properly tailored programs in the right areas.  Since the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) was signed, Uganda has made improvements on reducing child mortalities. This is to increased immunizations, water and sanitation, and education. The hope is that research furthers these improvements over time. 

Food For Thought. Annotation of an Interesting Article

Annotation of  "A comprehensive and integrated project to improve reproductive health at Oyam District, northern Uganda: insights from maternal death review at a district hospital" 

In 2007, the European Union funded a project called “Improving access and quality to Reproductive Health in Oyam District , Uganda” . This project aimed to reduce maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality by increasing health resources, education, and services. In April 2009, a one-year study was conducted to assess the project and provide the first detailed record of hospital-based maternal mortality in Oyam District, Uganda. This study is very rare in that it makes appropriate strides in addressing the causes of death and why we have failed to reduce maternal mortality despite our efforts. An honest analysis of the benefits and limitations of the project followed, paving the pathway for strengthened preventative measures and future interventions.

Within one year, 17 maternal deaths were due to direct obstetrics, indirect obstetrics, and health staff negligence. It is important to note that emergency room care could have prevented half of these mortalities. Based on these results, the three main goals for future interventions were “improving the quality of assistance in the health centers, implementing an emergency room service in the hospital, and counteracting unsafe abortions”. This study is critical in guiding future preventative measures because it details maternal death review. Maternal death review provides valuable insight because it unveils how women are dying and why the health care is falling short. Because the Ugandan government never allocated funds for maternal death review, it was hard to truly address maternal mortality in the past. Thus, this study is groundbreaking and provides an essential foundation for future maternal mortality prevention programs.

Hello, World

I find my calling in exploring this life and working to better the lives of others. Like every young and eager person, I want to change the world. I don’t think this desire should be ridiculed because I recognize my own limitations, ignorance, and inability to truly fulfill a pageant girl idea of “world peace”. However, I am grounded in the belief that every effort, big or small, makes a difference. 

Because of this passion, I am entering the blogosphere with hopes of better understanding healthcare in Uganda. Why Uganda? My focus on healthcare in Uganda stems from my summer plans to work in a village called Adyege in northern Uganda. I am traveling to Adyege with a volunteer team consisting of 20 other USC students. During our time in Adyege, we will provide natives with the resources and education they need to create a strong foundation in sustainable living. We will conduct HIV testing for awareness and prevention, construct mosquito nets for malaria prevention, build a biogas digester to improve diverse crop yields, empower women through economic education, and improve maternal health and hygiene. This work is a continuation of a project from last summer. However, last summer only 4 USC students traveled to Adyege. This trip was not an official USC volunteer trip, as these students traveled on their own to work with the Global Health Network in Uganda. One of these 4 students decided he was going to come back the next summer with an official volunteer team from USC. He asked the natives how their community would benefit the most , and they listed off issues. He then based a volunteer trip off of these needs and pitched the idea to the volunteer center. The volunteer center accepted his idea as an official trip. He is now our trip coordinator, and we have a full team!

Although I do not have an extensive knowledge of Uganda and I have never been to Africa, I have to start somewhere. I want to use this blog as a way of challenging myself to truly learn and consequently invest in the community I will serve. Hopefully, this blog will serve as a springboard for my dive into serving the global community. Because I am researching health, possible subtopics can range anywhere from community to politics to drug use to warfare. Since Adyege is in northern Uganda, effects of the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) will be an important topic in assessing the way it has impacted the health and well being in different communities.