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| (Source:http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4069409n) As a scholar, in a public high school my conception of history curriculum is as follows: most curriculum being taught is from global or US history. There is no or minimum focus on current events happening at the moment all around the world. Scholars should be educated on daily global issues. For instance the diseases in Haiti. There is more we can do to help these people. Diseases such as AIDS, Malaria and Cholera. AIDS is a deadly disease in which damages ones immune system. Malaria is a parasitic disease involving anemia high fevers and flu-like symptoms. In the other hand cholera is an infection of the small intestine in results of watery diarrhea. Cholera is caused by bacteria. Cholera one of the most deadliest disease. This has affected many people. What if those dying where our loved ones? If they were the ones not receiving medical attention? What’s wrong with this issue. Hard to say when nothing seems right. |
Cholera was re-introduced to Haiti in the late 2010. At first it was bad but the situations has reached the point of atrocity. According to the Pan American Health Organization this disease could strike 200,000 to 250,000 people just this year. It has already killed more than 7,000 people. Reality is Haiti is not receiving the help they deserve. Another factor to the obliviousness of the people living in Haiti is the lack of education. Being one of the poorest countries. A vast majority of the people don’t have enough money to sustain themselves. Even if they were aware of their disease they wouldn’t obtain proper care. As mentioned before there's other diseases that cause death. “Paul farmer Presley is Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine of Harvard Medical School, an attending physician in infectious diseases and chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and medical director of the Clinique Bon Sauveur in rural Haiti; in his journal talks about tuberculosis and AIDS “which each day claim almost 15,000 lives worldwide”.
How can people be so inhumane and not help them. Truth is, not everyone is the same as Paul Farmer a man who did good for Haiti. He said once “I feel ambivalent about selling my services my services in a world where some can’t buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that because you should feel ambivalent. Comma”. As explained in the book Mountains beyond mountains by Tracy Kidder, Farmer would not charge children, woman the old and the severely ill. This was about everyone. He invested much of his own money to help the people in need. Sacrificing his time away from family. ( family in Paris) Independent people like him and others are trying to do the best they can to help. “For now, PIH leaders put most of their time and energy into teaching medical workers in places with a heavy TB burden how to use the cheapest susceptibility testing methods and how to deploy antibiotics already in the cabinet” stated in the journal of Science New Series.
Sad and depressing to know certain things that happen around us without our awareness. Farmer was once speaking with a patient, the patient had declared to be ‘in late middle age’. Farmer stated that in Haiti late middle age could mean “thirty years old, since 25 percent of Haitians die before they reach forty”. Later on Farmer examines a “sixteen-year-old boy too weak to walk, who weighs only sixty pounds”. According to a credible site on health a sixteen year old boy in average weighs about 132 pounds. The unawareness of these diseases and poverty is atrocious for people in Haiti.
Some Anthropologists are researching further into why are AIDS becoming a fast killing disease. Not only are they helping these people but they’re also playing a fifth role. Joining and helping communities, informing them of the harm HIV AIDS can do. “It suggests that anthropologists can
join forces with community groups in using such information to
develop "cultural-activist" responses not only to the AIDS pandemic,
but to the epidemic discrimination that has arisen in the wake of HIV”.
The U.N is not doing enough to help or support the noble cause of Anthropologist like Paul farmer. We can start by making people aware of what’s going on. Letting our fellow peers now what's going on. Enlighten them. Part of this generation includes the usage of technology. On your next status update or tweet inform people; illuminate them with your knowledge.
Bibliography:
(online):EDITORIAL; Haiti's Cholera Crisis." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 May 2012. Web. 27 May 2013. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/haitis-cholera-crisis.html?_r=0)
(JStor) Eliot Marshall. "Trench Warfare in a Battle with TB." American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008. Web. 28 May 2013.(http://www.jstor.org/stable/20054523)
(JStor): Farmer, Paul, and Jim Yong Kim. "Anthropology, Accountability, and the Prevention of AIDS." Taylor & Francis Group, May 1991. Web. 27 May 2013. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/3813067)
(JStor): Farmer, Paul "Current Anthropology." Chicago Journals. The University of Chicago Press, June 2004. Web. 27 May 2013. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/382250)
(print):Kidder, Tracy. Mountains beyond Mountains. New York: Random House, 2003. Print
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