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COVID-19 Vaccine Diplomacy in West Africa: Empathetic Soft-Power or Neocolonial Intentions?
Get PDFWith the impending roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines, many questions have been raised concerning the roll-out of the vaccines beyond the Global North. While some countries across the Global South have been able to purchase limited numbers of vaccines; many countries in the Global South remain highly or entirely dependent on various programs for the distribution of vaccines, such as the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) program. Another means of distribution is of individual countries of the Global North that have either higher purchasing power or are producers of one or more vaccines that have begun donating an allocated amount of doses to various countries. This practice has brought into question the ethics of giving vaccines, a life-saving mechanism, with allegedly no strings attached at the moment, but with a likely set of expectations to be held up on the backend, as this practice is likely a neocolonial one. What are the intentions of countries and programs that are donating COVID-19 vaccines across the Global South, beyond “ending” the pandemic, are they truly of goodwill, is it simply a new action in the name of soft-power, or is it an inherently neocolonial action
The Gap Between Policy and the People: A Case Study of the Buikwe Fishing Communities
Get PDFTo examine the implementation of Local Government development planning in periphery and hard to reach communities in Uganda, the fishing villages of the Buikwe District were used as a case study. The objective of the study was to explore how Local Government development planning is implemented in the fishing villages to identify gaps. Implementation was broken down into three areas: consultations, needs and services, and service delivery.
The study mimicked the bottom-up approach to decentralized development planning in Uganda, beginning with seven focus group discussions in five fishing villages of Buikwe. Eleven key informant interviews were then conducted with Local Government officials in the political and technical wing at the LC1, LC3, and LC5 level. General observations were also made throughout the qualitative data collection.
From the results, gaps between the responses of government officials and that of community members were apparent in each area of implementation. While clear consultation procedures were described by key informants, community members felt that consultations were insufficient. In addition, despite the implementation of several government projects in the fishing villages, many of the services did not meet community expectations and several unmet needs remained. Finally, key informants most commonly attributed issues to service delivery as a lack of funds, community mindsets, and issues with follow ups. Conversely, community members viewed corruption and poor community engagement as the major issues. From observations, a lack of information sharing and communication between upper-level Local Government and the community was a major hindrance to adequate consultations, services that meet the needs of the people, and effective service delivery. Increased community engagements (i.e. follow ups, sensitizations, and consultations) were recommended to improve implementation, and suggestions were also made to community members on how to support implementation at the community level
Los Efectos Psicosociales que Produce el Embarazo en las Vidas de Madres Adolescentes en Quito, Ecuador
Get PDFResearch Question: What are the psychological and social effects of teen pregnancy facing teen mothers in 2021 and how do they impact their lives? Objective: The general objective is to describe the psychosocial implications produced by teen pregnancy. Background: Teen pregnancy rates of Latin America and the Caribbean are second in the world, second only to the region of Subsaharan-Africa. Within Latin America, Ecuador has the highest rates of adolescent pregnancy, surpassed only by Venezuela. Recently, the taboo surrounding reproductive health has been challenged, with the matter of abortion being brought to the supreme court. In conjunction with the matter of mental health, for which there is no law in Ecuador, another commonly overlooked topic, pregnant teenagers in need of psychological help are a double vulnerable group whose medical attention is not a priority. Methodology: Six semi-structured interviews were conducted using contacts provided by the advisor. Additionally, a brief questionnaire was sent to college students. All participation was consensual, and data was collected in a safe and confidential manner to be transcribed and analyzed by the investigator only. Results: The interviews confirmed the findings of the pre-existing literature and established a correlation between the psychosocial implications of mood disorders, isolation, and drop-out levels between adolescents and pregnancy, as well identifying the negative perceptions towards teen mothers, such as promiscuity and discrimination in the educational and medical field. Conclusions: The psychosocial implications faced by pregnant mothers interconnected by a multitude of determinants. The overarching recommendation for improving these levels of pregnancy came down to destigmatizing the topics of sexual health and providing better forms of education universally.
de investigación: ¿Cuáles son los efectos psicológicos y sociales del embarazo que las madres adolescentes tienen que enfrentar en Quito en 2021 y cómo afectan sus vidas? Objetivo: Describir los efectos psicosociales que produce el embarazo en la vida de las madres adolescentes de la ciudad de Quito, Ecuador. Antecedentes: Las tasas de embarazo en adolescentes de América Latina y el Caribe son las segundas en el mundo, sólo la región de Subsaharan-África tienen más altas. Dentro de América Latina, Ecuador tiene las tasas más altas de embarazo adolescente, superadas sólo por Venezuela. Recientemente, el tabú que rodea la salud reproductiva ha sido cuestionado y la cuestión del aborto ha sido llevada a la corte suprema. En conjunción con la cuestión de la salud mental, para la que no existe una ley en Ecuador y un otro tema que comúnmente se pasa por alto, las adolescentes embarazadas que necesitan ayuda psicológica son un grupo doble vulnerable para quien la atención médica no es una prioridad. Metodología: Se realizaron seis entrevistas semiestructuradas utilizando contactos proporcionados por la consejera. Toda participación fue consensual y se recolectaron los datos en manera segura y confidencial para ser transcritos y analizados por el investigador solamente. Resultados: Las entrevistas confirmaron los hallazgos de la literatura preexistente y establecieron una correlación entre las implicaciones psicosociales de los trastornos del estado de ánimo, el aislamiento y los niveles de abandono entre adolescentes y el embarazo, y identificaron también las percepciones negativas hacia las madres adolescentes, como la promiscuidad y la discriminación en el campo educativo y médico. Conclusiones: Las implicaciones psicosociales a las que se enfrentan las madres embarazadas están interconectadas por una multitud de determinantes. La recomendación general para mejorar estos niveles de embarazo se ha reducido a desestigmatizar los temas de la salud sexual y proporcionar mejores formas de educación universalmente
Purple Shadows in Catalonia: Josep Pla, Great Questions of Literature, and the Bid for Catalan Independence
Get PDFIMPROVING PRE-DEPARTURE TRAINING FOR ENGLISH TEACHER VOLUNTEERS IN COSTA RICA: AN EXAMINATION OF ALIARSE AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Get PDFVolunteering outside of one’s country and culture is a challenging endeavor. While abroad, international volunteers generally encounter a new language, culture, and lifestyle which can create challenges for volunteers. Pre-departure training can buffer and lend nuance to the difficulties that volunteers face. In Costa Rica, the organization Aliarse manages a volunteer project that experiences high volunteer attrition and incorporates minimal pre-departure training. This case study draws on quantitative and qualitative data collected from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of former Aliarse volunteers over two months. Results from the data found that ninety-four percent of the interviewees said interacting either directly or indirectly with current and former teachers prior to their departure could have helped them set appropriate expectations or have more realistic expectations. Eighty-eight percent of interviewees identified “how to adapt to the culture” as an important pre-departure training topic, which recognizes the need for greater resources and support on cultural adaptation. One conclusion that can be drawn from the volunteer findings is that that having access to information on Costa Rican culture, schools, and conditions through a pre-departure training portal would have helped volunteers during the transition to their new environment. Based on the findings, this research proposes that a pre-departure training portal could decrease attrition and facilitate a smoother transition into a volunteer’s new environment
Current State of Seagrasses in Zanzibar: Impacts of Coastal Economic Activities and Marine Protected Areas on Seagrass Cover
Get PDFSeagrass meadows are located abundantly in Zanzibar, Tanzania and provide essential ecosystem services, such as sediment nutrient enrichment and blue carbon sequestration. However, seagrasses have been less researched or protected than other marine ecosystems. Although environmental variables affect seagrass health, evidence suggests that anthropogenic impacts are their greatest threats. The rapid expansion of seaweed farming and tourism and widespread use of harmful small-scale fishing practices in Zanzibar have contributed to the degradation and removal of seagrass meadows, disrupted coastal marine food chains, and reduced local biodiversity that seagrasses support. Public or private marine protected areas (MPAs) protect most of Zanzibar’s coastal marine ecosystems, yet evidence is unclear whether MPAs effectively conserve marine ecosystems. Using geographic information systems (GIS) to estimate the change in percent of seagrass cover from 2006 to 2019, we conducted Spearman’s rank correlation analyses to identify whether seagrass degradation was correlated with seaweed farming, fishing, or tourism and whether MPA management plans were protective. Tourism was negatively correlated with seagrass cover, r(9) = -0.74, p = 0.044, suggesting that tourism is an important driver of seagrass declines in Zanzibar. No other variables were significantly correlated with seagrass cover decline. To improve the management of seagrass meadows, plans must identify seagrasses as critical ecosystems, expand seagrass restoration projects, and address harmful practices in the tourism industry and other human impacts
A Virtual ELL Community: Manual for Creating an ELL District Website
Get PDFAbstract
Every public school district has the responsibility to provide their English language learners (ELLs) with reliable and accessible resources. Many communities do this through various avenues, including in-person and online materials. Since the COVID-19 Pandemic, there is an even greater need to provide information online. Many schools are bouncing between hybrid and fully remote programs. Some families are opting to homeschool regardless if their district offers in-person classes or not. Supporting these families and keeping them up to date on how to navigate these challenging times is essential. This materials development project will seek to fill this need by designing an ELL district-wide website manual. This study will research what many public school\u27s websites already offer in addition to presenting insight from ELL students, their families, and educators on what they would like to know and see on a website specially designed to support their needs
Assessing the need for and access to migrant-sensitive rehabilitative healthcare: An analysis of current Swiss and German practices
Get PDFIn recent years, the noticeable increase in migration has placed scrutiny on the migrant-sensitive services provided in healthcare settings globally. Migrants, in general, experience different health issues and worse health outcomes than non-migrants. In response to this, healthcare systems around the world have begun implementing migrant-sensitive healthcare (MSHC) systems; yet, although nearly a third of the world’s population experiences some health condition that would benefit from rehabilitation, the implementation of MSHC rehabilitation services have been critically understudied. This paper seeks to investigate the geographic and MSHC accessibility of rehabilitation in Geneva, Switzerland to fill the current gap of literature and identify areas to improve accessibility to these services for migrants. Preliminary results revealed that there are several areas within the canton of Geneva where a migrant would struggle to reach MSHC or general rehabilitation services on either public transportation or via walking. An analysis of the websites of both hospitals and private facilities in Geneva also revealed a general lack of MSHC offerings. The current trend towards integrating MSHC systems globally is crucial to begin providing equitable healthcare to migrants, but the results of this paper reveal that there is still much more work to be done and new concepts to consider in this process to truly eliminate the healthcare disparity for migrants
Narrativas de la autoconstrucción: posicionalidades e identidades en migrantes venezolanos en Quito, Ecuador
No full textThe purpose of this project is to explore the identities of the Venezuelan population in Quito, Ecuador. The country itself has received more than a million people from Venezuela, some who have continued their journey and around 500,000 who have stayed in Ecuador. Most migrants left to the unstable political situation in Venezuela which reached its breaking point around 2015, the year in which this population began to enter Ecuador en masse. The central question of this study is: What is the self-constructed identity of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in the city of Quito, Ecuador and how has their migratory experience and positionality in the culture of arrival affected this identity? . This question represents a missing element in the data of Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador. Personal identity is how individuals see themselves and how they are seen. It is also the characteristic that prompted them to leave. The focus of this project has been a qualitative one using structured interviews with questions prepared beforehand, allowing to identify thematic trends in the perceptions that people have of their own identities, experiences, and difficulties through the migration process. Participants were sampled using a non-probabilistic method. Convenience sampling was used to find candidates and participants genuinely willing to give their personal opinions and feel comfortable discussing their experience. A total of 9 participants participated, all Venezuelan migrants who were willing to give very interesting and diverse answers. These participants were sampled with the help of groups working in the field of migration and resettlement. Representatives from the Red Cross, UNHCR, and ADRA helped me identify volunteer participants without worrying about problems of coercion or pressure. The information from the interviews was recorded through in-depth notes during and after each interview, in addition to the interview being recorded on audio. The results offered interesting and diverse responses to the questions. These insights varied depending on their experience through the migratory process and their experience in Ecuador. While some individuals walked to Ecuador, others flew. Some have faced an immense amount of discrimination, while others none. These are some examples of the formative processes that affected their identities after their departure from Venezuela. A few individual identities were directly tied to their families and community structure where they saw themselves as part of a larger collective. But many others saw little engagement with other Venezuelans, and actually saw adaptation and integration as their core identities. One conclusive piece of all their identities was that they have changed in some way. Through the migratory process all these individuals have had societal, cultural, institutional, and personal obstacles that greatly affect their identity whether they realized it or not. However, the shifting nature of these diverse identities is what is explored in this paper, both through a theoretical framework and a thematic analysis of interviews
La autenticidad y el yo: Un análisis sobre la experiencia urbana de las mujeres indígenas en Ecuador
No full textAs research on the urban indigenous experience continues to expand, considerations of how indigenous populations understand, express and introspect upon their being indigenous in the city still proves an underexplored topic. The generalizing notion that indigenous persons are staticーin temporal, migratory and identity termsーcategorically conflicts with the growing trends of rural to urban migration patterns. Even more, deep-rooted indigenous-rural associations engender identity disorientations among indigenous women living in the city. The city becomes a space of self-confrontation and re-construction as indigenous women encounter questions of authenticity and shame.
Based in literature on identity, performance, authenticity and shame, this research considers how indigenous women understand and express themselves in urban spaces. Explicitly, the guiding questions are (1) How do urban indigenous women understand and perform their identities? and (2) How may shame inform such understandings and performances? The research follows an ethnographic standard to recount and explicate qualitative data collected from interviews with participants living in cities across Ecuador. While the article reveals that the women endure adolescent experiences of shame over their difference in the city, they ultimately undermine reductionist logics regarding identity and authenticity in their self-definitions. The women’s claims to legitimate indigeneity in the city re-writes terms of authenticity to reach more honest and comprehensive understandings of how the indigenous experience may look