HIV/AIDS Media Trainings In Kuwait, The Gambia

The UNDP kicked off a three-day workshop “for representatives of the Kuwaiti media about positively impacting the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS,” Zawya reports. “The event, which is being attended by medical professionals and experts, members of the media, and even some clerics who have worked with HIV/AIDS patients, aims to raise awareness of the pandemic and how it can be effectively covered by the media,” the news service writes (Al-Qatari, 5/3). 

In related news, Fatima Gai, president of the Gambia Network of AIDS Support Society (GAMNASS), highlighted the roll the media can play in creating awareness about HIV/AIDS on Monday at a three-day training for health journalists in Banjul, Gambia, PANA/Afrique en ligne reports. “The media should advocate for people to go for voluntary counseling and testing. The misconception or perception of people against the disease has brought a serious challenge to people who have chosen to disclose their status,” she said. Dawda Joof, the Global Fund program officer for Action Aid International in the Gambia, also spoke at the training (5/3).

Dartmouth College To Model Binge Drinking Initiative On Peruvian TB Treatment Program

“Dartmouth College is leading a national initiative to reduce binge drinking by using the same approach its president once used to treat tuberculosis in Peru: a learning collaborative focused on measuring what works in one place and sharing it elsewhere,” the Associated Press/Boston Globe reports. On Monday, Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth College who is “known as a leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and other diseases,” announced the project, which includes 13 colleges so far. In Peru and Rwanda, “we were very surprised to see how clinics from different areas and people from different professional backgrounds working together could achieve so much more than institutions working individually,” Kim said (Ramer, 5/2).

Gates Foundation Fellow Appointed To Be UNICEF Deputy Director

Geeta Rao Gupta, a senior fellow at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global development arm, “has been selected to become deputy director at UNICEF,” NPR’s “Humanosphere” reports (Paulson, 5/2). Gupta “will succeed Saad Houry,” according to a note from the U.N. Secretary-General’s office. Before her work at the Gates Foundation, “Gupta served for over a decade as the president of the International Center for Research on Women” (4/29).

Huffington Post Profiles Mo Ibrahim

The Huffington Post profiles Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim and reports on the work of his foundation. “Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim, known popularly as ‘Mo,’ was born in the Nubian north of Sudan to what he describes as a ‘lower middle class family.’ … Though Ibrahim took part in political demonstrations, he maintains that his passion was for science. ‘My heroes as a young man were people like Einstein, Madame Curie. I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering,'” the Huffington Post reports. The piece also notes Ibrahim’s realizations from his business experience in Africa. The continent “has a lot of resources,” Ibrahim said. “You start to ask yourself: Why are we poor? Why aren’t we doing better? When you start to ask yourself these questions, it’s inevitable that you come to the same conclusion, which is: We are poor because we are mismanaging our resources, our economy, our people, our government” (Wagner, 4/28).