I have a message for you from my friend who is a doctor in Mozambique.
“It’s painful,” my friend wrote to me yesterday, “that the Stop Kony campaign has gotten millions of views and floods of press, but World Tuberculosis Day (which is this Saturday, March 24!) has gone unnoticed.”
Read this excerpt from a Message About TB by the United Nations Secretary General to understand why you should care:
“For too long, tuberculosis has not received sufficient attention. The result of this neglect is needless suffering: in 2010 alone, nearly 9 million people fell ill with TB and 1.4 million died, with 95 per cent of these deaths occurring in developing countries. These numbers make tuberculosis the second top infectious killer of adults worldwide.”
“Please tell your readers,” my friend continued, “to check out the following links and educate themselves about what they can do to stop a major killer:”
“It’s so frustrating,” my friend concluded, “trying to get the word out about this. Here in Mozambique I’ve seen countless people needlessly die from TB, but so few people in the world know this. How do I get this message to go viral like the Kony one???”
Readers, any help you could give in spreading the word is appreciated!
The author, Lillie Marshall, is a 6-foot-tall National Board Certified Teacher of English from Boston who has been a public school educator since 2003. She launched TeachingTraveling.com in 2010 to share expert global education resources, and over 1.6 million readers have visited over the past decade. Lillie also runs AroundTheWorld L.com Travel and Life Blog, and DrawingsOf.com for educational art. Do stay in touch via subscribing to her monthly newsletter, and following @WorldLillie on social media!
Alex
Wednesday 2nd of May 2012
mmmm. I worked for stoptb - coming from the inside of the organization I felt the efforts were short-sighted. I think instead of spending money on meetings and events around World TB day - the WHO should invest more in preventive efforts - nutrition, improved living standards and other practical matters. When I was working with the partnership 2mil was spent on a meeting in Brazil - this money could have been put to much better use than flying officials and partying diplomats to Rio. Instead of World Stop TB day the world should take a more practical - cause based approach to health! so press for world TB day - not sure if it's useful really...
Lillie of TeachingTraveling.com
Wednesday 2nd of May 2012
Fascinating perspective. Thanks for sharing!
Lillie of TeachingTraveling.com
Sunday 25th of March 2012
Here's a video my friend made to go with his http://www.ArightToHealth.org/ campaign: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1W61hvnojJU&feature=g-all-pls&context=G2160e6fFAAAAAAAAAAA