On December 1, Development Generation Africa International members joined the rest of the world in observing the World AIDS Day 2008.

At the occasion, the organization launched the Primary ABIA Project against HIV/AIDS to look into the plight of young people living with HIV/AIDS especially in the areas of nutrition and empowerment.

Director of Health-HIV/AIDS of the organization, Christopher Ezemobi who addressed participants stressed the need for the World AIDS Day event to lead, empower and deliver young people from the grip of AIDS in the 21st century and promised that the project will go a long way to present their plight to the people and involve them in solutions.

He said some of the problems being highlighted by young people living with HIV/AIDS is an indication that “We must continue to speak up openly about AIDS. No progress will be achieved by being timid, refusing to face unpleasant faces, or prejudging our fellow human beings. In the ruthless world of AIDS, there are no us and them…and in that world, silence is death.”

Children, young people and civil society groups attended the event as well as government officials.

WORLD ASSEMBLY OF YOUTH

STATEMENT ON WORLD AIDS DAY

1 DECEMBER 2008



Today is World AIDS Day - an occasion to commemorate the challenges posed by a pandemic that has had a devastating effect on mankind, in particular the youth. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the World Aids Day, with the theme “Lead- Empower - Deliverâ€. This theme provides an opportunity to highlight both political leadership and celebrate leadership that has been witnessed at all levels of society.

More than half of the 60 million people who have been infected by HIV in the past 20 years have been young people aged between 15 and 24. Twelve million young people are today living with HIV/AIDS, and 6,000 more infected every day: that is 250 infected every hour.

On this revered occasion, we would like to call upon all stakeholders, partners, governments and youth organisations to raise awareness and focus attention on the global AIDS epidemic.

Take Action

There are many ways you can take action in response to HIV/AIDS:
• get tested for HIV
• practice safe methods to prevent HIV
• decide not to engage in high risk behaviors
• talk about HIV prevention with family, friends, and colleagues
• provide support to people living with HIV/AIDS
• get involved with or host an event for World AIDS Day in your community

Youth and Policy

• National Youth Councils (NYCs) need to be involved throughout the development process of any policy affecting youth and HIV/AIDS
• Create an enabling environment for appropriate laws and polices by promoting policy dialogue for HIV/STI prevention and care at all levels to mobilize resources, ensure ownership and sustainability, and promote a rights-based approach
• Foster the participation of all youth in HIV/AIDS policy development and programmes, including those with disabilities and people living with HIV/AIDS
• Work closely with a single-coordinating National AIDS Council and promote the decentralization of AIDS councils down to the local levels
• NYCs need to be autonomous to prevent overly strong influence from their ministries to enhance their prominence at regional and international levels
• Establish Youth Parliaments in countries where they do not exists to create a platform of consultation among lawmakers and youth

Knowledge Sharing

• Adopt culture of information- sharing and cross-fertilization of good practices between countries at all levels
• Networking between regional NYCs should be systemized
• Networking with community associations and institutions playing critical roles in defining social norms
• Take initiative to train ourselves as youth leaders to understand and enhance the role of young people in moving youth platform forward
• Promote and package awareness and advocacy initiatives that build on the positive socio-cultural values and norms in communities to address the adolescent/youth SRH needs and concerns

Let us rise to meet the HIV/AIDS Challenge!

ENDS.

ISSUED BY: WORLD ASSEMBLY OF YOUTH

It's not very often that there can be a blog title like this one. Canadian politics = exciting? What? Where am I? But for once - we've got something going on. I think what is happening now in Ottawa might actually be more exciting than what is happening right now in American politics. What is happening right now in American politics is Obama naming Hilary Clinton his Secretary of State which isn't exciting because everybody already knew it was happening two weeks ago.

Whereas no one in Canada saw this one coming. Bam! The Liberals, NDP and Bloc have all been secretly scheming against our latest Harper government since they all 'lost' to him during an election featuring one of the worst voter turnouts of all time.

If Harper's government tries to pass a budget that includes no stimulus package for the Canadian economy and cuts public funding for political parties they are going to pounce! If Harper's government presents a revised budget they will probably pounce anyways! Bringing down the government in a no-confidence vote and then asking to create a government made up of a coalition of Liberal, NDP and the Bloc when they feel like it.

This is pretty exciting for people who like watching Harper's sneaky plans to establish a Conservative monopoly within Canadian politics blow up in his face.

I like the coalition idea because it's a risk, it's new, it's sticking it to Harper, and it feels more like real politics than anything I've seen in Canada in a long time.

I don't like the coalition idea because it will make Stephane Dion Prime Minister, it will give the Bloc a lot of power to decide which coalition legislation goes through and which doesn't, and it will be unstable in a period where stability would be good.

So it's more like choosing the lesser evil. The stability of knowing you have a sneaky grinch as your Prime Minister. Or the potential of having five bickering 'Prime Ministers' (Dion, Ignatieff, Rae, Layton and Duceppe) and then a swift return to the grinch.

Zambia joined the rest of the world in commemorating the world AIDS day on Monday.

In lusaka, people from all walks of life matched from the University of Zambia great East road campus to Mulungushi International Conference Centre where activities to commemorate the day took place.

Addressing the gathering at Mulungushi International Conference Center Health Minister, Kapembwa Simbao, said Zambia has made significant progress in the fight against the pandemic.

Mr. Simbao said currently 2-hundred thousand people are on anti- retroviral treatment.

And UNDP resident co-ordinator, Macleod Nyirongo, said there are now fewer cases of HIV infections and AIDS related deaths world wide.

American Amabassador to Zambia, Donald Booth, said prevention is the only effective way of reduce cases of HIV/AIDS.

This year's world AIDS day was characterized by a lot of memories both sad and happy memories. Sad that last year, 7,000 people were infected with HIV each day. and that every 15 seconds, a person dies of HIV or AIDS related illnesses. And happy because Zambia's prevalence rate has dropped from about 16% to about 14%, though this is still high. We are also happy that more and more Zambians are now having access to ARV Drugs for free!

The University of Zambia held its commemorations for the WAD at the Medical school where poems and theater were performed for the staff and students. I was privileged to be part of the organizing committee and honored to chair it. In building up to the event, we had different activities. On Friday 28th, we had the 'Couple Night Chat' with students in relationships. We were discussing issues around Gender, Sexual Harassment and Healthy relationships. On Saturday 29th, we had a student debate on whether HIV testing should be made mandatory. On Sunday, 30th we had traditional games and soccer to bring students together. We also had an Arts Night Competition.

On the actual world AIDS Day, one of the students living with HIV came up to share his status to the public. This was on of the inspiring moments of the day. The British High Commissioner to Zambia graced the occasion.

STOP AIDS

Everyone even a small child is familiar with word HIV, HIV positive & AIDS. Either the take it as normal or they even scared from words or they hate these stuffs even to chat. HIV & AIDS is not just a medical issue. It is an extraordinary issue with deep social & legal dynamics which can have devastating effects in our communities, in our country & in the entire globe.
Day by day population of people living with HIV so on investment is also scaling up. Huge amount of money is being invested since several years but we are in a same level of getting success either in reducing the infection or in supporting people living with HIV.
Antiretroviral drugs, care & support, awareness are still a major issues despite of huge investment. There is no data on number of organizations working for the same cause. But why we are in same platform, why we are not staring up?
Several organizations ratified several guidelines, several conventions, declarations were passed and come in existence. But still hopeful progress is not happening.
Involving young population in each & every step of responding these issues brings some hope since last few years. But still there is a lot to do more.After all, all these things is linked with our attitude and thinking.

We all have to BE HIV POSITIVE.

We have to be positive about HIV education that we have to deliver to our child from being of their education.

We have to be positive about awareness that we have to create to reverse the epidemic.

We have to be positive about care & support that people living with HIV have to get.

We have to be positive for reaching out to people living with HIV.

After all, we all have to BE HIV POSITIVE.

After the recent targets in Somaliland by the extremist (Car Blasts), this question of Somaliland recognition kept popping in my head. What makes the international community silent about it?

On May 18th, 2008, Somaliland Republic (former British Somaliland) celebrates 17 years of self-rule and thriving democracy since it has decided to re-instate its sovereign independence from Somalia after the fall of Siad Barre regime in 1991. As a Somalilander myself who run away from Siad Barre's atrocities as a young man in the late 1980s and settled in the United States, I have a mixed feeling as I see my people celebrating the 17th anniversary of Somaliland's birth. On one hand, I am extremely proud of the people of Somaliland, and its leaders for what they were able to achieve for the past 17 years. On the other hand, I am less excited, and amazed by lack of African Union's role in leading the way to promote the Somaliland's cause by sending a strong signal to other African countries that they do care and reward for peace, stability, and democracy (acknowledging people's choice). It is very clear why European Union is very serious about the status of Kosovo. Answer: EU is planning to avoid risk of war and violence that would again destabilize the Balkans region. The million dollar question is why the African Union is not far sighted to avoid a potential and imminent war between Somalia's Southern Leaders, and Somaliland that will undermine the stability of the whole region?

Somali's Southern Leaders are not known to respect the rule of law and the wishes of its citizens, it is the main reason that Somaliland people are fully determined to fight for its sovereign status following its roots of independence time from Great Britain on June 26th, 1960. Thirty one countries that are members of the United Nations recognized Somaliland as an independent state before uniting with the Italian Somaliland on July 1st, 1960 to form what was known as Somali Republic. Somaliland is only seeking recognition within the borders received at that moment. Somaliland, not officially recognized by any state, has been functioning as constitutional democracy with a President directly elected by the people, added by a parliament and local government also directly elected by the people. Somaliland did not even have a university for 31 years of union with the southern Somalia, and today they have four universities despite its lack of recognition. They have four private owned telephone and mobile operators where they did not have any in the past 31 years of union with the South. And the list goes on.
Some people do not truly understand why people of Somaliland decided to go alone, and broke its partnership with the South. Some of the people even speculate that the issue of Somaliland is tied with the stability of the Southern Somalia, and the union will be back when the rest of the South becomes stable. As a matter of fact, there are many reasons why Somaliland re-took its independence, and broke its partnership, but in my personal view, I would only focus on two important reasons:

1.British Somaliland has voluntarily entered a union with Italian Somaliland in pursuit of irredentist dream of "Greater Somalia" (including parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti). It was very clear to everybody in both regions that it was never intended to stop with the union of the two regions, but to pursue the other 3 remaining regions. Therefore, that dream has effectively died when Djibouti got its independence in 1977, and decided to go alone without joining the existing union. If Djibouti people had that freedom to make that choice, it is only fair that the people of Somaliland can make similar choices to decide on their faith. The main argument here is that the Somali union in 1960 did not achieve the reason it has been formed which was a greater Somalia, and Somaliland's voluntary union at that time was based on that. And if that dream did not materialize, Somaliland could go alone like the other regions did where Somalis live including Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia.
2.Another very crucial point that made the people of Somaliland go on separate ways from the South is the suffering and injustices that the people of Somaliland endured for 31 years of marriage. They have suffered at the hands of Southern rule governments particularly during Siad Barre's 21-year rule. The whole world knows that those governments even bombarded Somaliland cities. Therefore, it is a trust issue. If you had a business partnership with another person and you have suffered and lost everything, and you re-start your business. Would you again trust to create another partnership with that person? It is fair to say that the people of Somaliland have a trust issue with their brothers in the South, and will not join them again with union despite a lack of recognition by the International community. Most Somalilanders, who only know Somaliland because they were either young or born after Somaliland re-took its independence in 1991, would tell you that if there was such a Southern domination in the past, it is certainly a history, only refers the unity in the past tense.

It is important to note that AU sent a fact finding mission to Somaliland in 2005 in order to respond to the concern that Somaliland recognition would create a fragmentation of Somalia, or other AU member states, the African Union fact finding mission in 2005 concluded "the case should not be linked to the notion of "opening a Pandora box", and the report recommended that AU "should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case" as soon as possible. Unfortunately, AU actions stopped there. Why we Africans can not decide for ourselves, while Europeans are doing so and EU leading the way. I hope I can one day be proud of our African leaders through the African Union leadership when I see that they are taking a far sighted approach like the EU doing on Kosovo.

The more the African Union delays dealing with the Somaliland case, the more it makes the situation in East Africa difficult, and risk of war, and even equally important the more the AU credibility is on the line. Somaliland case is a time bomb for the African Union and the International community could not really afford to ignore. On the other hand, Somaliland's multi-party democracy system is rarity in Africa, and the Muslim World, and the African Union needs to seriously consider Somaliland's formal application of AU membership to reward for people's choice. Somaliland is a state where the power truly belongs to the people.

But I still ask myself- where is the International Community outrage?

Yesterday, it was a beautiful evening, warm and soft and very still. I watched a dance troupe of moths pirouette outside on my house window screen, attracted to the light from my desk lamp inside for I have switched all the lights off, and had not pulled the curtains. The variety and sizes of these supposedly nighttime dancers were quite amazing - some so tiny they seemed almost like a speck of dust, others as long and broad as my hand, others with shiny red eyes, still others with antennae three or four times longer than their bodies. I watched them with fascination as my lamp illuminated their bodies against the black space beyond. Round and round they went, all attracted to and mesmerized by something bright and beautiful that will always be just out of their reach. Why were they struggling so much to get in? I asked myself. Suppose I did let them in, what whould have happened. sadly, I shall never know for I never did so.


So, today morning, I looked out through the same window. Across the street, my neighbours help was knocking the gate. She wanted to enter into the compoud, I thought. Its a conclusion that I made from her acts. Why did she want to get into the compoud?


About twenty metres or so, the night guard was washing his face from an old flower vase, I guessed after a long nights job. Why was he at it?

Thats when I got the answer. Thats when I knew why the moths were trying to get in. Thats why I knew why the househelp wanted to enter the compoud. Its because it was time. It was their time. Their time was then...which is basically they felt their time was NOW!

My dear friends I also thought. Many of us are in one way or another doing something at that moment. It was out time to do what we were doing. We should all have felt that OUR TIME IS THEM...which was...NOW!!


Our lives are not as straight as they should be. Life is a batch of moments. We have happy times and a couple of sad times thrown in. There are dizzy spells or side effects from the medicines we take, ran ins with friends we meet, bosses kicking our asses, matatu drivers messing us up, but friends, lets not wait for tomorrow to complain. Our time is NOW. We have to start feeling positive and sure that everything will be fine. Lets start believing strongly in ourselves. Lets not abandon our friends or even try to be anti social, lets make this our time. The shortcomings we face just underline what things are really important in this short stretch of life we're given. Invite them for a drink...(no one takes coffee anymore..or so Kinyua thinks)


Never feel isolated. Never indulge in self pity, never feel as though the universe keeps plotting aganist you. There are potential solutions for this. Look at yourself in that office mirror...or the one in your bag...or the one at the dressing room. Never again ask what bright creative you needs to do to get a solution. Be yourself. Make the moment you are in yours. Control your life. Do it NOW, not tomorrow. Do not let your friends do it for you.


Tell your friends/neighbours little things that would make them smile – what the’d eaten for supper, what was the most interesting site they observed that day, what interested then most in the days news. Its your time to make them happy, and not vice versa.


If its night, just go out, look into the sky and the millions of stars - make a wish on each one, a simple wish that all your friends are well.. In making these wishes, let your hands reach up to heaven to try to touch a star or two, to move them to grant your wish - in trying to touch heaven and the stars, however, you shall feel as though you want to reach and tough all your friends. Do try and do it tomorrow. No. Do it NOW. This is your NOW!


Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Do that some NOW.


Flush all bad dreams and ideas down the cess pit. Forget about the sad bad things that have happened to you over the period. Look and touch yourself. You can feel it. You are alive and well. Start a fresh live NOW. This is your time. Your time is NOW.


From NOW, let people not only interest you. Forgive all those that have wronged you. Be friendly and close to them. Respect them the way they will respect you. Let your soft touch weaken them. Let your goodness enamor them. Let your virtues captivate them. Let your trust engross them. Upon securing their trust, your mind and soul will finally find peace and contentment. The time to do it is not tomorrow. Its not this evening. Its NOW. This is your NOW!

Finish all the outstanding business NOW, and not tomorrow.....and am off...to finish my book...Unfinished Works of Samira Hassan....NOW!

(Written for SAWNET, http://sawnet.org/books/reviews.php?Aids+Sutra)



Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.

Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.

Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.

Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.

Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.

Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.

India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.

In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.

The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.

Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.

One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.

De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.

By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.

Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.

Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.

Bonjour et bienvenue parmi nous !!

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Le délai d’inscription au concours pour le Prix Mondialogo des sciences de l’ingénieur est prolongé jusqu’au 31 décembre 2008

* Daimler et l’UNESCO invitent les étudiants en ingénierie à participer au concours Mondialogo

* Des propositions de projet visant à améliorer les conditions de vie dans les pays en développement, à s’attaquer au problème de la pauvreté et à aborder les questions du développement durable et du changement climatique

* Les meilleures équipes se partageront un prix d’une valeur totale s’élève à 300.000 euros

Stuttgart/Paris – Le délai d’inscription au plus grand concours organisé à l’échelle mondiale pour les étudiants en ingénierie, le Prix Mondialogo des sciences de l’ingénieur, a été prolongé jusqu’au 31 décembre 2008. L’inscription au concours, dont le prix est doté d’une somme globale de 300.000 euros, peut s’effectuer via le site Internet Mondialogo.

L’UNESCO et Daimler organisent ce concours afin de promouvoir des solutions durables pour les pays en développement, en privilégiant les projets contribuant à l’élimination de la pauvreté, au développement durable et à l’atténuation des effets du changement climatique.

Les étudiants en ingénierie des pays développés et en développement sont invités à constituer des équipes internationales qui travailleront ensemble sur la conception et la mise au point de propositions de projet dans les domaines de la protection de l’environnement, l’approvisionnement en énergie et en eau, l’utilisation des ressources naturelles et le traitement des déchets, les soins médicaux, l’alimentation, le logement, l’hygiène, la prévention des catastrophes, la mobilité et la communication.

Les étudiants en ingénierie d’universités et d’institutions apparentées de toutes les régions du monde peuvent se présenter au concours.
La principale condition requise est de former des équipes de projet internationales constituées d’étudiants issus au minimum de deux institutions éducatives, et comprenant au moins un étudiant originaire d’un pays en développement. Le portail Internet de Mondialogo fait office de plate-forme de rencontre et servira, dans un deuxième temps, de bureau virtuel. Les équipes de projet internationales auront ensuite jusqu’au 30 avril 2009 pour préparer et soumettre leurs propositions de projet.

Un jury international évaluera les projets et désignera les lauréats, et la cérémonie de remise des prix ainsi que le symposium Mondialogo auront lieu à Istanbul (Turquie) courant 2009. Les éléments les plus importants pour l’évaluation des propositions de projet seront leur durabilité, leur excellence en matière d’ingénierie et leur faisabilité, ainsi que la qualité de la coopération internationale et du dialogue interculturel au sein des équipes de projet internationales.

Outre le Prix Mondialogo des sciences de l’ingénieur, l’initiative Mondialogo lancée par Daimler et l’UNESCO en 2003 inclut également le Mondialogo School Contest et le portail Internet en cinq langues. Cette initiative a pour principal objectif de promouvoir le dialogue interculturel entre des personnes venant d’horizons et de continents différents, afin qu’elles travaillent ensemble sur des projets conjoints, favorisant ainsi le transfert de connaissances et les échanges interculturels.

www.mondialogo.org

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You can read more about Unyimeabasi through the links below:

About UnyimeAbasi
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Member Story on TakingITglobal.org
http://www.takingitglobal.org/connections/stories/story.html?MemberID=263825

More Blogs by Unyimeabasi
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Panorama by Unyimeabasi
http://www.takingitglobal.org/express/panorama/article.html?ContentID=21277

What decisions have refused to make?
What Involvement have you been running from?
What dream have you been trying not to pursue?
What changes are you indecisive about?
Are you indecisive on taking a risk?
‘Cos risk must be taken-
The greatest risk of all is to risk nothing
A double minded man is a danger to the public
While an indecisive man is a disaster to the world


But let me make it clear to you
That indecision is a decision not to decide
A man who is indecisive has actually decided not to decide
There’s actually nothing like
‘I’m not decided yet’
‘Cos you’ve actually decided not to decide yet


It then implies that we have two types of decision:
Positive decision-which is the decision to decide;
And negative decision-which is the decision not to decide
Which one are you caught in?
Either way, you are a decision maker
But the side you belong to , will decide the enormity of the impact of the decision you have taken

Decide on your career
Decide on your finance
Decide whom to serve--God or Satan


Make your decisions now
Whom to marry
Where to live
What to eat
Where to go
What to wear
For your decisions to be worthwhile
Involve God
Decide to involve God
Make your decision now
And make it known


EXCLUSIVELY WRITTEN BY

JINADU BABAJIDE OLUWAFEMI
Copyright June, 2006