Sat, Apr 10, 2010: Claudio Schuftan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Human Rights Reader 237 SOME REACTIONS TO WHAT WE HEAR (AND DO NOT HEAR) IN MANY A PUBLIC HEALTH CONFERENCE THESE DAYS. Am I tired of going to such conferences? Sort of. It is just that, in them, we hear about so many things that need doing and have so long been overdue (…achieving the health MDGs, strengthening health delivery systems, organizing and empowering beneficiaries to demand changes ….and on-and-on…). One gets the impression that it is in times of crisis that we finally will bring to the fore what really needs doing and has long been overdue… But not even in such circumstance does the needed happen in our meetings of the learned; almost nothing substantial, beyond a passing comment, is heard about taking actions to address the ‘condition of poverty’, about disparity reduction, about addressing the widespread and numerous violations of the human right to health and to nutrition; nothing substantial and really deep-felt is heard about empowering claim holders --or worse: the concept of empowerment is repeatedly hijacked by making it mean giving women greater self-esteem, providing them with health education and nutritional knowledge and skills and/or ‘empowering’ them to better take care of their children. The full text of this Reader can be found at http://www.socialmedicine.org/2010/04/10/human-rights/some-reactions-to-what-we-hear-and-do-not-hear-in-many-a-public-health-conference-these-days/ Claudio ------------------------------------------------------------------- Forwarded by: ********************************************** Dr Sam Lanfranco (Prof Emeritus) Econ, York U. Toronto, Ontario, CANADA - M3J 1P3 email: [log in to unmask] Skype: slanfranco blog: http://samlanfranco.blogspot.com Phone: 613 476-0429 cell: 416-816-2852 ********************************************** Access CANCHID archives at: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/canchid.html plus CANCHID subscription management. CANCHID is a joint service of the Canadian Society for International Health < http:www.csih.org > and the Distributed Knowledge Project at York University. Queries to: [log in to unmask]