My next sentence comes in bold caps lock to illustrate how ridiculous it
sounds.
ABOUT 1,5 MILLION OF YOUNG CHILDREN DIE EACH YEAR DUE TO DIARRHEA. IT KILLS MORE THAN AIDS, MALARIA AND MEASLES COMBINED.
It is far from weird to me. It is scary.
I do not come from a develop country, I come from Brazil and despite
being considered fortunate of having access to higher education, I have a good
idea of what poverty means, specially in remote areas.
This year, my educational experience in an international context has reinforced
my thoughts about how some countries are simple renegaded at this point of time,
and the reasons behind are not only about money, government investments or charity,
but also about communication. About efficiency in getting local thoughts to
promote change and save lives.
Some data shows that in remote areas within South India where there is
no water, any electricity and weak communication, the challenge to break open
defecation, and diarrhea as one of the consequences, is also a communication
problem.
If you, for instance, had a preliminary thought as me, it is not about
just creating toilets, considering the areas which some were created, they were
not used at all.
So, what is the problem?
The learning about Social Networking, its applications and its tools
turned on some lights. Definitely there is something wrong in a particular way that
some social problems are tackled in remote areas.
Culture learning is something that comes by experiencing. If you think
about happiness, for example, in Brazil it is pretty related to family matters
meanwhile in Africa is about sense of community.
In my perspective there are too much assumptions in how to face local
problems. It is necessary to unlock local power in remote areas by
understanding who are the change agents.
The application of Social Networking analysis for the public good,
seems to be a powerful tool to support government and NGO’s , on the decrease
of children’s death rate, promote family
planning , condoms distribution, vaccination and education.
The understanding of metrics such as density and the sense it brings of
the number and potential for connections, betweenness on the path of important
nodes (broker) and eigenvector who are connected to influential nodes, might
help in the understanding of node’s dynamic within communities.
Learning with inside people can lead to get solutions together
community.
Regarding diarrhea, the current initiatives such as hydration therapy
and educational programs are not being enough.
I feel the pain of this reality being faded by other global
emergencies.
1,5 million children dying due to diarrhea per year is the same of 15 airplanes being attacked per day.
Christiane F. Mendes , Hult International Business School
1 comment:
Clearly an area where some kind of network analysis could help, but you don't offer us much insight into how, or any examples of networks or network questions. Just listing SNA measures isn't enough. As I said in class, SNA is often used to track the spread of diseases and epidemics A bit more research might have led you to some ideas.
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