Children should be treated as human beings

There are many ways to death, but there is only one way to be born. In a country like Nepal, where many of the children die before reaching their fifth birthday, the gravity of the sentence is much higher. The concern here however is not only about making children able to reach their fifth birth day but rather advocating for them to be able to enjoy their childhood so that they could be in their productive days strong enough in all aspects-physical, mental and social. Only this can make them ideal human beings. Human beings have freedom of choice, basic human rights, and access to resources, and respect. They are successful only in presence of such attributes. Children must be prepared to be successful human beings. In order to be successful human beings, children should be treated as human beings.

By children we mean that the group of population which is below than 15 years. The national census of 2001 suggests that children shares 39 % of total population. Nepali Children are facing different types of problems due to various reasons. According to the 2001 census, about 29 per cent of the children within the age group 10-14 are economically active and among which about 62 per cent are engaged in Agriculture and related activities. The highest share of children population shares by the Central Development Region (33.7 per cent) followed by Eastern Development Region (22.7 per cent), Western Development Region (20.3 per cent), Mid-Western Development Region (12.7 per cent) and Far Western Development Region (10.3 per cent) respectively for 2001. Likewise, the Terai Region has the highest percentage (48.3 per cent), followed by the Hill Region has (45.1 percent) and the Mountain Region has the lowest percentage (6.5 per cent) of children population for the same year.

The World Summit for children endorsed a declaration and a plan of action to implement the declaration for the survival, protection and development of children. Nepal had a high level participation in the summit expressed its commitments to fulfill their goals. Likewise, at the 11th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) held in Kathmandu, the SAARC leaders including Nepal had expressed their strong commitments for the regional arrangements for the promotion of welfare of children. In line to these commitments, Nepal Government included children as a development concern for the first time in the seventh five year plan (1985-90). Moreover, the government has made the required amendments in the Child Protection Act to ensure that the rights of the children are protected at any cost. The establishment of a special court to deal with child related injustice is a major step forward in protecting the rights of the children. Because of such efforts and ratification of Convention of Rights of the Child, the children found a place in the Constitution of Nepal.

Family seems to be completed after having the children. A woman with children is regarded as a complete woman and respected than other with no child. Besides, they are also the future of the nation. However, children are the most vulnerable section of the society as well. They are vulnerable in a sense that they are not able to express their specific needs and are at risk of being exploited. This is even truer in country like Nepal where the level of awareness towards human rights is very miserable. To overcome such malady, an   action to ensure a child’s right to survival, right to development, right to protection and right to participation is imperative. Possible measures could be assurance of child friendly home, school, hospital and community.

Now comes the question, whether the problem is manageable or not. My answer is yes for three reasons-problems, resources and solutions. We have identified the problem and its magnitude. We can arrange the resources to devise solutions to it. Finally, there are cost effective and feasible solutions. The other parts of the world have solved or are also solving the issue in a same way. Thus, we can also do the same as often said; there is no problem without solutions. So, with due recognition to children, it needs to be done something substantive for their benefit.

The roles of parents to decide on the affairs of the children are a hot issue these days. Some says children should have their own say on this, while others argue that this has to be decided by their parents as they are not able to make decisions for themselves. I argue they should have their based on their ability. By ability I mean the evolving capacities of the child with their age and education. When parents decide on the affairs of their child, children are away from the decision making which is going to affect them in the days to come. In Nepal, children are not entertaining freedom of choice as evidenced by national statistics that the practice of child marriage in rural Nepal is 54% for the period of 2000 to 2009 (UNICEF, 2010).  It is only with freedom of choice the personality of a child is reflected. Therefore children should have freedom of choice based on their ability and need.

Nepal is one among many countries where the state of human rights is not that much encouraging. There are many instances of human rights abuses. The children are at greater risk as they do not have enough say as adults. This causes more abuses to them. The Children should entertain basic human rights. National statistics of vaccination coverage being just 79% which being below than national target of universal coverage reflects how the right to health is not being met. The same holds true as 43 % of children the age of five are suffering from pneumonia which is preventable. Only healthy children represent a healthy nation.

Likewise, many of the developing countries like Nepal are facing with the challenge of educating to its all people, mainly the children. Children do not know this reality. The convention of child rights has advocated for the concept of compulsory primary education and free education to all. The right of each person to get education in also mentioned in the human rights declaration. In Nepal, primary school enrollment /attendance rate is at 84% for the period between 2005 and 2009 which is below the target of universal goal of education for all.  Children are not only the treasure of the present but also the nation’s future citizens; any action to increase educational status of the children will eventually benefits the country and its people in the long run.

Children’s access to resources is largely attributed with their right to choice, freedom and others. Everything is associated with the access to the resources. In Nepal, children need to depend on parents for resources. Resources do not always mean financial resources. It could be access to information, health, treatment, social security, living, education and justice. Currently, children do not have access to such resources in full. One measure to move towards it could be reducing birth rates and ensuring small family so that even little resource can be distributed fairly. They should have justifiable access to resource for their independency according to their capacity.

Children have the right to express their opinion. In Nepal, it is customary to make decisions by parents on behalf of children which may affect the children. In doing so, it is not my argument that children are always able to tell their parents about what is to be done. Instead, children should be encouraged to have their say and parents should listen and respect them. This must be in accordance with child’s level of maturity.  Children are not much respected as adults on decision making and such. In addition, Nepal is not able to resist the abuses and violence to children. Only 23 % of people are known about domestic violence according to UNICEF data for the period of 2005 and 2009. Children are future adults. So, they should therefore be respected and participatory decision should be made.

Whole discussion till now focused upon different aspects of the child rights and their importance to the children. Lets now see what may happens if these rights are not ensured. To start from family level, a child who has not entertained the rights may not be able to develop its physical, mental and social development. Such children cannot lead productive days in his life. This not only affects him or her but also will become the burden to the family instead of being source of happiness. The same holds true for nation although it manifests differently. The citizens are the human resources of the country. We can relate the fate of the nation with the fate of its citizens. Non productive citizens mean increase of government expenditure in a country like Nepal where regular budget outnumbers the development budget in most of the years. This hampers the national development.

The notion that the children as the building blocks of the society need special care and nourishing cannot be ignored. However, as discussed throughout the paper the state of Nepali children is vulnerable. It is no doubt that nation’s future is in the same vulnerable section of the society upon reaching adulthood. According to article 4 of Convention on the Rights of the Children, the governments must ensure by laws that the children should be protected even by reviewing the existing laws to meet at least minimum required conditions to protect their children. Moreover, to prepare children to be successful, they must be treated as human beings. Finally, I want to conclude with Gandhi’s saying on Children. If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.

References

A World Fit for Children, 1990, UNICEF

Fact Sheet: A summary of the rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNICEF

Legislation and Policies for Child Protection, www.unicef.org/nepal/5522_Legislation_and_policies_for_child_protection.htm

Child Development, www.mowcsw.gov.np/policies-12-en.html

Statistics, www.unicef.org/nepal

Missing Links in IEC Design…

A picture speaks more than thousand words. Ministry of Health and Population has a separate centre to design, print and disseminate health messages of different contents to improve knowledge, attitude and practice of people to promote healthy behavior. Health messages designed by National Health Education Information and Communication Center (NHEICC) helps us to understand how these messages are created with what purpose in designers’ mind. In the paragraphs that follow an attempt is made to describe how these messages contain implied messages in addition to intended message because of which we can say that these messages are not working in proper way. On the other hand, a marketing campaign by a Lebanese narghile company is observed which has designed its advertisements in such a way that although its product being harmful, they are able to deceive with the false and/or ambiguous messages.

If you had to be pregnant how many times would you have liked to be pregnant? A man with typical Nepali dress “Daura, Suruwal, Kot and Topi”, looks like pregnant, stressed and sweating with his one hand at his abdomen and another at his waist. His face shows he is a ‘middle class’ Brahman or kshetri man from hilly region. Picture also contains the message asking, “If you had to be pregnant how many times would you have liked to be pregnant?” in Nepali language. It seems to be targeted to rural population as it has used Nepali language. This poster aims to reduce family size and ultimately population growth. It also addresses the issue of pregnancy by choice not by chance. In addition, it also empathize the difficulties that women face during pregnancy and childbirth. Most importantly, the poster aims to establish the supportive role of men in women’s health.

The poster with such good intention, however, failed to recognize diverse social groups in Nepali populace. One impact of the poster could be that men from ethnic and madhesi community may not be able find them. Likewise, poor and elite masses may think this advice is not for them as it cannot be felt through picture. Similarly, Nepal being multilingual nation, the poster fails to honour other languages spoken in Nepal. Lastly, the issue is equally important to urban population which it fails to identify. All these could mean the message is only for certain group which will cause lower coverage of target audience and the overall failure of the program. On the other hand, it may suggest something which designers of the message were not aware of this or they were not intended to have. The implied messages of the picture could be larger family size, high population growth rate, role of men in women’s health, gender relation in a Nepali family where women’s have least say even over their body and the issue that directly affects them.

Quit Smoking and Live Healthy Life. A poster with two parts – the upper half showing a ragged and poor looking woman carrying a baby at her back and smoking while, the lower half showing an organized and well off looking woman carrying a pitcher. The upper half says, “Every puff of any form of tobacco is the cause of untimely death” in Nepali language and has pictures showing oral cancer, lungs cancer and heart diseases. In between both picture is written ‘therefore’ and at the lower half says, “quit smoking and be healthy” again in Nepali language. The upper half of quit smoking aims to reach rural female population, Nepal being the country with higher number of women smokers (Kyaing, n.d.). This part of the picture also suggests that smoking causes general weaknesses and also different forms of cancer. It also shows passive smoking as the women is carrying a baby at her back. Similarly, the lower half of quit smoking aims to impart a message to live a healthy life with no smoking which clearly means that if someone does not smoke or quit to smoke, he or she is going to live a healthy life.

If we see the upper part of the picture in the way the picture seems perfect. However, the picture is a sign of bias towards women in illustrating as smokers not recognizing the fact that many males are also smokers. Different forms of cancers as portrayed being the outcome of smoking are also associated with smoking but it has not yet established as a form of scientific causality. Likewise, a child could have been with a male senior but in this picture it is not. Is it always sure that a child should always be with female? In addition, the picture may suggests that smoking is prevalent only in poor women from rural areas which in fact is not true. Addiction has no boundaries. It can travels across time, place and person. So, portrayal of only rural poor looking women in such message is misleading.

Similarly, the lower half of quit smoking aims to impart a message to live a healthy life with no smoking which clearly means that if someone does not smoke or quit to smoke, he or she is going to live a healthy life. As in earlier, it again fails to recognize other aspects of living a healthy life and male population who also smoke largely. Likewise, the picture may suggests organized and good looking women do not smoke. It further implies that a woman with “Tika” in forehead and virtuous looking also does not smoke. This is not true as mentioned earlier that addiction does not know the personal status and interest.

Now comes to commercial marketing of a tobacco product which in fact is harmful but its marketing strategy helps it to feel it like a healthy product. The first one among such is Cleopatra molasses which has an attractive illustration in its package with an image of Cleopatra at top left corner as a logo with a label at its right side saying CLEOPATRA MOLASSES and a mouth watering sliced water melon at the center right side, while an image of narghile at left is quite smaller than watermelon. The point to note here is on its label just below water melon and at right to narghile which goes WATER MELON with bold and in larger font than that of Cleopatra Molasses. Moreover, it has images of other 10 fruits showing the flavour alternatives.

The most important aim of the product is to increase its sales. It is trying to do this by giving a false impression that it is like a healthy fruit product and is able to deceive population. In addition, it contains an intentionally designed false/ambiguous message which suggests this being a healthy food product. However, various studies suggest that it is as harmful as any other forms of smoking (Khalil et al, 2011).

Another commercial product of our concern is Coco Nara which is a name of a charcoal brand used to light narghile charcoal embers with bilingual (Arabic and English) description of its features like made from coconut shell and vegetables, 100% natural, an environment friendly product, tropical product adapted for Lebanese use etc.

As in Cleopatra Molasses, the aim here is again to increase the sales by telling irrelevant truths to lie in a different ways. One among such is by saying the product being 100% natural. “Natural” has a meaning that the product is organic and “100%” suggests its purity which has nothing to do with the product than to make people in darkness.

The message is so intentionally designed that it has a plenty room for ambiguity. Among many, “environment friendly” phrase is used to make the impression of an eco friendly product. These catchy taglines is making the product in acceptable category but the fact is something totally different as it may suggests this being a good product in contrary to its reality.

These examples show how health and social message fail to reach the audiences and have their intended positive impact whereas commercials though have negative intended impact are succeeding with better advertising skills. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the strengths of message in its design in order to conclude that health and social message should be designed in commercial ways to be effective and positive at a same time.

References
MEDIA/MATERIALS CLEARINGHOUSE: A leading international resource for health communication materials, www.m-mc.org, If you had to be pregnant how many times would you have liked to be pregnant? Searched in database with keywords: Nepal, Pregnancy, Poster and Nepali

Nepal Health Education, Information and Communication Centre, www.nheicc.gov.np

Nyo Nyo Kyaing, Regional Situation Analysis of Women and Tobacco in South-East Asia, World Health Organization – Regional Office for South-East Asia

Joanna Khalil, Robin L Heath, Rima T Nakkash, Rema A Afifi, 2011, The tobacco health nexus? Health messages in narghile advertisements, downloaded from tobaccocontrol.bmj.com on April 21, 2011 – Published by group.bmj.com

In Between Mother and Child

Nepal has a history of vertical health programs directed to specific health problems. Even after integration of health services, Nepal made significant progress towards Maternal and Child Health but now a missing link, i.e. Newborn Health has been noticed. As evidenced by the studies two-thirds of total infant deaths occur in neonatal period. And we already have the cost effective solutions to reduce neonatal death. Reducing neonatal death is crucial to meet meet MDG 4.Nepal has made National Neonatal Health Strategy on the year 2004 which has stated multi pronged interventions to achieve Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015.
Some of the recent studies says if Nepal achieves any of the 8 MDGs i.e. MDG 4.Various types of pilot programs were initiated in Nepal like Morang Innovative Neonatal Intervention(MINI), CB MNC, Access, LIBON, CRADLE by GoN with support from different agencies like Save the Children, JSI Nepal Family Health Program , Plan, CARE and UNICEF.
Now, Community Based Newborn Care Program CB NCP is implemented in 10 districts of Nepal.

I am happy to share you that I am currentlyworking to train Community Level Health Volunteers and Workers on CB NCP in Chitwan district.

Global Entrepreneurship Week and Nepali Challenge

Yes, its about entrepreneurship and involving students of technical and vocational education in small scale manageable enterprise. From 18th to 20th of this November, British Council Nepal hosted a challenge day for the students in Nepal. I got the chance to observe the events as a teacher being Nepal Polytechnic Institute as a partner college selected where I am currently  working in.   

Training with a difference

Introducing himself by making a picture of paint and brush in the middle of the A4 size paper, he wants to convey his surname – Chitrakar, nepali meaning for painter. In fact, he is making a ground for us to do in the same way as he does. Thinking about whom am I writing about? Yes, He is Kabir Chitrakar, Director of Curriculum section at TITI- Training Institute for Technical Instruction. I am going to share an experience about a training with difference.

From July 30 to June 9, I got the chance to participate in a training called – Training of Trainers (TOT) conducted by TITI trainers – Mr. Kabir Chitrakar and Ms. Mina Kharel. Thanks to my college, Forum of Health Science and TITI.

18 participants form 10 colleges representing 3 types of programs (Health Assistant, Nursing, Pharmacy), they were all dynamic and friendly.

Vijaya Laxmi ma’m made special impression on me from participants side as she has got a power to convey health message with an analogy with spiritual insight. Her classical examples like Deva – Asura(God – Satan), Pancha Tatwa(five elements of life) touched my heart so much.

Kabir Sir is another name who as trainer has all essential skills to deliver the idea so smoothly that participants remain attentive through out the session so naturally. I wish I could be like him.

I think the way Kabir Sir and Mina ma’m together presented ideas, concept and skill cards was even more important than the cards itself. We were encouraged to do the things individually, in pairs and in groups most of the time.

There is no doubt that they had handed over a beautiful butterfly in our hands. Now it is our turn to save its life by letting it to fly inside the classroom or let it die enclosing it inside our fist. I have just begun the new journey. What about you, my friends? I hope you all will open your fist and join me from there. Please write to me ~ Bye Bye ~ God Bless !

 

Youth

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IT & Health Care

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Smoking kills

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Vitamin A Distribution by Female Community Health Volunteers

National Vitamin A Program in Nepal is one of the most successful public health program. Now it covers all 75 districts of the nation. Many agencies are working towards growing children healthy.