Another lengthy entry

This week was busy, but full of interesting stuff! I visited the World Trade Organization, International Center for Migration and Health, and the Red Cross Museum for my classes, explored Geneva and Yens on a few afternoons, and read some very interesting, fact-filled articles. I think the best way to recap would be to split my week into sections, so here goes...

International Organizations
World Trade Organization (WTO)
A member of the secretariat gave us a brief overview of the history, structure, and functions of the WTO which turned out to be much more interesting that I had anticipated. Learning about the structure helped me understand a lot of the processes that occur within the WTO. One of the most important things I learned about the WTO is that all decisions are made my consensus, meaning every member country must agree with a decision in order for it to be passed. This means that criticism that claims the WTO is "forcing" something on specific countries is incorrect because each country accepted the agreement. A lot of negotiating goes on prior to reaching an agreement, but each individual country ultimately agrees. I also learned an interesting tidbit during our briefing: the average cow in Switzerland earns $2 per day in subsidies!!! That's more than millions of people in earn each day.

International Center for Migration and Health (ICMH)
Dr. Manuel Carballo briefed us on the basics of migration and health, and emerging challenges in public health. Throughout his presentation, we learned that Dr. Carballo has worked in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, among other places, and he also played a big role in organizing relief efforts after the Tsunami. He was wealth of information, but two statistics he mentioned really struck me: 1) 60% of the world's population has no access to clean running water, and 2) 65% of the world's population does not have access to education, particularly girls. He talked about several really interesting, but somewhat depressing, topics. I definitely think the ICMH is an organization I might be interested in working with for my research project at the end of the semester.

Red Cross Museum
The Red Cross Museum was also interesting but depressing. The first part of the museum focused on the history and founding of the Red Cross. They even had the original copy of the first Geneva Convention (the document that founded the Red Cross) on display! The rest of the museum, however, was dedicated to efforts of the Red Cross during times of war. The Red Cross was initially called the "International Committee for Relief of Wounded Soldiers" and, as you might imagine, they provided medical assistance for wounded soldiers, so a lot of their history entails assistance during the World Wars. Later Geneva Conventions (there have been four total) entrusted more groups to the care of the Red Cross -- the second GC added armed forces at sea, the third added prisoners of war, and the fourth added all civilians -- and eventually Federations of the Red Cross formed, which are basically domestic versions of the Red Cross (i.e. The American Red Cross).

Exploring
Geneva
We went to the Red Cross Museum on Friday morning and then we had the afternoon free. I walked around the city for a little with a girl named Alyssa who's in my program. We first went to the SIT office in Geneva to talk to Anne about some cultural-type events (mostly musical performances). After that we walked around near the train station for a while, and eventually ended up near the Old City again before heading home. The part of the city we walked around was really pretty, though. (Sidenote: Geneva is a pretty small city -- it's about 6 square miles and the population is around 185,000. As a reference, Winston-Salem is about 130 square miles and the population is around 227,000). Saturday I met Alyssa and another girl, Emily, in Geneva and we went to the Natural History Museum and a contemporary art museum. The Natural History Museum was pretty cool. There were LOTS of taxodermy animals, some of which were pretty creepy, such as the vampire bat, warthog, and owl in flight. The contemporary art museum (I can't remember which one we went to because there are several in the same area) was interesting. There was one exhibit that was basically a giant red platform with one seat and a recording device. You could go sit on it and record a message (the computer in the platform had enough disc space to record continuously for 6 years!), but none of us could think of anything to say so we didn't leave a message. There was another very creepy exhibit that involved going through two sets of heavy black curtains and walking blindly down a small pitch-black hallway until you saw what appeared to be a big stone with glittery sand. Just when you think the scary-ness of the whole ordeal is over, though, you walk around the stone to see a statue of a man with his back turned. It was not a fun exhibit, let me tell you.

Yens
I saw a little more of Yens and the surrounding area this week, which seems hard to believe considering how small Yens is. Thursday night after French class, I went out to dinner in Yens with Natasha, Orlando, and Anne (another student, not our Program Assistant). We went to one of the two restaurants in the village, which is apparently known for its good pizza. The restaurant is part of the one hotel in Yens, and seemed to be quite popular given the size of the village (under 1,000). We at outside in the courtyard because we've had wonderful weather all this week (it's been in the 70s every day!). We tried the pizza (which was pretty good) and also tried some "vin de commune," or wine made in Yens. After dinner we all walked around the village a little (we had to give Anne the grand tour because she was our first visitor!) and then we walked back to Natasha's house (because it was closest) and just hung out for a little while until it was time for Anne to leave for the train.
I also went running this week (finally!) and have seen some new parts of Yens that way. I've been running on the road we took to get to Patrick's fort and taking various other side roads from there. It's been great weather for running outside this week, and the views from the hills are amazing! You can see the whole village, the lake, and the Alps while running with cows grazing on one side of you and a corn field on the other.
This morning Iain, Josie, and I went for a walk in and around Aubonne, a village that's about a 10 minute drive from Yens. (Sidenote: Monday is a holiday in the canton of Vaud (where we all live), but not in Geneva (it's a crazy Swiss thing), which means most places in Vaud will be closed on Monday, including schools, but Geneva will still be functioning as normal. Since the kids don't have school Monday, Christina, Olivier, and Patrick are at a neighbor's house in the south of France on the Mediterranean for the weekend and Simon went home for the weekend for his sister's birthday. (Josie stayed home for a birthday party on Friday night.) Luckily for us SIT students, though, Earl managed to schedule our Monday classes in Geneva.) Aubonne was really pretty and it was nice to see another part of the canton. It was also a lot bigger than Yens and felt more suburban.

Interesting Facts
One of the articles I read for class this week was the UN Human Development Report 2005. The report was about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) put forth in 2000 with the aim of reducing world poverty. The deadline for reaching the goals is 2015. The report had tons of interesting and striking statistics in it, and last year when I read something I found really interesting I would tell Alex. However, Alex is in Cairo now and not in my room in Yens, so I'll share what I found interesting with all of you.

"In 2003, 18 countries with a combined population of 460 million people registered lower scores on the human development index than in 1990 -- an unprecedented reversal. In the midst of an increasingly prosperous global economy, 10.7 million children every year do not live to see their fifth birthday, and more than 1 billion people survive in abject poverty on less than $1 a day. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has inflicted the single greatest reversal in human development."

"One-fifth of humanity live in countries where many people think nothing of spending $2 a day on a cappuccino. Another fifth of humanity survive on less than $1 a day and live in countries where children die for want of a simple anti-mosquito bednet."

"Life expectancy gaps are among the most fundamental of all inequalities. Today, someone living in Zambia had less chance of reaching age 30 than someone born in England in 1840."

"Botswana is facing an HIV/AIDS-inflicted fall in life expectancy of 31 years."

"Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for a rising share of child deaths: the region represents 20% of births worldwide and 44% of child deaths."

"The world's richest 500 individuals have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million. Beyond these extremes, the 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day--40% of the world's population--account for 5% of global income. The richest 10%, almost all of whom live in high-income countries, account for 54%."

"We estimate a cost of $300 billion for lifting 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day above the extreme poverty line threshold. That amount represents 1.6% of the income of the richest 10% of the world's population."

"The MDG for reducing child mortality will be missed by 4.4 million avoidable child deaths in 2015--a figure equivalent to three times the number of children under age 5 in London, New York, and Tokyo."

"The MDG target of universal primary education will be missed on current trends, with 47 million children still out of school in 2015." (To put 47 million children in perspective, consider the populations of Switzerland (7.4 million), Illinois (12.8 million), or North Carolina (8.8 million).)

"Gender is one of the world's strongest markers for disadvantage. This is especially the case in South Asia... In India the death rate for children ages 1-5 is 50% higher for girls than for boys. Expressed differently, 130,000 young lives are lost each year because of the disadvantage of being born with two X chromosomes. In Pakistan gender parity in school attendance would give 2 million more girls the chance of an education."

"Since 1990 increased prosperity in rich countries has done little to enhance generosity: per capita income has increased by $6,070, while per capita aid has fallen by $1."

"For every $1 that rich countries spend on aid they allocate another $10 to military budgets."

"Current spending on HIV/AIDS, a disease that claims 3 million lives a year, represents three day's worth of military spending."

"The $7 billion needed annually over the next decade to provide 2.6 billion people with access to clean water is less than Europeans spend on perfume and less than Americans spend on elective corrective surgery. This is for an investment that would save an estimated 4,000 lives each day."

"In the last round of world trade negotiations rich countries promised to cut agricultural subsidies. Since then, they have increased them. They now spend just over $1 billion a year on aid for agriculture in poor countries, and just under $1 billion a day subsidizing agricultural overproduction at home--a less appropriate ordering of priorities is difficult to imagine."

And one last thing from a publication by the International Organization for Migration:
"Malaria costs Africa $12 billion a year in production loss. Yet anti-malarial drugs, 95% effective, cost only $0.12 per dose, and insecticide treated bed nets, costing $4 a piece, can reduce child mortality by 25%. Malaria is said to lower economic growth by 1% or more per year in areas of high prevalence."



Well, I guess that's all for now... I'll try to keep other entries shorter :)