Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Saving the world.

My friend Jalpa saves the world. She's worked in disaster relief and humanitarian aid in countries I haven't even heard of, and she's now doing a year long course in this thing.

This term's project is AIDS.

WEEK ONE
You start off being presented with the problem "Solve the AIDS crisis in Africa." You do some workshopping, and realise you need to create a fundamental cultural shift, providing contraception, encouraging men to use it, and empowering women to demand that their sexual partners do. It's fairly radical - probably similar to trying to make all Englishmen watch football through a veil. This isn't cheap - but we're just playing here.

On top of that, you also have to fund AIDS drugs for those infected - although in Africa this only extends life expectancy by five years.


WEEK TWO
Same problem as week one. But you only have £10 million pounds.

Step one - forget all about the AIDS drugs.

WEEK THREE
Same problem as last week. But this time your £10 million pounds come with real American Government demands - that funds aren't used to promote contraception or the distribution of condoms, and can only promote abstinence and faithful marital sex as the only acceptable behavioural models.

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