The Cork Flashmob from Saturday for the National Campaign for the Arts

In support of what the National Campaign for the Arts is campaigning for. Have you signed the petition yet?

(Yep, so good I blogged it twice).

"The next word is Mother Flippa" - rap and dance classes for the elderly

Meet Marian, aka DJ Hip Op.



I LOVE this video for Age Action Ireland, created by Richard Doyle over at Creative Productions. One of the funniest I've seen in ages - fo' shizzle!

Domestic abuse - isn't it time someone called cut?

Keira Knightley stars in the new UK campaign for Women's Aid against domestic abuse. The video is pretty shocking. Full of foreboding and really gets the message across.



Women's Aid Ireland can be found online here.

Brian Lenihan TD responds to cervical cancer campaign email with press release

When Shauneen emailed us as part of the "Harney must reinstate cervical cancer vaccine" campaign, part of the request was to email our local TD to tell him what we thought of the Dáil vote which sought to have the cervical cancer vaccine programme implemented. That was mid November 2008.

Brian Lenihan, the Fianna Fáil TD for Dublin West, Minister for Finance and ex Minister for Children is the local TD here so I dropped him an email back then. I got his response by post this morning.

Dear Darragh

Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying to your email regarding your concerns on the HPV vaccine.

I enclose herewith copy of press release issued by Ms. Mary Harney T.D., Minister for Health and Children in this regard.

If can be of any further assistance on any matter please don't hesitate to contact my office,

Best wishes

Yours sincerely,

Brian Lenihan T.D.
Minister for Finance

The attached press release was a statement by Mary Harney on the HPV vaccination programme dated 04 November 2008.

"The economic situation has rapidly and seriously deteriorated. Public resources, including those for health, are very scarce indeed and will remain so. I have decided that the best that can be achieved in these circumstances is to prioritise funding for the development of the cervical screening programme and treatment services at the eight designated cancer centres, which includes the challenge of funding very expensive cancer drugs. I will not therefore be proceeding with the introduction of a HPV vaccination programme.

"The continuation and expansion of the Cancer Control Programme under Professor Tom Keane remains a priority and funding of €15 million has been made available for this.

"At the moment we are rolling out the National Cervical Screening Programme, CervicalCheck. The Programme will provide free smear tests through primary care settings to the 1.1 million women living in Ireland aged between 25 and 60 years. A successful national programme has the potential to cut mortality rates from cervical cancer by up to 80%."

I don't think there's much point on commenting on how ineffective and unsatisfactory either Minister's response is.

As of today there's 12,804 members in the Facebook group. Their aim is simple - it's calling on Minister Harney to go back on her decision to not implement the vaccine for cervical cancer for 12 year olds, a programme that would cost just €8m a year for primary schools and one that could save an estimated 50+ lives a year.

If you haven't joined the group, please do so. If you haven't invited your friends to join, please do so. The group grew from 255 members on Nov 12 to over 12,800 today with your help.

You can also join the 1,335 people who have signed the STOP Cervical Cancer Petition which calls upon:

"The European Parliament, the European Commission and all National Governments of Europe to implement the effective organised cervical cancer prevention programmes that will provide the optimal protection against cervical cancer for all the women of Europe."

XDR-TB. Spread the story. Stop the disease.

An email from TED brings news of a campaign to wipe out XDR-TB, a new and deadly form of tuberculosis that is threatening to become a global pandemic. This is an extremely drug resistant strain of a disease that in 2007 alone killed 1.7 million people: 4,660 deaths a day.

“I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

James Nachtwey

We are asked to visit http://xdrtb.org.

We are asked to Share, Sign and Support the project, to join voices with others who are working to eradicate this disease.

The photographs were taken by James Nachtwey, winner of the 2008 TED prize, where companies, organisations and individuals collaborate to work on alleviating and possibly resolving an issue. His TED wish is for help in solving this issue.

"Referred to by some TB experts as “Ebola on steroids,” extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB) is resistant to first- and second-line TB drugs. One infected person who laughs, coughs, or sings, can result in its transmission.

Since its first reporting in 2006, XDR-TB has been confirmed in 49 countries, including all G8 member states — and that may just be the tip of the iceberg, as few countries in Africa have the laboratory capacity to even detect XDR-TB, let alone track and treat it.

The drugs to treat a standard TB case cost only $20 (just over €14) per patient in the developing world, and are almost always completely effective in curing a person of the disease when taken properly, even among people living with HIV.

TB is the leading killer of people with HIV: 90% of those living with HIV die within months of contracting TB. XDR-TB and MDR-TB, the drug-resistant strains of TB, are much more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to cure."

Visit http://xdrtb.org to see how you can make a difference. There's a factsheet here (pdf) with more statistics and valuable information. A simple click could make a difference to those with the TB, or those with a latent TB infection - one-third of the world’s population.

Help Simon save the lives of 5,500 children today

"5,500 children die from dehydration in Africa every day. That is a scandal. A scandal and an absolute tragedy."


Images from Le Craic

Simon Berry is visibly disturbed by this fact. His distaste at the thought is evident, and he's almost emotional. “One in 5 children under 5 die every day. African teenagers are dying of crime, AIDS and worse but these children are have such potential. They are the future. How could I not do something?"



Simon is at 2gether08 in London to look for help. He has been working on raising awareness of this fact for twenty years, but 2008 has been one where action is being taken.



His Facebook group “Let's talk to Coca Cola about saving the World's children” has over 2,900 members and is growing by almost 50 people a day. Since its creation Simon has raised awareness in Ireland and the UK (I found out about it through AJ over on Le Craic) and has met Salvatore Gabola, the Global Director of Stakeholder Relations for Coca-Cola, in Brussels to talk about his idea.



"Although Africa is a huge continent", says Simon, "because of the power of Coca-Cola's distribution network, almost everywhere you go you can almost be guaranteed to find a bottle of Coke for sale. What we're trying to achieve is using Coca-Cola's massive distribution system to deliver rehydration salts to remote places where children need them".

"This is in no way anti Coca-Cola. All I'm trying to do is ask them to help, but without the major complications that can come with campaigns like this. They have a lot of innovation in many areas and I'm hoping to capitalise on that and have people get out of the “corporate box” and into a place where dialogue can happen".



Simon's involvement dates back twenty years, when he worked in a very remote part of North East Zambia, but back then "there was no internet, no traction, no visibility" - he was only one person and there was a fear of a “who does he think he is then” reaction. He used Facebook mainly for keeping in touch with his grown up children.

It was when Gordon Brown set up the "business call for action" conference gathering together the CEOs of Multinationals with the aim to discussing the eradication of poverty in Africa that he decided to use the internet to help in raising awareness.

"I blogged about it but got little reaction. It seemed it was only me talking about this, that people didn't seem to know. But then I was driving home one evening and in a wonderful moment of synchronicity heard Annie Lennox on Desert Island Discs. She was speaking of the same crisis. I stopped the car immediately and rang my wife Jane. “Did you hear that?” “Yes, it was amazing” she said."

"We can distribute Coca Cola all around the World but we can't seem to get medication to save a child from something as simple as diarrhoea and I think that that is wrong. You know, you have a choice you either get involved with an issue or you walk away from it. I think it's a human rights issue and I feel very passionately about human rights." (Annie Lennox)

Simon set up a group on Facebook on May 18, 2008 and invited his friends to join, asking them to invite their friends and sent them status updates. "It grew from there" he says. Indeed, the membership grew from zero to 2,115 in 26 days.

On iPM, a BBC radio 4 programme where listeners formulate the programme, they got Eve Graham from The New Seekers, singers of possibly the best known Coke jingle to sing new lyrics. (Hear that here.) It has resulted in a telephone conference in early June and a subsequent invitation by train to Brussels to meet “the right person in Coca-Cola to help with this. They are very enthusiastic, very eager, but it has to be sold to the company on many levels."

Coincidentally Coca-Cola had been looking into doing this, and have started a research project in Tanzania. Simon is in contact with him and will be telling his story over on his blog.

Facebook has been for Simon a blessing. "I started this project 7,350 days ago and hadn't achieved much. Since I started the Facebook group there are over 2,800 people behind the campaign, I've spoken and met with Coca-Cola and we have a real opportunity to do something about this. The next big challenge is to get an international NGO involved and then some local agencies, to really start making that difference."

So how can people help?



"Go to Facebook and join the Coca-Cola group. Invite all your friends to join. This isn't about spamming or bothering people - it's only because of all the people who have become involved so far that this has been a success. You can help make a difference.

If bloggers could share the information; if, like AJ people could design graphics or banners; if people could offer the campaign help or advice in communications, in marketing or technology; if anyone has any contacts or idea that they think could contribute to helping make this idea a reality, it would be great if you could get involved.

5,500 children die every day in Africa before the age of 5. This initiative could save thousands and thousands of children's lives through collaboration between the private and NGO sector. And now we are talking."



I'm joining AJ at Le Craic, the Galway Greens and Caricatures Ireland in the bloggers (that I know of) who are raising awareness for this. I hope you'll help share the story as well.

• Simon's blog is here
• The Facebook group is here