Penn Nursing 090805_final_4c - University of Pennsylvania School ...

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• Create a new paradigm for research
in women’s health that can serve as a
model for academic institutions
working in women’s health issues
worldwide; and
• Promote critical assessment of care
models used to promote health and
prevent illness in women in the face
of oppression, marginalization, and
violence.
To this end, Mary Robinson says
that the role of women around the
world was to be change agents improving
the status of women, noting that in
some corners of the world, the rate of
HIV/AIDS infection is 62 percent
even among young girls.
Change is occurring but not fast
enough, reported Stephen Lewis, the
United Nations expert on HIV and
AIDS in Africa, noting “The lives of
women are as mercilessly desperate as
they have always been.”
With 500,000 to 600,000 deaths
projected annually from AIDS in
Africa, Lewis told the story of women
tending a small garden of cabbages to
take to market for a small profit.When
asked what they did with the proceeds,
they appeared incredulous.“We buy
coffins,” they replied.“We never have
enough coffins.”
Lewis exhorted world leaders to
adopt the model of Swaziland which
awards a modest stipend to caregivers
of orphans, particularly calling upon
the United Nations Global Fund to
support this effort for the many countries
of Africa experiencing the AIDS
pandemic. He also urged the creation
of a vaginal microbicide, now being
field-tested at Penn and elsewhere, to
prevent HIV infection in women.
Any initiative for change will,
however, need to be culturally sensitive
to be effective.“We must evaluate our
differences within and between different
countries.We cannot have messages
without defining context, or we
will send our own biases to the rest of
the world.”
The Honorable Unity Dow, a
judge and author from Botswana,
noted during her luncheon address that
Africa is not a country with provinces
but a continent with countries, each
with its own peculiar identity.The values
and customs of one country do not
necessarily coincide with those of
another, complicating the development
of interventions that are both culturally
specific and more successful in changing
the behaviors that lead to the second
class existence of many women.
Summing up the conference and
promoting an agenda for action,
Dr. Judith Rodin, president of The
Rockefeller Foundation, President
Emerita of the University of
Pennsylvania and summit chair
addressed what she concluded were the
three essential ingredients for safe
womanhood: research, advocacy, and
intervention.