Featured Stories Archive: 2006

Many Forgotten Diseases, One Integrated Approach

To help combat neglected tropical diseases suffered by millions of people, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $10 million to fund two groundbreaking Carter Center initiatives in Nigeria. Learn more »

Miss Ghana Vows to Fight Guinea Worm Disease in Her Home Country

In the community of Tampiong in northern Ghana, Miss Ghana 2005, Lamisi Mbillah, balanced on her high heel sandals, lifts a small black pipe filter above her head so that the hundreds of school children surrounding her could see it. She selects a shy little boy from the crowd to demonstrate how the filter works. The boy complies, using the pipe filter as a straw to drink from the container of water in Mbillah's hand. Learn more »

Give Peace a Chance: Nicaragua's 2006 Presidential Elections (Carter Center Slideshow)

The Carter Center deployed a 62-member delegation to observe Nicaragua’s 2006 election. Carter Center observers David Evans and Sandra Flores, a French citizen, were based in Rio San Juan, which shares its river and border with Costa Rica. They arrived in the region via small plane on a muddy landing strip. Learn more »

International Delegation Observes DRC Elections

Kinshasa....A 45-member international Carter Center delegation led by former Prime Minister of Canada Joe Clark observed the Democratic Republic of the Congo's presidential runoff elections Oct. 29. Carter Center Peace Programs Associate Executive Director John Stremlau was co-leader of the delegation. Learn more »

Trachoma Study in Sudan Shows SAFE Strategy Works

Children in the United States may not give grape-flavored cough syrup another thought, but in Eastern Equatoria, Sudan, children look forward to their yearly dose of an antibiotic that tastes like bananas. The medicine, azithromycin, is one part of a strategy designed to prevent blinding trachoma, a bacterial eye disease and leading cause of preventable blindness in the world. Learn more »

Laughter Is the Best Medicine: Group's Humor Aids in Guinea Worm Education

Two actors take the stage and make wild cartoonish gestures and snappy remarks. This is not the latest sitcom in Hollywood or a new Broadway production but a drama about Guinea worm disease in rural Ghana. Learn more »

Removing the Scar of Guinea Worm Disease: One Village at a Time

The muddy pond is as brown as the hillsides surrounding it. It is the peak of dry season in Ghana and Chief Tahanaa looks over the water he has been drinking since he was a child. Learn more »

Carter Center Calls for Better Mental Health Care for All Georgians

Five-foot-six-inches tall, Angela Ford's weight has varied from 90 pounds to her current 216. She struggles between anorexia and binge eating, and suffers from postpartum stress disorder and depression. She lives in Fulton County, Ga., which has no mental health services available to her. Even if it did, she couldn't afford it on disability checks anyway. Learn more »

John Stremlau: Role at Center Allows Director to Keep Close Ties With African Continent

Dr. John Stremlau views the recent elections held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as both triumphant and tragic. "It was quite moving to see the Congolese people turn out to vote," he said. "At the same time," he added, "it was depressing to see how the country and its people have suffered so greatly." Learn more »

Profile: Marcel Wetsh'okonda, Congolese Human Rights Defender

Marcel Wetsh'okonda fights for human rights laws to be passed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country where 1,000 people die each day from disease, hunger, and violence. It is no easy task. Learn more »

Carter Center Peace Stories from the Field - DR Congo Family

The afternoon sun catches Yayu Zonveni's face near the door of her otherwise shadowy home in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). She sits in a blue plastic chair waiting for customers to buy the soda and beer she sells from her house; 200 Congolese francs for a Coke, 400 for a beer. It takes her a day and a half to sell a case of 24 bottles, for which she receives a profit of 400 FC, or almost $1US. Learn more »

Meet Jacob Lablah: Once a schoolteacher, Jacob Lablah now teaches civics to his fellow Liberians

Looking across the many rows of wood-and-mud shacks that house more than 12,000 people in a camp for displaced persons in Margibi County, Liberia, Jacob Lablah knows he still has work to do. The scene inside the camp varies little from day to day. Women sit patiently next to stands selling combs, seasonings, and rice while children carry toys made from tin cans and old plastic bottles, their shirts in tatters and hanging off their shoulders. Men play checkers on a splintered wooden board for hours. People here have no jobs, no means to improve their lives, and no real place to call home. Learn more »

Education Key to Reducing Trachoma Across Africa

"My mother believed you got trachoma from crying," said Neter Nadew, a 36-year-old Ethiopian mother of four who suffers as her mother did from trachoma, a bacterial eye disease that can lead to blindness. Nadew's mother was forced to pluck out her eyelashes to prevent the onset of blindness in the later stages of the disease. Learn more »

Dr. Emmanuel Miri: 'Dr. Water' Pours New Life into Rural Nigerian Communities with Carter Center Health Programs

His name means "water" and "life" in the Southeastern region of his native Nigeria, and perhaps no name could be more appropriate for Dr. Emmanuel Miri, resident technical adviser for the Carter Center's health programs in Nigeria. Learn more »

One Village Votes: Elections in Shidong, China

One of the most important democratic experiments of the last 25 years has been the movement in 600,000 villages across China toward competitive elections, allowing 75 percent of the nation's 1.3 billion people to elect their local leaders. The Carter Center has worked with the Chinese government to help standardize the vast array of election procedures taking place in this new democratic environment and to foster good local governance. Learn more »

Blog | Political Finance Reform and Media Mapping: An Expert Q&A With Shelley McConnell

In this Q&A, Dr. Shelley McConnell, senior associate director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program, discusses the groundbreaking media mapping project: its impetus, implementation, and hoped-for impact on democratization in the Americas. Learn more »

Blog | U.N. Human Rights Council: The Center's Role, New Body's Mandate in Expert Q&A

A new Human Rights Council for the United Nations was adopted March 15 by the U.N. General Assembly, replacing the Commission on Human Rights, originally established in 1946. In this Q&A, Karin Ryan, senior advisor, Human Rights Program, discusses the Center’s key role in the Council’s passage and what the Council means for global human rights. The new Council plans to elect its first 47 members May 9 and hold its first meeting June 19, after the Commission is disbanded June 16. Learn more »

Blog | Atlanta Journal Constitution Palestine Election Q&A With David Carroll

Former President Jimmy Carter will lead a team of 80 observers today in monitoring legislative elections in the Palestinian territories. The team hopes to provide “an impartial and accurate report” on elections that are as significant as they are controversial. One development that has raised eyebrows in the West: the political participation of Hamas, a group the United States considers a terrorist organization. Learn more »

Staffer Reflects on OEPA Successes, River Blindness Partnerships in Mexico

The Carter Center is the sponsoring agency for the regional coalition OEPA (Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas). The coalition works to eradicate onchocerciasis - also known as river blindness - in the Americas through semi-annual distribution of the safe and effective oral microfilaricide ivermecin (Mectizan®), donated by Merck & Co, Inc. Learn more »

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