On Oct. 23, Haythem, 28, wrapped himself in a Tunisian flag, stood for four hours in a line that spanned as far as the eye could see on a street in downtown Tunis, and cast a vote for the first time in his life.
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On Nov. 28, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is holding its second democratic multi-party national elections since gaining independence in 1960, and the first to be administered solely by the country’s election commission. Elections in 2006 were overseen by the United Nations. Learn more »
At The Carter Center, we are thankful for all that has been accomplished over the last year: historic elections in Sudan and Tunisia; the end of Guinea worm disease in Ghana; the first graduating class of mental health workers in Liberia; and so much more. Learn more »
The Carter Center and its Onchocerciasis Elimination Program for the Americas (OEPA) are pleased to congratulate three Latin American countries on their recent progress toward eliminating river blindness (onchocerciasis). Learn more »
By Max Lockie, Carter Center long-term observer
Carter Center long-term observer Max Lockie is based in Matadi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Center established an office in Kinshasa in August and deployed 10 long-term observers to seven provinces: Kinshasa, Bas-Congo, Oriental Province, North Kivu, South Kivu, Katanga, and Kasai Oriental. In September, the Center deployed another 10 long-term observers to the remaining provinces. Learn more »
The Carter Center is partnering with the Consulate General of France in Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of “France-Atlanta 2011,” a series of 15 events being held Oct. 26-Nov. 12, designed to strengthen ties in the fields of science, economics, culture, and humanitarian work. Learn more »
In Congo, a lack of transparent and equitable management of natural resources has excluded most citizens from the benefits of the country’s vast mineral reserves. To address these inequalities, The Carter Center is working to advance economic justice by gathering and publishing information about the mining sector to be used by civil society to support reform in mining practice and policy.
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From Nov. 5-11, 20,000 health workers and volunteers will walk the countryside of western Amhara region, Ethiopia. Their quest: treat every person at risk—approximately 10 million—for trachoma control and screen as needed for malaria. In this Q&A, Paul Emerson, director of the Center's Trachoma Control Program, explains the remarkable results of these "Maltra"—malaria and trachoma—weeks, a collaborate effort between the Lions Clubs International Foundation and The Carter Center.
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Long lines of Tunisians waited for hours to vote on Sunday to choose 217 members of a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution – many casting a ballot for the first time in their lives – in the country's first open and competitive election in decades.
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The Carter Center will observe the Oct. 23 vote in Tunisia - the first Arab Spring country to hold elections - for a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. A selection of questions submitted online are answered below by Carter Center observers on the ground in Tunisia.
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By Paige Rohe, assistant director, news and information, of the Carter Center’s Office of Public Information.
A torrential rain began in Monrovia, Liberia, causing the power to flicker and the Internet to shut down, but Georgia Institute of Technology professor Dr. Ellen Zegura didn’t let the disruption stop the computer and software training session she was holding with Liberia’s first class of mental health clinicians. Learn more »
Once the second-most endemic country in the world, Ghana has stopped transmission of Guinea worm disease with no new cases of the parasitic disease reported for a full year in 2011. With an estimated 180,000 cases in 1989, Ghana’s successful grassroots elimination efforts have resulted in the promise of hopeful, productive lives for its citizens.
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By Deborah Hakes, assistant director of public information for The Carter Center.
Deborah Hakes, assistant director of the Carter Center's Office of Public Information, reports from Liberia, where the Carter Center's international election observation team monitored the country's Oct. 11 elections. Learn more »
Presidential and legislative elections in Liberia on Oct. 11 will be a critical test for the country's transition from war to democratic and constitutional government. A Carter Center delegation will observe those elections, led by His Excellency General Dr. Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria's former head of state.
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In London today, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter addressed an audience of international journalists and partners to announce that the Carter Center-led global campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease has entered its final stage to end this gruesome waterborne parasitic infection. Learn more »
A group of former leaders and human rights experts serve as a watchdog to threats against democratic stability in the Americas and as a voice to strengthen, promote, and protect democracy and human rights. The group aims to bolster the effectiveness of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, approved on Sept. 11, 2001. Learn more »
By Marwa Alkhairo, a Carter Center long-term election observer in northwest Tunisia and Bizerte
Marwa Alkhairo is a Carter Center long-term election observer in northwest Tunisia and Bizerte. "La bas alaik" and "ca va," means "are you well," one phrase said in Arabic, and one in French. These two greetings are indicative of the complexity that one immediately notices upon reaching northwest Tunisia. Learn more »
When Dr Andrew Seidu Korkor describes the debilitating pain caused by Guinea worm disease and how it devastates communities, he's not just making a professional observation. For this national manager of Ghana's Guinea Worm Eradication Program it's personal.
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By Paige Rohe, media relations coordinator for The Carter Center.
Torrential rains in Monrovia, Liberia, Friday morning did not deter dozens of family members and friends from arriving at the Tubman National Institute of Medical Arts hours before graduation ceremonies for the nation’s first mental health clinicians began. No one wanted to miss their loved one become part of their nation’s history and hope for a better future. Learn more »
"I think I have something to share with another country" says Sadi Moussa, explaining why he recently relocated to Mali to help tackle public health problems after almost two decades doing similar work in his home country of Niger.
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Like many Liberian women, Ruth Saye has faced violence, subjugation, and loss as a result of her country's devastating civil war, but she was determined to empower women and help them to heal.
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Misunderstandings and tensions between Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) and the United States are common, and often reinforced or made worse by charged, politicized reporting in media stories related to these countries. Learn more »
With approximately 95 percent of the world’s remaining Guinea worm cases, South Sudan looks to be the final battleground in the fight to wipe out this debilitating worm worldwide. The Southern Sudan Guinea Worm Eradication Program, together with The Carter Center, has almost 10,000 dedicated local health workers on the ground, working everywhere from the bustling capital of Juba to the most remote villages imaginable. Learn more »
Reporter Michael Biesecker's coverage of mental health issues began with a high-speed car chase following a robbery. In the course of Biesecker's investigation, he found that although the driver was in a psychotic state two weeks before the crime, he had been turned away from the state's psychiatric hospital. Learn more »
Peace is more than the absence of war. There is an inner peace that comes from personal security and personal freedom. Peace also includes the sense of a mother and father that their children will live, that they’ll have food for them to eat, and that they won’t be subject to a lifetime of suffering that could have been prevented. Learn more »
Planned gifts are an excellent way to ensure that The Carter Center continues to wage peace, fight disease, and build hope far into the future, while also offering financial benefits to donors. The new Carter Center planned giving website offers a wealth of information and interactive tools to help potential donors find a plan that fits their goals. Learn more »
A mother’s lullabies and soft caress are common nighttime rituals for children around the world. But throughout Africa, these soothing efforts cannot spare a child the high fevers, wracking chills, nausea, and headache of malaria - potentially fatal disease. Learn more »
By Dr. Janice Cooper, Carter Center's project lead for mental health in Liberia
Dr. Janice Cooper, a native Liberian, is the Carter Center’s project lead for a new mental health initiative that, in partnership with the Liberia Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, is helping the nation build a sustainable mental health care system. This spring, Dr. Cooper began training Liberia’s first cadre of qualified, home-grown mental health clinicians. Learn more »
When Jozefa Ortiz Rosa of Tarrales, Guatemala, started losing her vision, she worried about her future. Her husband had died years before, leaving her with six children to raise and a coffee crop to tend. Her older children had taken over the farming, but she still needed to care for her younger children and grandchildren.
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As the sun rose across Juba on Jan. 9, Lulogo Market area resident Ibrahim, 33, had already waited in line for hours to be among the first to vote in Southern Sudan's historic referendum on self-determination. He clutched a small radio with antenna pointed toward the sky to hear news fragments from BBC and local stations about the referendum.
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Philomena Bloh-Sayeh is surrounded by mounds of documents in boxes stacked on shelves. "These are marriage documents," she says. "You'll see gaps in the years where some of them were lost during the war."
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At bedtime, under a blue mosquito net, two boys lie on a mat and whisper secrets from the day just passed. Six-year-old Thon Mayom falls asleep quickly. He is exhausted from two sessions that day to treat a worm emerging from his knee. His 5-year-old brother, Mawut, drifts off to sleep too. His job is to look after his big brother during the difficult treatment.
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In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, human rights activists often face intimidation and threats of violence, a situation expected to worsen as November 2011 national elections approach. Listen to Sophie Borel talk about why the alert system was established. Learn more »
Paul Emerson entered the modest hut unannounced, knowing what he was hoping to find, but ready for anything. Emerson - director of the Carter Center's Trachoma Control Program - had visited this family before. In 2005, he had accompanied President and Mrs. Carter to Mosebo village, northwest Ethiopia, to help launch a comprehensive trachoma initiative in the region.
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Ratna Osman, acting executive director of Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam, was one of a diverse group of 72 human rights activists and religious scholars from 22 countries to attend the Carter Center’s human rights defenders forum this week in Atlanta. Learn more »
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter urged religious communities to promote, not hinder, women’s rights during his opening remarks at the 2011 Human Rights Defenders Forum taking place at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., April 3-6. The remarks were a follow up to a speech he gave to the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 2009. Learn more »
From April 3-6, human rights leaders and scholars will gather at The Carter Center to discuss the key challenges that women's rights activists face and ways to work with religious, traditional, and government institutions to advance the protection of these rights. Learn more »
The Carter Center’s health programs enabled a record 35.8 million treatments in 2010 to protect against neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in thousands of communities in some of the most remote and forgotten places in Africa and the Americas. Learn more »
Standing in the courtyard of his school in El Xab, Guatemala, his eyes blindfolded, a boy swings a large pole toward a flyshaped piñata. Schoolmates cheer for the boy, who looks about 9 years old. His friends hope that one well-placed strike will smash the fly, releasing oodles of candy. The adults in charge hope the children leave with something more than a handful of treats.
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The Andean-U.S. Dialogue Forum, a citizens' forum created to identify and contribute solutions to multilateral problems and tensions among the Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) and the United States, has issued a report outlining a common agenda to improve cooperation among the nations. Learn more »
The Carter Center Awards for Guinea Worm Eradication were presented to Nigeria and Niger during a special ceremony held Feb. 17, 2011, in Atlanta, Ga. The two countries, which share a border, join 14 other nations that have wiped out Guinea worm disease since The Carter Center spearheaded the international eradication campaign in 1986. Learn more »
Former U.S. President and Carter Center Founder Jimmy Carter announced today that only three endemic countries remain in the fight against Guinea worm disease, poised to be only the second disease in history—after smallpox—to be eradicated.
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The 2010 launch of a new Carter Center-supported initiative is helping the Azi family and millions of other Nigerians receive greater access to malaria control and prevention, building the opportunity for a healthier future for the entire nation. Learn more »
Carter Center observers witnessed the birth of what is expected to be the world's newest nation, following Southern Sudan's Jan. 9-15 referendum on self-determination, with an overwhelming majority--a reported 98.9 percent--voting for secession from Sudan.
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By Deborah Hakes, assistant director of public information for The Carter Center
Carter Center observers remain deployed across Sudan and in out-of-country voting locations as voting continues in the referendum on the self-determination of Southern Sudan. Here are images from across Juba on days one and two of voting. Learn more »
In the blistering heat of Nasarawa North, Nigeria, the cool waters of the River Uke beckon all. Women launder clothes, people bathe, girls fetch water, and children, especially boys, splash and swim for fun.
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By Deborah Hakes, assistant director of public information for The Carter Center
More than 100 Carter Center observers will be deployed across Sudan and in eight out-of-country voting locations to witness voting in the referendum for the self-determination of Southern Sudan, as part of one of the Center’s largest observation missions. Most observers are currently being briefed in Juba, Sudan. Learn more »
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