D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A to say hello. I introduced him to Gillian, informing him of her business. He told her the Financial Times is among his daily reading. That same evening, at 583 Park, the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) held its annual gala dinner honoring Dr. Paul Farmer, who is a medical anthropologist (that word again), a physician, and a founding director of Partners in Health, an international non-profit organization that provides direct health-care services and undertakes research and advocacy activities on behalf of those who are sick and living in poverty.
Dr. Farmer is also the Presley Professor of Social Medicine and chair of the department of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, as well as chief of the division of global health equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the United Nations deputy special envoy for Haiti, under special envoy Bill Clinton. He’s one of those amazing individuals who accomplishes much in the world in a day and yet seems energized afterwards. The terms we heard several times at the dinner was “gender equality” and “gender equity.” The IWHC understands better than most of us that the most
important road out of poverty and ill health is via those routes. Developed countries are well aware and in many ways adapted to women’s rights. Developing countries are far behind. The solution to breaking the grip of poverty is simple but difficult to achieve: education for women and health care. This is charter of the IWHC. HIV is rampant in the developing world. Its victims are mainly young women, many of whom have no choice or medical assistance to avoid disease. For example, cervical cancer, Dr Farmer said, kills more women in the developing world than any other disease, and yet there is
now a vaccine available. There is not yet a cure for HIV, but it is now a treatable disease. Dr. Farmer told us about a Haitian girl he has known since birth. She was born with HIV—her mother died of AIDS—and now she is twenty. He ran into her recently on one of his trips to Haiti. The young woman has grown up educated about gender equity and equality. He asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She told him she wanted to start a business, to be independent, to determine her own future outside the binds of a maledominated social structure. Marlene Hess, an IWHC board member was emcee.
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