Kommentarer fra African Youth Panel til projekterne om bekæmpelse af svinebændelorminfektion

Comments – Anesu Makina

This is great work and I am glad that students are actively engaging in science for sustainable development. My comments are as follows:

I notice that local communities/ NGOs and government departments are not included as partners. They are a critically important group for any project to succeed, especially in rural Africa because people they (local communities/ NGOs and government departments) can:

- Better convey certain messages to local people

- Explain certain practises that actually increase infection from people to human for example, there may be a reason why pigs and people are not separated or why the animals are slaughtered in a certain way. Somebody with an understanding of the practise and the community can serve as a good resource for development partners

- Also governments need to be engaged because they have the resources and the networks to convey messages around hygiene etc.

Students are a powerful tool and can be accessed through governments and ministries of education. When I was at primary school, I was taught about this disease and how to prevent it. I was also encouraged to pass on this knowledge to my mother and father. Such methods really benefited those whose parents/ grandparents did not know about tape worm and how they can get it from pork.

Comments – Ibrahim Ceesay

I think this project is very realistic and important to developing countries as a cross-cutting issue both health and disaster risk reduction from a development perspective.

I believe this project is more of advocacy and needs to have a well designed advocacy strategy in form of a problem tree to map out relevant stakeholders that can be of importance to this project. The group might want to help these communities in setting up contingencies and early warning systems against this hazard and help them develop coping mechanisms to cope with the situation when funding and support is not forthcoming for sustainability sake

NOTE: It is important to recognize local capacity and build capacities than coming up with a new initiative and partners like religious settings could have both merit and demerits. We can also make use of existing structures women’s group, men and youth groups and other bodies within the targeted communities.

I will vote approved for this project.