Category Archives: Health

Reconnecting with Nature

Environment, Health, Mental health, View from Abroad

 

By Zubeida Mustafa

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURESGeorge Monbiot, one of my favourite columnists in the Guardian (London), wrote this week about a campaign to “rewild” Britain of which he is one of the pioneers. His column was headlined “Let’s make Britain wild again and find ourselves in nature”. This according to him can heal not only the living world but much that is missing in our own lives.

I realised the importance of connecting with nature when we paid a visit to the Niagara Falls on Thursday (16 July). Let me make it clear at the start that I must have visited the falls umpteen of times since 1992 when I first visited Canada. But the last time I had gone there was fourteen years ago when I had my 60th birthday photograph taken against the backdrop of the gushing waters of this natural wonder of the world. Continue reading Reconnecting with Nature →

Extraordinay People: An ‘inspirer’ who empowers

Health, Notable Personalities, SIUT, Social Issues
By Zubeida Mustafa
Imran-1-300x199The Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT) is well-known for the healthcare it provides free of charge to the marginalised. Not so well known, however, is the egalitarian  philosophy that its founder, Dr Adibul Hasan Rizvi, has instilled in the Institute’s working guidelines. This means providing equal opportunities to all in other walks of life as well. Take the case of Muhammad Imran, 53, who is the head of the operation theatres  at SIUT.

Continue reading Extraordinay People: An ‘inspirer’ who empowers →

Trapped in poverty

Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Labour, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

MIGRANTS are in the news all over the world. Recently, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released in Rome a report titled Sending Money Home which focused on the remittances — $436 billion in 2014 — transferred by migrant workers to their families. This received positive publicity. The countries that provided jobs to such workers were seen as helping alleviate poverty in the Third World.

In Canada, where I am on a visit, I chanced upon a local paper The Golfi Team Real Estate Market Watch which carried an article against immigrants blaming the latter for many economic woes of the country, including the escalation of property prices and suppression of wages. It sarcastically accused the political parties of seeking to capture immigrant votes by adopting pro-immigration policies while pretending to benefit the rest of the world. Continue reading Trapped in poverty →

Paper chase

Children and Youth, Economy, Education, Health, Human Rights

By Zubeida Mustafa

IN May the World Economic Forum issued the Human Capital Report 2015 that facilitates a comparative assessment of the education systems of various countries. For that purpose the WEF has created an index that uses four criteria (termed pillars) as a measure. They are education, health and wellness, employment and enabling environment. The idea is to judge the productive capacity of the workforce

Where does Pakistan stand in this league? With a score of 52.63, we rank 113th out of a total of 124 countries assessed. In other words, only 11 countries are in a worse state than us. Finland which tops the list has a score of 85.78. Continue reading Paper chase →

Effects of nutrition on educational standards of school children of a developing country

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Social Issues, Terrorism and Violence, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa 

In the age of specialization we have become so focused on specific areas and issues that we fail to take a holistic approach to problems. The fact is that human life comprises several integrated sectors. The impact of one on another is profound and symbiotic. Hence effective solutions to various problems call for a comprehensive strategy. Here I shall take up two very important areas of a child’s life that are closely interrelated though they are not treated as such by the policymakers. They are education and nutrition.
Both of these pose a major challenge to the people as well as the authorities in Third World countries. While education requires the government to provide facilities to enable children to enroll in school to study, nutrition is related to the health of a child without which education can prove to be a daunting task. A child who falls ill frequently has a high incidence of school absenteeism. That affects his education because irregularity in attendance causes her to miss her lessons and lowers her standards. While this is a phenomenon that is pretty visible, there is an insidious feature of children’s health that has an impact on education which does not find general mention in literature on paediatric health or education issues.
This is the impact malnutrition and various deficiencies make on the cognitive and mental growth and development of a child. It actually affects her intelligence, memory and capacity to learn. While the side-effects of the deficiency of various vitamins and iodine on the physical health of children have been documented not much is known generally about the impact of malnutrition and micronutrient deficiency on the intelligence and mental capacities of a child.
This is significant considering the widespread prevalence of malnutrition in Pakistan. According to the National Nutrition Survey (2011) nearly 43.7 percent of all children under five years of age in Pakistan are severely or moderately stunted. The same survey found 15.1 percent under-5 suffered from wasting and 31.5 percent were underweight.1 There is a lot of regional disparity in and within the provinces. Continue reading Effects of nutrition on educational standards of school children of a developing country →