TED Talks, Again & The Big Picture

Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu, one of three individuals to win the 2009 TED Prize, said it best: “With passion and enthusiasm we pay profound respects to TED for its outstanding humanism, the scope of its principles, and for its open and generous promotion of young values.” Abreu - founder of El Sistema, a youth orchestra aimed at helping poor Venezuelan kids learn to play a musical instrument and be part of an orchestra - is a wonderfully passionate speaker and in his talk, which can be viewed here, he touches on the social, economic, and spiritual value of music. If you have been reading my blog but have yet to check out TED Talks, you’re at serious fault to yourself.

Anyway, earlier today I updated my schistosomiasis blog with an entry on the importance of not overlooking the context in which schistosomiasis exists. It’s a disease of the highly underprivileged. It is found in areas with poor standards of hygiene and sanitation, and where clean drinking/bathing water is often in short supply, if available at all. In my post I wrote of Dr. Vicente Navarro, a Johns Hopkins professor of health policy and management and the author of many books. He reminds his readers in a 2004 piece entitled Inequalities Are Unhealthy that, “inequality is in itself bad, i.e., the distance among social groups and individuals and the lack of social cohesion that this distance creates is bad for people’s health and quality of life.” While China has experienced tremendous economic growth in recent decades, there remains shocking inequalities and distributional unfairness (i.e., sharing the benefits of global economic cooperation) among its population. Those living in schistosomiasis endemic zones have certainly received the so-called short end of the development stick. They lack political and collective resources, and I believe they also suffer from a sense of powerlessness in the face of new media and “mainstream” definitions of success. But one fact that I don’t want to neglect is that this disease, at the root of it all, is one of poverty and lack of resources. And here is where I’d like to report on something that Abreu, the TED Prize winner referenced earlier in this post, verbalized. He said that there was something Mother Theresa insisted on that always impressed him: “The most miserable and tragic thing about poverty is not the lack of bread or roof, but the feeling of being no-one…the feeling of not being anyone…the lack of identification…the lack of public esteem.” While my research here is focused on the science and public policy of schistosomiasis, this is something I’ll remember while engaging with my target population. I’ll remember they are people, not numbers. And I’ll remember they have feelings to share, not just facts. This is why I encourage travel and always try to reach out in places that are rarely touched. Even if you have nothing else to offer, a smile and some acknowledgement, as Abreu implies, often go a very long way…