An unusual call for global public health writing
Started by Linda Hassan on 14 Feb 2010
Forwarded from Tim Brookes
_____
Dear Colleagues:
We need your help. We've started a collaborative project linking the American Academic of Pediatrics Section on International Child Health, Writers Without Borders and the Champlain College Publishing Initiative.
We are developing a web site ( http://www.worldschildrenonline.org ) that is intended to be an interactive focal point for writing about children's healthcare all over the world. This is a call for writing for that site—but rather an unusual call for some rather unusual kinds of writing.
Let me explain. The writing about healthcare issues that is published in the professional and scholarly journals is detailed and credible but highly specific and narrow in focus. We want to try to develop a picture that is no less accurate but is panoramic in its vision, a picture that displays the children's healthcare of a nation in as many as possible of all its different facets.
We invite writing from doctors, nurses, social workers, public health employees, NGO employees and everyone else working with and on behalf of children.
But we’re also calling for writing from members of the public: journalists, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters–even visitors to the country who have a chance to observe children. As long as the writing is clear and factually accurate, anyone is invited to take part who has a story to tell that illuminates some aspect of the state of the world’s children.
The first step is to start a pilot program that, for the first six months, will focus on two countries. One will be Bangladesh; the other will be Haiti. The first postings from those countries are already up at the web site.
We will accept a wide variety of kinds of writing:
0. Scientific, technical and professional articles, whether previously published or not
0. As-it-happens blogs and emails
0. Case studies
0. Personal stories
0. Editorials
0. Profiles of individual people or individual initiatives
0. Project reports
0. Accounts by visitors
0. Articles/columns/responses by healthcare communication specialists to provide a meta-text to the whole endeavor
0. Photos with detailed captions
0. We hope even to be able to post comments texted in from cell phones.
We encourage writing that includes dialogue, descriptions of places, people and events, and the thoughts and reflections of the writer. Our only stipulation is that each piece must be non-fiction, and must be scientifically accurate on its own terms. The writer may not be able to know the exact truth in all is complexities, but the small, specific part of the truth about which he or she is writing must be accurate.
Please forward this message to anyone who may be interested. At the very least this project should be interesting. It may even change the way international healthcare communication takes place.
Tim Brookes
Keywords: Databases & Publications, International Partnerships, writing nurses collaboration children's healthcare
Replies (0)