UNDIPLOMATIC TIMES
Mrs. Owen-Jones, Shirin Ehbadi and UNESCO
By Mehri Madarshahi
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Calling her “a woman of heart and action” and a friend of UNESCO with a proven record of work defending the rights of under-privileged children, UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura on 23 March appointed Italian-born Cristina Owen-Jones Goodwill Ambassador for the fight against HIV/ AIDS. A familiar face around UNESCO in recent years because of her advocacy of children’s rights, Ms Owen-Jones is also well known in the world of Parisian haute monde as the wife of Lindsay Owen-Jones, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the cosmetics company L’Oréal .
Since 2002 Cristina has worked with UNESCO’s Programme for the Education of Children in Need. She has been particularly active in supporting the Don Bosco centers for street children in Argentina, which helps deprived children recover from the effects of malnutrition, illnesses and acts of violence. Her forceful advocacy has brought an outpouring of sympathy and support for the Don Bosco centers.
As Goodwill Ambassador, Cristina plans to concentrate mainly on UNESCO projects for HIV/AIDS prevention education. To prepare for this work she travelled recently to South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique, visiting centers where the emphasis is education as a preventive measure in fighting HIV/AIDS. She also met with a number of health and education ministers on her trip, and the experience has left her with a commitment to mobilize resources in support of AIDS education. The hardship and social disruption caused by AIDS in Africa, especially the plight of hundreds of thousands of women who have been widowed, and the even larger number of children who have been orphaned, have left a deep impression. This comes across to an interviewer as a steely determination to make a difference.
Cristina is well aware that making a difference will not be easy, that the effort will have to be over the long term and require substantial resources and training. In 2003 alone some 4.2 million adults and 700,000 children under the age of 15 were newly infected with HIV/AIDS. Out of these, 2.5 million adults and 500,000 children died. The total number of individuals living with HIV/AIDS is estimated to be 40 million worldwide. As she told an interviewer recently, “from Africa to Europe, North America and Asia, HIV/AIDS has created an emergency. It means not only a human drama, but also a disaster for economic development of many countries. Aids is not only a disease but it is a social, political and cultural problem.”
Education is critically important to prevent the spread of AIDS: the more people are aware of the dangers, the better they can adjust behavior patterns that expose them to risk. But resources for education are scarce in many countries, especially the worst affected. In Zambia and Mozambique, for instance, the governments do not have money for preventive education. Both countries face the task of reaching remote villages that are difficult even to reach because of the lack of roads and transportation facilities. There is also the problem that AIDS has devastated educators; in some parts of the country up to 50 per cent of teachers are themselves infected. But such difficulties have only served to underline for Cristina the importance of information and education in meeting the challenge.
On her recent trip to African countries, Cristina — a great believer of maintaining and respecting local traditions — noted that traditional theater was an important part of the culture of even remote and isolated villages, and on inquiry, learned that it has always been important in shaping popular opinions and attitudes. Story-tellers and actors could be important ways to reach those without formal schooling with the message of AIDS prevention. Radio too could play a key role in reaching people in isolated villages, for almost everywhere in Southern Africa people have radios. But even such innovative and low-cost initiatives will need resources. Local road shows will require transportation. Community radio centers will have to be created to reach the very poor. As she told Paris Match in March, “I see my role as an intermediary between the donor communities such as the private sector, bi-lateral and multi-lateral entities and those at the local level.”