Call for a virtual scientific African seminar on HIV/AIDS research
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Hello,
This is a genuine call to all chemists, biochemists, immunologists
and reproductive health scientists who would be motivated to help
setting-up an Internet seminar to promote scientific literacy among
the coming generation of African students on all the aspects of
HIV/AIDS.
I suggest to set-up two forums in English and French, respectively
ChemAIDS and ChimSIDA, to help African students to undergo the fol-
lowing online activities:
* summarise scientific papers dealing with HIV/AIDS and related topics;
* translate between French and English or into local languages of Africa.
To provide incentives to African students to read, transcribe (under
fair use), summarise and translate scientific papers, I suggest that
senior scientists help monitor the online seminars and issue an "e-
Certificate" once a year or semester to all students who will have
either summarised, translated or transcribed (under fair use) at
least one scientific paper. To cut on costs and to make this initia-
tive fully fund-free, I suggest that the list of e-Certificates ap-
pear on a web-page.
If we want African Scientists to fight for the RESEARCH FUNDS of
HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria, syphilis, etc., they need to develop a solid
basis of scientific knowledge on HIV/AIDS, so that they can compile
impressive and commanding research proposals for tomorrow.
Advocacy alone for African based research won't help. We need to mo-
tivate, to encourage, to mentor students in undertaking the difficult
task of reading science with a critical and scientific mind.
We need to pass virtual "learning contracts" with African students
and to tell them that science can help to forget the hardship of eve-
ryday life because it gives food for thoughts.
We need to tell them that Western Science failed to save itself be-
cause it had forgotten to communicate, and because it had isolated
itself from the public.
It will be the task of young African students to pave the way for the
progress of the science of tomorrow in the merciless context of cor-
porate combative competition backed up by apparently public global
financial giants. But with the weapon of knowledge and with the liv-
ing experience of hardship, diseases and poverty, they will honour
the humanity. Let us help them today to achieve a landmark in the
science of tomorrow.
If you want to help, please kindly send a *motivated* e-mail to:
mailto:prevges.OERT-moderators@ml.free.fr?subject=ChemAIDS
Christian Labadie, MS
mailto:CLabadie@t-online.de
http://nucwww.chem.sunysb.edu/prevges/OERT.html
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