Is it time to revisit definition of a planet? Scientists think so…

The solar system is made up of planets. Earth is a planet. So is Pluto. This will never change. At least for now.
“It always has been, and it always will be,” Will Grundy of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona is quoted on Sciencenews.org. But he has a challenge. How will he convince the world? How will a forty year old man in Chitipa in Malawi be convinced otherwise.
Now he just has to convince the world of that.
For years, centuries, the word planet has meant “wanderer.” The wanderer had included the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
However over the years of debates, the moon and sun were dropped from the definition. But Pluto was included, after its discovery in 1930. That idea of a planet as a rocky or gaseous body that orbited the sun stuck, all the way up until 2006.
The challenge is the definition of the planet. The way it is defined and application of the definition has been varying.
The International Astronomical Union sensing the challenge described a planet as “any round object that orbits the sun and has moved any pesky neighbors out of its way, either by consuming them or flinging them off into space.” This is where Pluto fails to fit in. Especially when compared to the last part of the definition. It’s perhaps the reason it’s called a “dwarf planet.”
The definition has flaws.
It forgets and overlooks thousands of “exotic worlds that orbit other stars and also rogue ones with no star to call home.” Secondly, studies show that “it requires that a planet cut a clear path around the sun.” But no planet does that; Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune share their paths with asteroids, and objects crisscross planets’ paths all the time.
Grundy and the team members of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto have meticulously laid out these arguments against the IAU definition of a planet March 21 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
There is need for a simple definition. Grundy says the definition should be “any round object in space that is smaller than a star.”
“There’d be about 110 known planets in our solar system,” Grundy quoted as saying.
The reason for the tweak is to maintain the focus on the features — the physics, the geology, the atmosphere — of the world itself, rather than worry about what’s going on around it, he says.
The New Horizons mission has shown that Pluto is an interesting world with active geology, an intricate atmosphere and other features associated with planets in the solar system. It makes no sense to write Pluto off because it doesn’t fit one criterion. Grundy seems convinced the public could easily readopt the small world as a planet. Though he admits astronomers might be a tougher sell.
“People have been using the word correctly all along,” Grundy says. He suggests we stick with the original definition. That’s his plan.
For Ipyana Mwaungulu in Chitipa, he still has to follow the debate.

Creating Demand for Male Circumcision 

Jhpiego has been working in Malawi since 1999. Its work has focused on a number of health interventions including the provision Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC).. PacharoMunthali in this article follows up the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) work that Jhpiego has been carrying out in Zomba. In the article he explores the successes registered so far. He strives to find out gaps that as a nation we need to address.  

 It’s morning. Precisely, it is three minutes after 9 hours. Since arriving at the health centre, apart from meeting the medical personnel and being briefed on the procedure that is followed, he uttered nothing. For ten minutes it seemed as if he would say nothing.

 He is Village Headman Mzazira II has been waiting outside Chipini Health Centre. It is a symbolic wait, at least he knows. It’s not just his wait. Once he gets circumcised he believes his subjects will follow suit. He is at Chipini Health Centre for his screening and Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) procedure.

 Chipini Health Centre is a Chingale -based health facility in Zomba district. The district with 2014 population estimates hovering above 600,000; the district has high HIV prevalence rate.  

HIV prevalence is around 15. That’s alarming. The District Medical Officer, Dr Vanessa Kandole early this year was quoted by Malawi News agency, describing the situation as “pathetic.”

"As a key component of prevention of HIV, Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision (VMMC) is important in Zomba as one way of reducing the prevalence rate which currently is on the higher side," Kandole had explained in the media.

Kandole has stated that VMMC campaigns have been conducted since 2013 in Zomba. As a result at least 18 thousand males have gotten the smart cut. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); an estimated 5.8 million males had undergone VMMC by the end of 2013 in 14 priority countries in East and southern Africa.

The effort towards attain such cuts has been collaborative. Being led by Ministry of Health, Jhpiego has been one of the players. The presence of Jhpiego in areas around Chipini Health Centre has been one instance.

Today at Chipini Health Centre, male community members are waiting anxiously. In numbers, so far there is presence of eleven individuals – men and of course adolescent boys. All these mortals want to be subjected to the meticulous procedures of male circumcision. Voluntarily medically sound of course. All this is being done for a good reason – HIV prevention.

 When his turn comes, he will undergo counseling. After counseling he will go through the screening process. It is after screening that he will submit himself to the actual VMMC procedure. It’s a process.

 “You see this is symbolic. I am a village headman, and I want to lead by example,” Village headman Mzazira 2 says as goes inside the clinic.

 “I want my people to appreciate, and soberly understand that this is life,” he grins.

Chipini is just one area in which Jhpiego is carrying out its intervention. Jhpiego has been in Malawi since 1999. From 2010 to 2011 Jhpiego, under MCHIP, facilitated the development of national standard operating procedures for voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC).  During that period Jhpiego implemented Malawi’s first pilot initiative on VMMC for HIV prevention in Mulanje, resulting in provision of male circumcision services to 4,348 men.

 In 2012, Jhpiego received additional funding through Maternal and child health integrated program to provide VMMC services to more than 8,000 males in Thyolo District. As Jhpiego expands its work the foot prints that it has marked are indelible. Since 2011 to date 115647 males have undergone voluntary medical male circumcision.

 Jhpiego has a number of advocacy approaches. One of them is through the use of chiefs. After conducting advocacy meetings with chiefs in the target districts, the Ministry of Health requested MCHIP to offer VMMC services in vulnerable and hard to reach health centres only to ensure the procedure is recognized as a medical intervention and is not confused with traditional rites of initiation.

“Our work especially on promotional activities have focused mainly on inter and intrapersonal communication at the local level. The approach has yielded enormous success,” says Samson Jali, Community Mobilisation Assistant.  

Jhpiego is working in a number of districts. The VMMC project called Sankhani has spread from Chikwawa, Zomba to Thyolo.

 Why choosing these districts?

“Ministry of Health and USAID after World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation identified some districts which were a priority due to high HIV prevalence. The three are among the priority districts,” says Lionel Chipeta, Communications and Demand Creation Manager.

As Chipeta shows the figures of the number of clients that have received smart cut, he reveals that they foster demand creation through interpersonal communication.

“Mostly we are using Interpersonal communication which triggers honest discussions with individuals and groups. We also have events like pool tournament, bawo tournament, football bonanzas which are simply crowd pullers and then we engage them into discussions using Community Mobilizers,” he adds.

Two main obstacles are apparent so far. In the three districts where implementation work is being carried out, Chipeta says, they “still haven’t registered a lot more of the older population.”  Those that are above 15 haven’t been forth comingas expected.  

“At national level, Malawi has done about 7% of the modelled targeted number while countries like Tanzania have reached about 90% of their target, Botswana is at 41% while Zambia is around 53%. As a nation, we is still very low in reaching our expected target to halt more HIV cases as desired.”Adds Chipeta.

“We still have people failing to comprehend and understand the science behind VMMC,” he adds.

So far, as they look forward to next year, Chipeta believes progress has been admirable. They only need to strengthen the approaches to reach out to more young adults, especially those between ages of 15-29. This group is at high risk as it is very sexually active.

Jhpiego’s approach has embraced the enormous involvement of community leaders such chiefs.  

“Chiefs are custodians of culture and they are in authority in the districts we are currently working. It is credible to involve them so that this intervention is not seen as an alien intervention. At all levels people have to understand the science behind VMMC and how it works,” Chipeta concludes.

 VMMC is a Ministry of health intervention. For its success, the Ministry is working with a number of partners. Jhpiego is one of them. Jhpiego is implementing partner with funding from Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  

Blind but still Stepping on

It all started with a rumour making rounds. It was said that in Nthole Village in Nsanje district, there is a woman. Edna Gerald was the name of the woman, and something was happening to her. She is blind too. Another challenge too…

The rumour had it that a husband to Edna Gerald didn’t like her due to her status for being HIV positive. The fact that she had been put on a life prolonging drugs treatment didn’t go well with her husband.

When Gerald was put on life prolonging drugs, the husband went to the extent of throwing drugs into the toilet. He didn’t want her to be taking drugs.

What made the situation heart tingling was the fact that the woman was and is still blind.

“It really pained us when we got wind of the rumour says,” Eunice Ngolombe, chairperson of COWLHA in Nsanje district says.

As Edna Gerald staggers with her walking stick and being assisted by Eunice Ngolombe, she looks so quite…silent. But out of that silence she has a tale to tell.

At a time that Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS is striving to reach out to as many women as possible, the most vulnerable and easily forgotten groups like the blind are not being left behind.

Edna Gerald is one such woman.

Gerald says after getting ill, her parents took her home to Fatima. And when she got tested it was found that she was HIV positive.

But things became worse when she came back to Nsanje. Her husband didn’t want to see her wife to be taking life prolonging drugs.

“When people see you taking life prolonging drugs, what will I say?” she remembers his quizzical expression at the time.

“He was throwing them [drugs] in toilets. I mean drugs,” says Gerald. “Yet it’s him who brought me the virus.”

She never had the much needed care.

Stepping Stones members heard about the rumour. They had to intervene. And they stepped in.

“Together with Mai Mtima Bii, District Coordinator for COWLHA, we visited her home. And asked what happened,” says Ngolombe, adding that after being told the whole ordeal we urged her husband to go and have HIV test.

But how did they convince the husband to go for HIV test?

“We told him about the benefits of having an HIV test to himself, the wife as well as the dependents,” she says.

Whenever members of Stepping Stones are meeting, Edna Gerald is always involved.

“With Tiwoloke, I have a family,” Gerald finishes.

Theatre reducing Intimate Partner violence

For Maxwell Jackson, hailing from Zinyemba Village, Group Village Headman Nandaya, TA Kachere in Dedza district to come to a gathering called by members of Stepping Stones, the presence of drama is the major pull factor.

Through careful articulation of issues members of Tiwoloke are able to priorities issues. As process continues, members are able to create messages that result in a Play. Once that is done, through rehearsals a Play is staged.

Jackson says, “Through such an approach we are able to laugh while at the same time get the much needed message. You see life is tough as such to get serious message while laughing through drama it helps a great deal.”

Such an approach has proved to be vital as it attracts a lot of people who look forward to get entertained only to get the message as well.

According to a participatory communication called Through Our Eyes that run in countries like Liberia, Rwanda, Southern Sudan, Uganda and Thailand which encouraged local participation through Theatre in collaboration between American Refugee Committee (ARC) and Communication for Change (C4C), “the use of community-driven participatory communication initiatives tailored to local contexts and priorities.”

Communities with COWHLA’s guidance are able to use their local knowledge and disseminate information thereby reaching out to many people with information.

Saving Namikoko’s soles through radio

By Pacharo Felix Munthali

It is Wednesday. 26 August 2009. This is Namikoko Clinic. It is part of mobile clinic services of Mlambe Hospital and the District Health Officer. This is the only day in a month that people under TA Lundu, Group Headman Mkumba receive the Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART).

For the people surrounding Namikoko to start accessing the drug, it has been a long journey. It is a battle fought by a women group. The situation was critical. Men also joined the cause. “We saw that if the problem is to be dealt with, we, men should take part,” says James Bwanali, an active member of the group.

Under the banner of the National Aids Commission’s (NAC) Tigwirane Manja, Nanjiri Radio Listening Club (RLC) is just one of the many RLCs that sprouted throughout the country from 2005, managed by Malawi Broadcasting Cooperation’s Development Broadcasting Unit (DBU).

Today is the third time to access the drug, an activity that takes place once a month. Yet it is a story that spins years of struggle as well.

Within this group, there is a woman. She has seen her family wobble, one child after another passing away. Her future crumbled before her face. The demise of her two children meant the responsibility horizon widening – she had to take care of the six siblings of her two children that had passed away within six months in 2007.

She was not the only one facing the hitches; more people were going through the same cycle of helplessness. May be different but with one common root, of course - the distance.

As the Chairperson of Nanjiri RLC Dolla Tanga sits and casts her gaze, she shakes her head. She tries to smile, but the smile quickly fades. She looks as if any minute tears will freely flow to the cold floor of this modest house. She is one of the fewest that took part in this problem of HIV and AIDS.

“I myself take ARVs,” she starts a story that snakes through highs and lows that has not only adversely devastated her family, but wrecked her community too.

“One of my children was HIV positive. When he got very ill I had to go to Chiradzulu and receive ARVs for him,” Tanga a Chairperson of Nanjiri Radio Listening Club digs on.

She had to walk for three hours. Many were there, from even further distances, yet they were languishing despite arriving fast. Paradoxically, those near the centre were served first.

“What I saw touched me,” she says.

It is such a distance from home to the ARV dispensing centre. It was time to do something.

She might have been lucky to walk such a distant due to her fitness. But there are many that cover more than such distances foregoing excruciating pain. The distance from Nanjiri to Lirangwe is a long one too; covering more than 20 km.

The long journey

It was sometime back. 2006. The group from Nanjiri recorded a village voice, a tape containing problems that the people in the area face in relation to the HIV and AIDS. The village voice is the views of the communities recorded.

Nanjiri RLC has more than twelve members. It has done a number of programmes that have been aired on MBC radio. They have done programmes to do with stigmatization, and Voluntary Counseling and Testing among other issues. The focus on the latter was distance. The communities under Group Mkumba wanted the VCT to be within their area. They succeeded.

As a follow up to this event on1^st December 2006 at Mdeka during the World AIDS Day, says Tanga, the group met the District Health Officer. They gave the DHO the tape containing their recorded problems.

“But when we made follow ups, the group was told the tape was missing,” recalls the Chairperson, a reminiscence of the past years of hardship becomes conspicuous.

It is a journey shaped by personal turbulents too. After losing two children, leaving behind six children together – seeing how both had struggled to access the drug because of the distance – it was time to set off.

When the Blantyre Assembly asked the Development Broadcasting Unit (DBU) to work in this area under Tigwirane Manja project funded by NAC, hopes of the people surged. It was time for action.

Came 2008, the Nanjiri group upon seeing some of the problems they were grappling in continuing, they agreed to take up the issue once more. And for all. They went to Lirangwe where Mlambe Hospital had a mobile centre that is used to administer life-prolonging drugs. “We asked who is responsible for distributing ARVs,” one of the Nanjiri RLCs members recalls.

Perhaps it is on 6 June 2009 when this long sad chapter finally begun to close. It is the day the District Health Officer for Blantyre; Dr Lillian Chunda was exceptionally responsive to the community demands. The Department of Health in its research last year says, there are about 30 000 people on ARTs in Blanytre.

However, the sad fact is that the majority of those on ARTs are those from Blantyre urban areas. This means that many from rural areas are deprived of the drug.

According to Dr Chunda, Mlambe Hospital alone was helping 3000 people by giving them ARTs. These are the people from Chileka, Lundu, Lirangwe and Mdeka among others. She is convinced by the resilience of DBU communities. “These efforts must reach more places,” she says.

This perhaps is the reason why Nanjiri RLC in 2008 was voted the best radio listening club of the year. It got K75 000 from sponsoring companies in an MBC organized event. The money is used by the Club in crisscrossing in all 14 catchment areas in the area of TA Lundu.

Reflections and the present

Today Group Village Headman Mkumba can afford a smile radiating satisfaction. He grins as he looks directly into my eyes. His mouth opens. “During that time people were afraid of having a voluntary testing of blood,” the past twinkles in his eyes. “I am a happy ma, we did it.”

The advocacy and awareness through Development Broadcasting Unit (DBU) acted as a catalyst for change. “Messages have now reached every corner,” Group Village Headman with a pleased chuckle in his voice.  

“Now people are happy. They now believe in themselves. They know that the future is in their hands,” says Bwanali.

“Today we have a rule,” he stops only to resume his recount, few seconds later. “In those days the youths could marry one another anyhow. Today they are supposed to first have their blood tested before going into marriage.”

With the help of radio, the people are undertaking many initiatives. This is why the Director of Programmes Geoffrey Kazembe, representing the Director General of MBC, called the initiative as “crucial.”

“This initiative is crucial in underlining the cooperation amongst organizations and the people they serve,” Kazembe says adding that MBC is committed to march its role of educating, informing and entertaining the nation in line with people’s wishes.

It is only through the involvement of the people that the country can develop and achieve all pillars as contained in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS).

“This initiative,” says Kazembe “is a witness of this cooperation.”

Vision

Today the whole area of TA Lundu is a happy one. “Our area was lagging behind, now we are empowered, we can demand responsiveness from duty bearers and expect answers,” the Group Mkumba says.

Hamilton Chimala, the Project manager of DBU says the Unit has it own vision. In all 14 districts that the Unit is covering, it scaling up its presence on the ground to at least have a RLC in every Traditional Authority.

Just as the Unit is having its own vision, the area today is having its own vision with diverse focus too. Now the area wants to focus on the environment, too. Chivumbe Hills barely have any tree. The groundwork has already started. The relationship with HIV and AIDS and livelihood is so distinct.

However, for today it is time to join happy singing. A new chapter has opened. The distances will at least be forgotten. Tomorrow, through radio, on the menu is the issue of a maternity facility. They are saving their soles from long distances…again…