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Africa Educates Her Campaign - Angola. Season 3. Don't Miss Out! Webisode 38

 Our girls back to school campaign is ongoing. Day 38

The impact of school closures on student learning has been a topic of heated debate since they first became a tool in the battle against the pandemic COVID-19. 

Today we invite Lucrecia, she will share with us the impact that Covid-19 had on her studies.

Good afternoon, my name is Lucrécia Mateus, I am a senior in high school.

Talking about the impact that Covid-19 had on my life, I would like to stress my daily school routine first. Considering the fact that we were used to a certain daily school routine and we were about to finish the academic year, when the pandemic appeared we had a stop of the year, this changed the plans and expectations we had for the year.

Speaking about biosecurity conditions, I would like to see some changes in basic conditions like hand sanitizers and water for hand washing. Because I have noticed that there are schools that still do not guarantee good conditions for their students and not only. Let the school create better conditions!

I would also like to appeal to be more vigilant for those who have so far been unable to return to school because they have lost their jobs. Since many people depended on their jobs to pay their school fees and we know that this pandemic has resulted in a high number of unemployed people.

Speaking of your academic performance, how did covid-19 affect your studies before and after the pandemic, is there any difference?

The difference is only in that custom that I had to study daily, with the pandemic I no longer have the same habit of studying daily as it was before, I got lazy and not only, maybe also because we thought that we would only return to school the following year, but when we hear in the news that we must return to studies, we are trying to fit in the new standard that was created with the rules of the pandemic for students. We are living like this.

How did your exams go? Haven't you forgotten anything you've studied before?

I forgot, of course, but the essentials were not forgotten.

How have teachers been behaving?

They behave in a way that matches the current state we are in.

Have you been following the coronavirus prevention measures?

Yes, I am following.

What are the preventive measures against covid-19 that you follow?

After leaving the street or a crowded place we must wash our hands with soap and water, use our mask correctly, eating according to the state that our country or the world is in, this means having a diet that helps to strengthen our organism, if one day we get  covid-19 we will have at least one way to get rid of it.

Ok. What did you notice at school? Did all of your colleagues who studied with you before the pandemic return to school?

Since there has been separation of students the number of students in the classroom has reduced, those in my group have all returned, I have no information if there are students who have dropped out. But according to my knowledge, everyone who studied with me before the pandemic returned to school.

The COVID-19 crisis has forced school closures in 188 countries, heavily disrupting the learning process of more than 1.7 billion children, youth, and their families.

It was clearly expected early on that the closures would cause major interruptions to student learning. In fact, estimates suggest that if a student loses about a third of a school year of learning, this is associated with an income loss of about 3% on average over the entire working life.

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We launched this campaign to ensure that every girl is able to learn while schools are closed and return to the classroom when schools safely reopen. Everyone can play a role in supporting girls education - whether you are a teacher, parent, student, journalist, policymaker, or simply a concerned citizen.

Don't miss this opportunity to bring girls back to school. Tell us your story!

Do you have a personal experience with the coronavirus would you like to share? Or a tip on how your town or community is handling the poverty among women?

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Corona Voice - Angola. The tok show with Sofonie Dala. Don't Miss Out! Day 53

 CORONA DANCE. DAY 53

As the pandemic has pressed on, people have found innovative ways to come together. There have been dances of gratitude, dances with masks, dances that connect, as a way of encouraging people to dance their blues away.

Our today's guest  is called Marcelina, she is going to dance for us.

Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you our dancer Marcelina!

                                 

Hello everyone! My name is Marcelina. I have not been studying since May 1, 2020 because of  the covid-19, but this does not stop me from dancing.

How are you all making work under lockdown and what concerns has this crisis raised for you? 

Lockdown has given us permission to reimagine what making art might look like.

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This is the first and the only Coronavirus show in Angola where the most ordinary citizens show their brilliant talents.

The heroes of the program are the most ordinary citizens - they share with the audience their songs, poems and real stories of how the Coronavirus pandemic affected their lives.

We launched the “Corona Voice show” campaign to provide a space for young women and men around Angola to share their views, experiences and initiatives.

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Your sponsorship will help the most affected people by covid-19 to take the first step out of poverty.

Portugal’s COVID surge: Record cases, deaths raise alarm

 The rate of new cases was ranked highest in the world last week, and Portugal’s health system is struggling to cope.

As little as nine months ago, Portugal was considered a model of success in the battle against COVID-19, particularly in comparison to neighbouring Spain.

But in early 2021, with the country’s rate of new cases reaching the highest in the world in proportion to its population last week, and ambulances queueing outside Lisbon hospitals as its health service buckles under the strain, it is a grimly different story.

“The main hospitals are overcharged with sick people and doctors,” Manuel Carvalho, the director of one of Portugal’s biggest daily newspapers, Público, told Al Jazeera. “It is increasingly impossible to take care of all people that ask for help. Things are really bad and there are no signs of improvement.”

Record death tolls from the pandemic were set each day last week, rising steadily from 152 on January 17 to 275 on January 24, while on Saturday 15,000 new cases were registered in just  24 hours.

All of this is a far cry from early last year, when Portugal was the last country in Europe to register a COVID-19 case, on March 2.

Having swiftly brought in confinement measures, until May, while Spain’s contagions marked Europe-wide highs, Portugal’s total contagion figures were at times as little as 10 percent of its neighbour.

Record numbers of cases are currently being registered worldwide, and like so many other countries, Portugal is suffering from pandemic fatigue. Authorities are toughening up restrictions after estimating that just 30 percent of the population respects social distancing rules.

However, Francisco Miranda Rodrigues, the president of one of Portugal’s top associations of mental health professionals, Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses (OPP), said: “It’s a complicated cocktail of causes, perhaps unique to Portugal.

“Twenty percent of our population lives in poverty or social exclusion, a very significant figure, and after such a long pandemic their limited resources have been used up. As a result, their ability to follow [the lockdown] rules has gone up in smoke.”

Furthermore, compared with the government’s clear instructions last year, he believes some Portuguese people have been baffled by the authorities’ much more mixed messages recently.

“At first it was easy to say ‘stay home’ to everybody, with no exceptions, and that was it. But when restrictions eased, we needed some higher-risk groups to return to work, so we had to tell them they could go back if they were careful,” Miranda Rodrigues said.

“At the same time, when you’re talking to teenagers you want them to be a little bit more afraid. [But] then you’re telling the elderly to stay home, while others they can go to the cinema: it’s confusing.”

Another important factor, Miranda Rodrigues argues, is a chronic lack of psychological support networks within the public health system, with just 2.5 mental health professionals per 100,000 people.“When a tough situation goes on for months and months, more and more people are vulnerable,” he argued.

“When the pandemic started, a special telephone hotline providing nationwide psychological help was created, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“But that was to act as a quick fix, while more much structured psychological support programs were created. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened.”

Viewed from the other side of the frontier, Guillermo Martínez de Tejada, professor of microbiology and parasitology at the University of Navarra in northern Spain, believes Portugal may have “lowered their guard” after such early success.

“That first victory probably made them too confident and the virus has ended up running wild. They ended up in a trap,” Miranda Rodrigues said.

Maria Antónia Duarte Silva, a teacher and lifelong Lisbon resident, said: “Back in March, people here were really scared, we didn’t know what was happening. We could see the damage COVID-19 was causing close by, first in Italy and then even closer in Spain. So when the government said “stay at home”, people obeyed.

“But people are tired now. When the second lockdown began, I went to the supermarket and it was like COVID didn’t exist. It’s as if the population didn’t want to accept what’s happening.”

The consequences, though, are tragic, as the country’s medical system faces near-collapse in some areas.

As one doctor in one of Portugal’s biggest hospitals told Al Jazeera, “Until recently I was working in a little paradise. But the last three weeks have been terrible.”

Requesting anonymity, she cited recent harrowing cases caused by the medical crisis, like a patient in central Portugal haemorrhaging litres of blood after being forced to wait several hours for an ambulance.

There is talk, too, among colleagues of one hospital running temporarily out of oxygen, another lacking “a minimum of protective equipment”.

“And,” she added, “these are not isolated incidents.”

With roughly a quarter of her medical team now infected with COVID-19, she told Al Jazeera that the internal organisation is badly aggravating the situation, with pathologists, lab doctors and psychologists being roped into work in overwhelmed intensive care units rather than staff with more appropriate skills.

“We could have been much more prepared for this second time. But there is no full emergency plan,” she said.

On the political front, in Sunday’s presidential elections, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected with a hefty 60.7 percent of the vote.

The elections went ahead despite the pandemic, partly because any change of dates would have required overly complex legal alterations of the country’s constitution.

However, a considerable increase in votes for the hard-right Chega Party, from 1.3 percent in the last general election to 11.9 percent on Sunday, was perhaps a warning sign that Portugal’s population is deeply troubled by the nation’s current predicament.

Asked before the election if he expected a big protest vote on Sunday, Miranda Rodrigues argued: “If I’m feeling very tired, and I need answers, then hate speech that blames third parties as exclusively responsible for everything becomes very interesting. It’s a popular narrative, all over the world, the terrain is more favourable now for it to grow. And here in Portugal, too.”

Vaccine battle as EU threatens to BLOCK Pfizer jabs going to UK

 Boris Johnson warned the European Union that he expected it to honour government contracts for coronavirus vaccines as a deepening diplomatic row saw senior Brussels figures accused the UK of stealing jabs destined for countries in the bloc.

The UK and the EU were in a tense stand-off this evening as continental figures attempted to shift blame for its slovenly rollout of the inoculations in comparison to Britain.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen vowed to make firms declare what vaccines they are exporting to the UK as she scrambled to contain the backlash.

The commission president said a ‘transparency mechanism’ is being introduced as she insisted that the bloc ‘means business’ about getting its fair share of supplies.

And in a sign of Brussels’ desperation, an unnamed source told the Telegraph there were suspicions that AstraZeneca jabs earmarked ‘to be delivered to the EU aftermarket authorisation have actually ended up in Britain.’

However, the boss of the British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm tonight fired back at EU health chiefs, insisting Brussels was late with its vaccine order.

Responding to the criticism, Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca, tonight told German paper Die Welt: ‘We signed an agreement with the UK three months before we did with Europe.’

However, he also told the paper that the company was ‘very disappointed’ that supply chain issues had caused a delay in vaccine production – a delay which yesterday sparked the firm to announce it would only be able to supply 31million of 80million doses to EU by end of March.

Meanwhile, fronting a Downing Street press conference tonight, Mr Johnson said he had ‘total confidence’ in the UK’s supply of vaccines.

And in a warning shot at the EU, he added: ‘All I would say is obviously we expect and hope that our EU friends will honour all contracts.

‘And we continue to work with friends and partners in the EU, and indeed around the world, because the delivery of the vaccine has been a multinational effort, the creation of the vaccine has been a multinational effort, and the delivery of the vaccine is multinational as well because the virus knows no borders,’ he said.

The sabre-rattling from Brussels, which comes amid growing chaos and protests across the continent, has incensed senior MPs, with warnings that the EU could ‘poison’ relations for a generation if it blocks some of the 40million Pfizer doses the UK has bought ‘legally and fairly’.

Mr Johnson also offered his ‘deepest condolences’ to those who have lost relatives to coronavirus and pledged to ensure their loved ones are remembered as the Government’s figure for Covid-19 deaths passed 100,000.

The Prime Minister said that when the country comes through the crisis ‘we will come together as a nation to remember everyone we lost and to honour the selfless heroism of all those on the front line who gave their lives to save others’.

People’s Climate Vote: Majority sees climate change as emergency

 The largest global survey on climate change ever conducted has found that 64 percent of people believe that it is an “emergency” and must be addressed urgently, but just 10 percent believe world leaders are doing enough.

The People’s Climate Vote surveyed 1.2 million people in 50 countries using ads in 17 prominent mobile gaming apps. Respondents represent 56 percent of the world’s people over the age of 14, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which worked with pollsters at the University of Oxford to conduct the survey. The results were published on Wednesday.

“There is a groundswell of people that are saying even during a pandemic that climate change is an emergency and here’s how we want to solve it,” Cassie Flynn, UNDP’s strategic adviser on climate change and head of its Climate Promise initiative, told Al Jazeera.

Flynn said she came up with the idea of reaching people through mobile gaming apps such as Words With Friends and Angry Birds while on a train in New York City.

“I was on the subway and every single person was on their phone playing a game, and I asked myself, ‘What is the best way to connect these people with those making important decisions that will affect our lives for generations to come?’” Flynn said.

Flynn said she learned the gaming industry has access to 2.7 billion people worldwide, more than the movie and music industries combined.

So she and her fellow researchers leveraged that access by designing ads for their survey in 17 languages that people could complete on their phones, resulting in “a huge, unique, and random sample of people of all genders, ages, and educational backgrounds”, survey authors wrote.

Young people lead the way

The survey found that in every country, younger people felt more strongly that climate change is an emergency than older people, with 69 percent of those under the age of 18 saying so. But about two-thirds of those aged 18 to 59 also recognise it as an emergency, as well as 58 percent of those over the age of 60.

Of categories of countries surveyed, the highest level of support (74 percent) for urgent climate action came from small island developing states, followed by high-income countries (72 percent), middle-income countries (62 percent), and least developed countries (58 percent).

A woman washes utensils in a pond outside her home on the island of Satjelia in the Sundarbans, India, where people are forced into forests by climate change [File: Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]

Respondents were also asked to rank policy to address climate change by importance. Conserving forests and land came in at the top (54 percent), followed by the need for more solar, wind and renewable power (53 percent), adopting climate-friendly farming techniques (52 percent) and investing more in green businesses and jobs (50 percent).

“People want their voices heard even though right now, they are scared and there is so much instability. They still have ideas about how we can get out of this crisis. Politicians and world leaders need to listen,” Flynn said.

Of the people who believe that climate change is an emergency, 59 percent said that the world should do everything possible to respond to the crisis while 20 percent said the world should act slowly. Just 10 percent said world leaders are already doing enough to address climate change.

The data also reveals a direct link between a person’s level of education and calls for climate action. People with post-secondary education are more likely to say climate change is deserving of immediate action whether they are in low-income countries such as Bhutan (82 percent) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (82 percent) – or wealthy countries like France (87 percent) and Japan (82 percent).

‘Decisions about our future are being locked in now’

Governments around the world have been overwhelmed with the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic as well as a global economic crisis. Resources that may have ordinarily gone to fighting climate change and creating sustainable policies are instead being allocated to halting the spread of the virus and propping up struggling sectors.

Shaqueena Dwi Arsyilla, age two, sits on a bench at Kali Adem port, which is impacted by high tides due to the rising sea level and land subsidence, north of Jakarta, Indonesia [File: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters]

But Flynn told Al Jazeera that addressing the COVID-19 crisis and climate change can go hand in hand.

“This is a moment that we need that ambition,” she said. “Governments are facing extraordinary decisions that will affect generations to come, whether in dealing with COVID-19 or climate. The decisions about our future are being locked in now.”

Dealing with COVID-19 is similar to dealing with the climate crisis, Flynn added, because both require building a sustainable, inclusive and prosperous future for everyone.

Boosting economies in the post-COVID era may also mean governments look at opportunities through a multi-pronged lens. Investing in renewable energy, for example, can create much-needed employment for citizens and it can also provide clean energy sources for entire communities.

“We can do something that would open up opportunity and not only recover from COVID but also address the climate issue,” Flynn said. “People must have enough credibility to have a virtual seat at the table in rooms where decisions are being made.”

Researchers hope the findings of the UNDP survey will help inform countries as they work to develop their national climate pledges, which are also known as nationally determined contributions and are part of nations’ commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA

Angola - President João Lourenço congratulates doctors

 The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, Tuesday congratulated Angolan and foreign doctors who work in Angola, on the occasion of National Doctor's Day, which was celebrated yesterday.

In his Twitter account, the Angolan Head of State paid "heartfelt homage to all those who lost their lives in the exercise of their profession, in a deeply noble and priceless gesture, so that other lives could survive.

João Lourenço said that "the nation recognises all the dedication shown by doctors, not only in this difficult moment of Covid-19, but also in the fight against all other pathologies that, like malaria, acute diarrhoea, hepatitis and others, affect the lives of Angolans on a daily basis".

Official figures point to the need for around 28,000 doctors, for Angola to reach the ratio (one doctor to one thousand inhabitants) recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with the country currently having only 8,000.

The data also indicate that as part of the public tenders held in 2018 and 2019, by the Angolan government, 2,945 doctors were included, out of a total of 26,90 health professionals.

The national health network now has around 100,000 professionals, serving over 30 million inhabitants.

COVID-19: ANGOLA REPORTS 77 NEW CASES, 61 RECOVERIES

 Angola has registered 77 new cases, 61 patients recovered and one death in the last 24 hours.

According to the national epidemiological report, 39 cases were diagnosed in Luanda, 21 in Moxico, 8 in Bié, 6 in Huambo, 2 in Benguela and 1 in Cuanza Sul.

Among the new patients, whose ages range from 8 to 81 years, are 54 males and 23 females.

The death was registered in the province of Huambo.

Of those recovered, 20 are in Cuanza Sul, 18 in Huambo, 12 in Zaire, 4 in Lunda Norte, 4 in Lunda Sul, 2 in Bié and 1 in Luanda, with ages varying from 6 to 72.

Angola has 19,553 positive cases, with 462 deaths, 17,388 recovered and 1,703 active people.

Of the active cases, three are in critical condition, 9 severe, 83 moderate, 95 with mild symptoms and 1,511 asymptomatic.

In the treatment centres there are 192 inpatients, while 120 citizens are in institutional quarantine and 2,500 contacts in surveillance.

The laboratories processed 1,708 samples on the basis of molecular biology (RT-PCR).

Two people left the quarantine centres, one in Bié and one in Cuando Cubango.