Millennium development Goal Project

INTRODUCTION:
Millennium Development goals (MDGS) are the set of programs with the objectives of helping
the poor and underdeveloped countries, which was introduced for the first time in millennium
summit in September 2000. The summit was the largest in the history with all the world leaders
as they adopted the UN Millennium projects with global partnership. The main objectives of the
MDGs are to improve the economy, health, basic education, sanitation, hunger, equal gender
rights and basic human needs of the citizens of the underdeveloped and developing countries.
MY COUNTRY OF CHOICE FOR MDG PROJECT:
My country of choice for MDG project for HSC 317 is NEPAL. Nepal is a small and beautiful
landlocked country between India and China and is my birth place. It carried the longest history
of the constitutional Monarchy and only Hindu Kingdom in the entire world until it was
officially declared the federal democratic republic of Nepal on Dec 2007. A decade long civil
armed conflict between the communist party ( Maoist) and the government, and the removal of
the monarchy has left the country with no physical infrastructures, loss of thousands of innocent
lives and the political instability that may be will not recover anytime soon. Nepal is home to the
tallest mountain in the world Mt. Everest and the birth place of Gautam Buddha.
MY OBJECTIVE OF CHOICE: My objective of choice is MGD goal 3 Promote gender Equality
and empower Women. This goal targets No 4 which is to eliminate gender disparity in primary
and secondary education, preferably by 2005,and in all levels of education no later than 2015 as
cited in MDGs project web page. MY main objective in this report is to discuss the health
challenges which are directly and indirectly related to the gender inequity and the womens
position in the society, and the significant progresses that Nepal has been able to make with the
help of MDGs, and their current status towards achieving the target. Nepal has already achieved
the indicator target of the ratio of girls and boys in primary education (2015 target =1.0, current
status 1.02) and very close to achieve the indicator target of ratio of girls and boys in secondary
education ( 2015 target=1.0,current status =0.99), however it looks unlikely that the country will
be able to meet its targets for both the ratio of girls to boys in tertiary education and the ratio of
literate women aged 15-24 to literate men of the same age group because of so many reasons
among which is the gap in the budgets, the government inability to supply scholarships to the
students and also a political instability as I view the crisis in our country.
Before I start addressing the possible outcomes of gender inequity and applying the principles of
spectrum of prevention I would like to illustrate few examples of gender inequalities among
them many of those still exists in our society in one way or other but is changing certainly but
slowly. Females are blamed for the birth of the female child as they believed that because of her
it was not a baby boy. Male child is given more preference ever since the birth of the child. They
are fed good and nutritious food, sent to expensive private schools for better education, do
whatever they want to do, be the head of the family and inherit the parental property, and are free
to live a life their way after the death of their wife whereas the female child has hardly any of
these privileges most of the time none of them. After the death of the husband her life almost is a
dead end, she grieves all her life and are not even supposed to wear red bright and beautiful

dresses not only that but are hated in the society thinking that the death of her husband is her
fault.
So, those were the basic examples of gender inequity in Nepal and there are many more
uncountable disparities. Now let us discuss on how those inequities will create health hazards.
The gender inequities affects women health ever since she is a little girl. The demand of growing
up, the menstrual cycle, the hormonal changes through puberty, these all affects women health in
one way or other but with the way the society treats and looks females they are not always
necessarily able to fulfil their nutritional values, the rest needed for the body, the psychological
aspects of life as well as the self-respect, self-esteem and the desire to live a life. There is a
practice where when a girl get the menstrual cycle every month she cant touch any one until the
fourth day of the cycle, she cant go in the kitchen, face her brother and father, cant even drink
water from the tap and has to wait for someone to give her food and drink as she is considered
unholy or dirty at the time. Which is fair if we think from the sanitary point of view but due to
lack of education and social construction of difference unfortunately it makes the girls suffer
from lack of nutrition, care and fulfillment of the emotion needs. They often find themselves
worthless and a burden to the society as there is no one to turn to. As she gets bigger there is
nothing better she can do to herself neither to her children as nothing in the society values her as
a human being, values her opinion and her decision and her willingness to learn and make better
choices which ultimately leads to women being victim of rape domestic violence, increased risk
of maternal mortality and infant mortality, depression, and different reproductive health problems
including chronic joint and back pains.
As discussed above we have handful of challenges that exists in Nepali community, now I will
be applying four spectrum of preventions and discuss the way to achieve the objective set by
MGDs

The first spectrum I am applying is strengthening individual knowledge and skills. The
UNDP and many other UN programs with Nepal government are helping the females who
were left dreamless and hopeless after the decade long war, are now being offered the
different skill training like cutting, knitting, stitching, gardening, tailoring so they could
restart their life and can generate income needed for the family. There are also different
women groups known as mahila samuha in which they meet every week or month and talk
about different issues in community and country, there are opportunities to let them learn
basic reading and writing for the illiterate mothers, they save some little money every month
in the group which they use to help each other in need with no interest for the group
members.
The second spectrum I am applying is promoting community education. The level of
community education is improving due to the improvement in technologies as these days
even the poorest country with poorest people have some source of media outlet to learn about
different issues. For those who cant read and write there are advertisement made in radio
and television in which they can see listen and understand. Also the word of mouths, in the
context of Nepal there are different women health worker volunteers who are sent to different
parts of village to let them know about the date and time of the immunizations, or the camp
to make citizenship care or voting registration on to one knocking at individual doors from

community to community, Which let people feel like they are being cared by and its for their
good health which has really positive outcomes in Nepalese society today.
The third and the very important spectrum I am applying is fostering coalitions and networks.
This is Important because it is the key to meet the objective of spectrums. It is very important
to collaborate with different local groups or individual to bring the community together from
a local level to a government level forming a common ground to help achieve the goals.
Partnership and collaboration works as a puzzle that without one the other in incomplete and
thus cant reach the finish line.
And the last spectrum I am applying is influencing policy and legislation. After all of the
above spectrums are met the final step is making them a policy and legislating them. Until
there is no written policy influenced by government it is hard for us to see a solid and
measurable. In the context of Nepal due to the instability in government which is full of
corruption the MDGs goal on meeting the equity in tertiary education ending the domestic
violence has not been near to meeting the objective. One of the target is to improve
institutional capacities to address gender-based violence and adopt a policy of zero tolerance.
And adopt the goal of reducing gender-based violence by half with in a fixed timeframe. But
due to lack of initiative from government to build the policy and to continue to follow up
these issues are less likely to be met, which will only victimize the children and women and
stop them from being empowered.

HEALTHY PEOPLE 2020

INTRODUCTION: Healthy people 2020 is a ten years objective plan set by US government only
for the people of United States which focus on four goals Attain high-quality longer lives free
of preventable disease, disability, injury, and premature death Achieve health equity, eliminate
disparities, and improve the health of all groups.
MY COMMUNITY OF CHOICE AND THE OBJECTIVE:
My community of choice is Mt.Pleasant Michigan. It is a small college town with the
population of 26,185 (2013).The town carries the long history of Native American communities
called Chippewa Indian Tribe. The major problem in the Native American tribe is the Mental
health and mental disorder. As we all know the native Indians of this land carried a long history
years before the land of freedom America was found but different social cultural and political
genocides in history left the natives terrorizes hurt helpless and minority which has left the
serious mental health issues till todays date. Different social issues leaves them vulnerable of
highest drug abuse and suicide rate in unites states at todays date. The Objective of healthy
people 2020 focuses on reducing the current data of 1 in 17 people of having serious mental
illness, leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada, accounting for 25 percent of
all years of life lost to disability and premature mortality and suicide being the 11th leading
cause of death in the United States, accounting for the deaths of approximately 30,000
Americans each year. Mental health plays a vital role in individuals balanced social and physical
health. My objective goal is MHMD-9.1Increase the proportion of adults aged 18 years and older
with serious mental illness (SMI) who receive treatment. The baseline data is 65.7 percent of

adults aged 18 years and older with serious mental illness (SMI) received treatment in 2008 and
the target is 10 percent improvement leading it to 72.3 percent. The suicide rate increased
18.3% between 2000 and 2011, from 10.4 to 12.3 per 100,000 population (age adjusted) and
varied by sex and race and ethnicity. For example, in 2011Males had 20.0 suicides per 100,000
population (age adjusted), nearly four times the suicide rate for females, 5.2 per 100,000.The
non-Hispanic black population had 5.5 suicides per 100,000 population (age adjusted), compared
with 10.6 per 100,000 for the American Indian or Alaska Native, nearly twice the rate for the
non-Hispanic black population, and 15.5 per 100,000 for the non-Hispanic white population,
nearly three times the rate for the non-Hispanic black population as listed in the healthy people
2020 website. It is very important for the country like America to achieve the best possible health
of its citizen as we have the rights to gun here in this country every morning I wake up with the
news of innocent people dying due to gun violence. And just to understand those gun violences
are not the act of terrorism but the insanity most of the time. All these people who believe in gun
rights should be encouraged more to go for a regular mental health clinic even if no symptoms
occur so we can reduce the killings and mass shootings. This is a very serious problem America
has and no other country has which is extremely sad. In 2010, the second most frequent cause of
death for people between the ages of 15 and 24 was homicide, and83 percent of those homicides
were committed with a gun. Mental health disorder is not only challenging for the individual and
their family but also puts the whole community in risk of getting unintentional injuries and
sometimes loss of life and is very important to work towards improving it by using the spectrum
of primary prevention. Among the six spectrum I would be using one spectrum to discuss about
the problem and how will it help to meet the target.
I am choosing the third level of spectrum that is educating the providers for my healthy people
2020 objective of choice. America is a very developed country with all its basic structures,
functions, and policy and legislation well build and implemented and so to me the need of
educating the providers seems the most important. The medical system of America is based on
the treatment basis but not focused on prevention. The country that can provide the cure of
uncountable disease for free to its people is lacking the preventing teaching and educations that
can be provided to the clients by the providers way before the disease takes place but since the
health insurance and the medical institute benefits from this massive sickness they seem to be
careless about it. I would like to give example of how education by the provider helps increase
our target of improving the mental health of the American people. When the people go for their
annual physical checkup or any doctors visit if the providers or the doctors would take a detail
history of the patients physical mental and emotional status and talk to the client in a more
therapeutic basis I am sure the problems will be identified in their early stage if not it prevents it
from even being a problem. But the health practice in America is very different where they just
come and check the client for what you went for and they would not try to find any mental
causes until you show the serious mental health symptoms. Not only in the health sectors even
the educators in school and colleges if they would frequently talk about the life challenges and
the best ways to solve without getting frustrated by conducting different mental health education,
seminars, and counseling frequently in school level, county level college level this problem
would be no issue. Educating them about the importance of healthy food and drinks for healthy
brain function, the need of enough rest and proper exercise to keep the brain and body healthy

and educating them about the importance of consuming the foods that are less in preservatives
also would help in overall development of healthy community and would help to meet the
healthy peoples objectives.
As we come to the end of this report I would like to summarize in my own word. The MDGs
objectives have helped the underdeveloped and developing countries like Nepal to overcome so
many of the gender inequity challenges and has helped empowering women with different
informal education , skill trainings and has helped in one way or other to uplift their health and
living but this is just not enough. Similarly The Healthy People project has focused on improving
the overall health of the American people with the ten year objective aiming the healthy America.
It has been helping specially to the minority population and those with low social and economic
status. Both of the programs are working hard towards the health improvement of its people
however until the change in our beliefs of man and woman, poor and rich, powered and less
powered, black and whites or any of the socially constructed tags these problems will never
come to an end. It has changed a lot due to education, urbanization, migration and technologies
but still they are deep rooted somewhere within us, within the people in the government and
within the political parties. The community people should be willing to help each others to
achieve these goals. And therefore as a community health educators I believe that it is my job
and job of many people just like me to bring awareness, to educate them to let them know their
basic human rights to be their voice and advocate to improve their quality of life and to meet the
MDGs and healthy people objectives.

References:

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