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ICED Curriculum Download PDF Curriculum | Posted: 02/09/2009 Get your students’ attention with the standards aligned ICED curriculum to teach immigration, due process and human rights lessons. More...

Rights Advocates: A Resource Guide on HIV/AIDS Awareness Download PDF Discussion Guide | Posted: 02/05/2009 A colorful guide for youth trainers to implement HIV/STD education programs in schools and organizations. More...

And yet, there's an additional heartache for Haiti in hearing this news. Why was it so much worse here? Chile's quake registered at 8.8, about 500 times more powerful than Haiti's. But the numbers of Haitian dead have already surpassed 220,000 – close to the horrendous toll of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Chile's dead, at last report, number some 700 – a tragic loss, but orders of magnitude fewer than Haiti's. What explains this deadly disparity?

Where Chile had strict building codes, Haiti suffered from haphazard construction. Poor, rural people had for years flooded into the capital, living in precariously built shantytowns. Lack of enforcement, corruption and weak governance all contributed to grossly magnify the proportions of the catastrophe. It's easy enough to see the exceptions here, which might have been the rule if earthquake-resistant building codes had been enforced: a few solid structures still tower above the rubble – scarred and cracked, to be sure, but standing all the same.

I worry that, as so many times in the past, Haiti will quickly fade from public consciousness, once the world's TV screens are no longer broadcasting terrifying pictures from Port-au-Prince. All the more important that those of us who are working hand in hand with the Haitian people maintain our commitment for the long term, not just with material support but with the determination to rebuild safely and prudently.

The 2010 Gender Links Gender and Media Progress Study found that despite the great strides women have made in breaking political glass ceilings in southern Africa, they are still widely stereotyped in the media. Research found that men dominate in every news category, with women's voices being heard the most on stories related to gender equality, children and media and entertainment.

The country cannot develop if women, who constitute slightly more than half of the population, continue to be treated as second-class citizens and servants of men.