A Call For Writing

One of the themes for the American Academy of Pediatrics’ annual convention in October 2010 is “The State of the World’s Children.”
 This is a call for writing for that convention—but a very unusual call, for unusual kinds of writing.

We are planning to develop a web site that will be a focal point for writing about children all over the world. We invite writing from doctors, nurses, social workers, public health employees, NGO employees and everyone else working with and on behalf of children.

But we’re also calling for writing from members of the public: journalists, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters–even visitors to the country who have a chance to observe children. As long as the writing is clear and factually accurate, anyone is invited to take part who has a story to tell that illuminates some aspect of the state of the world’s children.

The first step is to start a pilot program that, for the first six months, will focus on two countries. One will be Bangladesh; the other will be Haiti.

We will accept a wide variety of kinds of writing:

• Scientific, technical and professional articles, whether previously published or not
• As-it-happens blogs and texts
• Case studies
• Personal stories
• Editorials
• Profiles of individual people or individual initiatives
• Project reports
• Accounts by visitors
• Articles/columns/responses by healthcare communication specialists to provide a meta-text to the whole endeavor
• Photos with detailed captions
• We hope even to be able to post comments texted in from cell phones

We encourage writing that includes dialogue, descriptions of places, people and events, and the thoughts and reflections of the writer. Our only stipulation is that each piece must be non-fiction, and must be scientifically accurate on its own terms. The writer may not be able to know the exact truth in all is complexities, but the small, specific part of the truth about which he or she is writing must be accurate.

At the very least this should be interesting. It may even change the way international healthcare communication takes place.

Tim Brookes
brookes@champlain.edu

Upper photograph by Tim Brookes. Lower photograph by Adobemac. Licensed by Creative Commons.

Tags: AAP, Bangladesh, children, healthcare, public health, writers without borders, writing