Frequently Asked Questions
Do you pay your writers?
No, unfortunately we can’t pay writers. We’re not even paying our moderators, researchers and editors!
Do you accept writing from countries other than Bangladesh and Haiti?
We are glad to receive writing from anywhere. For the first six months of this project—until August 2010—we’ll only be publishing material from and about Bangladesh and Haiti, but if by then we’ve been sent a good range of material from, say, Cameroon and Uganda, that would be a very strong argument for making Cameroon and Uganda the next two countries to include when we expand.
When I write about someone, should I use his or her real name?
Whenever possible, yes. If you feel you would be invading the person’s privacy or putting them at risk, then yes, we’d like you to change their name but tell the reader that you have done so.
My English is not very good. Do you still want me to send you my writing?
Yes. If possible, try to find an English speaker who can help you say what you mean. If you can’t find an English-speaker who can help, send us your writing anyway, in English and your own language. We’ll do our best to find someone who can convert your writing into good English, and then we’ll send it back to ask you if we’ve managed to say what you wanted to say.
My writing is not very good. Do you still want me to send it?
Yes. Most people can write much better than they think they can. If you tell your story simply, clearly and in detail, it will almost always be powerful. If we think we can help you make yourself understood more clearly, we’ll offer suggestions.
Will you censor what I write?
No. We want to support an open exchange of information and ideas.
Will you edit what I write?
Quite likely. Nobody says exactly what they mean at the first attempt, and nothing helps a writer more than working with a good editor who understands what the writer is trying to achieve and can see how to bring out the very best in a piece of writing. That’s our goal.
Can I send you writing without putting my name on it?
In general, we want to encourage people to stand by their writing, but if you feel that what you say will put you at risk or in danger, then yes, ask us to leave your name off the piece of writing.
Can I take writing from your site and use it myself?
You may take writing from this site and use it for teaching or for non-profit purposes as long as you give credit to the writer and to The World’s Children Online. You may NOT use any of the writing from this site for commercial purposes without the written permission of both the writer and The World’s Children Online.
Is this, in effect, just a high-functioning blog?
Deceptively complicated question. First of all, for many people the word “blog” implies people with no writing skill and nothing to say throwing words out onto the Internet with no apparent purpose. I think it’s pretty clear that a strong sense of purpose is involved here, not only on our part but (perhaps more importantly) on the part of our contributors. What we’ve already seen is that these are people who know a lot and care deeply about their subject, and as such what they write is well worth reading.
Well, then, is this still a blog, even if a high-functioning one? Um, yes—but we don’t think that’s either a criticism or a limitation. In Haiti and Bangladesh, and probably even more in other countries that we hope to include eventually, the very notion of a blog on healthcare issues is at least unusual and perhaps even illegal. In many countries, news on healthcare issues can be officially controlled–very, very controlled in many cases. This control may come from government, seeking to suppress anything that makes it look anything but perfect, or by official academic sources, which discourage the writing and publication of anything except technical articles in peer-reviewed journals. If we do nothing else but expand the range of published conversation within such countries, I think we’ll have achieved something.
Beyond that, though, we’ve also found that limits on communication mean that one group in one country within the developing world may well be working on exactly the same issue as another group in another country, but neither knows of each other. By putting these materials on line in searchable form we raise the likelihood that conversation or collaboration might take place.
Finally, by using First-World technology but putting it in the hands of users from the developing world, we’re helping to reverse an especially thorny but largely invisible issue in global healthcare communication–namely, that prestige, professional advancement and funding are intimately connected with recognition in the peer-reviewed journals of the West, yet those very journals are almost entirely closed to those in the developing world. And this despite the fact that the developing world is where many public health issues are at their most urgent, and in the case of infectious disease, where we see the emergence of problems that may go on to threaten the world. Healthcare workers in the South and East simply can’t catch the ear of the West. So our goal is to open up this door and help them write about their experiences, issues and concerns (and yes, that’s a kind of unusually informed, high-functioning blog, I suppose) in a forum that allows them to be heard.
If this works, it will also help to do something even more unusual–which is to allow the people of Bangladesh, for example, to set the healthcare agenda for Bangladesh in the eyes of the world. When I was in Pakistan writing my polio book, the level of frustration there was intense, because everyone knew they could say, “Thanks very much, but our real problem, you know, isn’t polio; it’s lack of universal access to clean water and effective sanitation” until they were blue in the face, and nobody from the West would listen.
That’s really our ambition: to open lines of communication that in turn may help draw attention where it is really needed.