Youth rally at the UN for climate justice. Credit: Abigail Van Neely/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2023 (IPS) – “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” youth chanted in an unusually lively conference at the United Nations Headquarters.
Earlier on Thursday morning (September 14), almost 500 young people had streamed into the room to a DJ’s upbeat soundtrack. Spirits were high despite the more somber rallying cry of this year’s International Day of Peace youth event: the planet is on fire. Many speakers focused on the idea that there cannot be peace without climate justice.
“We cannot begin to talk about peace without talking about the climate crisis,” environmental justice advocate Saad Amer said after leading the crowd in the kind of chants more likely heard at a protest. Fossil fuel disputes spark wars that disproportionately affect people of color, Amer explained. Youth must take charge to “re-write destiny.”
To 21-year-old Mexican climate justice activist Xiye Bastida, “Peace is the ability to drink clean air and clean water.” Bastida, a member of the Otomi-Toltec indigenous community, spoke of her community’s traditional commitment to living in harmony with the earth. Now, indigenous people are being displaced as regenerative practices are forgotten. Bastida called for a world free of extreme weather and exploitation. The climate crisis reflects a broken system, she said, but peace is the bravery to imagine a better world.
Young people are “creating a youth movement for climate action, seeking racial justice, and promoting gender equality,” the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, told the audience. In a recorded statement, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated that youth action has power. Still, only four governments have concrete plans to include young people in policymaking, Youth Envoy Jayathma Wickramanyake noted.
As she lived through brutal conflicts in her home country of Sri Lanka, Wickramanayake said she wondered why people around her continued to fight. Today, she told other young activists that the root causes of conflict always run deep – from inequality to poverty. She stressed that peace cannot be differentiated from development.
The event occurs days before the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Summit, a critical opportunity for world leaders to address failures to implement the goals so far.
“Next week there will be an important breakthrough in creating the conditions to rescue the sustainable development goals. I’m very hopeful that the SDG summit will indeed represent a quantum leap in the response to the dramatic failures that we have witnessed,” Guterres said during a news conference.
Meanwhile, youth are left with memories of their chants: “The oceans are rising, and so are we!” “We are unstoppable – another world is possible!”
Hundreds of Malawians have stormed the social media celebrating a rare feat achieved by American lawyer of Malawi Origin Moyenda Mutharika Knapp saying she has put Malawi on the map.
Moyenda Mutharika Knapp, has been shortlisted among the top 100 black American attorneys by the National Black Lawyers, an elite network of legal experts in the United States who are selected based on their success and influence based for providing excellent legal representation in their respective practice areas.
According to the National Black Lawyers website https://nbltop100.org. The daughter to former President Peter Mutharika, Moyenda has made it to the 100 Top Black American Lawyers in the USA.
She is an attorney with in-house and law firm experience with experience handling employer side employment law, commercial litigation, and ERISA long term disability matters.
Among other things, Moyenda Knapp has represented employers in employment law matters; plans, administrators, and employers in ERISA long term disability lawsuits; and companies in business disputes.
In an interview with our publication, the former Malawi’s leader daughter said she has over the years defended employers in employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination cases in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies, such as the Illinois Department of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and that based on her performance, she thinks that has helped her to be enlisted among the top 100 Black Lawyers in the USA.
The US-Based Malawian barrister has been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where she teaches two courses: Trial Advocacy and Civil Discovery since 2005.
She is admitted in Illinois,U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, including the Trial Bar, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, U. S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Washington, DC (Inactive but in good standing),Massachusetts (Retired but in good standing)
The National Black Lawyers Association in the United States has named Moyenda Mutharika-Knapp, the daughter of former Malawi President Peter Mutharika, among the top 100 Black Lawyers in the United States of America.
Mutharika-Knapp is among top 100 black in a country with over 1.3 million active lawyers.
“[National Black Lawyers Association} selects the most successful and influential lawyers with reputations for providing excellent legal representation in their respective practice areas. In sum, we are an African-American legal brain trust,” reads the Association’s website.
The National Black Lawyers Association has recognized Moyenda Mutharika-Knapp
Moyenda is the second-born daughter of Mutharika who also worked as a law professor in the United States before joining politics in Malawi.
According to the National Black Lawyers Association website, she is an attorney with in-house and law firm experience and has experience handling employer side employment law, commercial litigation, and long term disability matters.
She has also represented employers in employment law matters; plans, administrators, and employers in long term disability lawsuits; and companies in business disputes.
“I have defended employers in employment discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination cases in state and federal courts and before administrative agencies, such as the Illinois Department of Human Rights, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). I draft employment related documents, such as separation agreements, and provide employment counseling.
“Since 2005 I have been an adjunct professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, where I teach two courses: Trial Advocacy and Civil Discovery,” she says in her entry on the website.
National Black Lawyers Association has listed former President Professor Peter Mutharika’s daughter Moyenda Mutharika Knapp among 100 top Black American Lawyers in United States of America (USA).
According to National Black Lawyers Association website, Mutharika’s daughter Moyenda has in-house law firm experience, handling employer side employment law, commercial litigation and long term disability matters.
Moyenda who is admitted to bar in Illinois, also teaches trial advocacy and civil discovery as adjunct professor at Northwestern university Pritzker school of law since 2005.
There are over 1.3 million active lawyers in USA according to the American Bar Association.
One of the country’s legal experts, Ngeyi Kanyongolo says this is an achievement which speaks to high level of excellence and an inspiration to many lawyers especially female lawyers in Malawi.
The National Black Lawyers was created to celebrate legal excellence by promoting our attorneys as subject-matter experts, developing a strong national network of top African American attorneys, and facilitating the exchange of timely information to enable our members to maintain their status as leaders.
Daughter of former President Peter Mutharika, Moyenda has been selected among the 100 Top Black American Lawyers in the USA by the National Black Lawyers Association.
The development has excited many Malawians especially Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters who have taken to social media to congratulate her.
DPP Councilor for Blantyre City Soche East Ward Leonard Chimbanga wrote: “Congratulations to Moyenda Mutharika Knapp who is an American Lawyer of Malawi origin to be selected among the 100 Top Black American Lawyers in the USA by the National Black Lawyers Association.”
Concurring with Chimbanga’s remarks DPP’s legal advisor Charles Mhango wrote: “Congratulations to Moyenda for this achievement. This is no mean achievement in the legal profession, more particularly in the United States of America. We are all very proud of this achievement.”
Moyenda is currently based in United States of America.
Newswise — CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Since it’s discovery in 1910, sickle cell disease has been considered a death sentence for those that inherited it. But over the years, dedicated pediatric programs and research initiatives have greatly improved patient care and life expectancy.
Giving these patients the care they require still presents a number of challenges, including inadequate funding for sickle cell programs, lack of research, and limited access to healthcare.
Sickle cell disease, also known as sickle cell anemia, is an inherited red blood cell disorder that is woefully underfunded and under researched. The disease affects about 5,000 North Carolinians, predominantly African Americans and Hispanics.
Normally, red blood cells look like throwing discs. In patients with sickle cell disease, affected blood cells resemble the curved blade of a sickle. As these abnormally shaped red blood cells travel through the blood vessels, they cause traffic jams and block blood supply to organs and other areas of the body. The subsequent blockage can then cause inflammation, debilitating pain, fatigue, and many other health problems.
“People with sickle cell are superheroes,” said Little, a UNC Health hematologist who specializes in the care of sickle cell patients. “They’re managing hemoglobin levels that would make me swoon. They have to put up with fatigue that would stun the rest of us. But they’re always on the edge. And any little thing that triggers their sickle cell disease can be life-threatening.”
Medicine, Research, and the Lack Thereof
There have been a few medical advancements in the past several years to help prevent or reduce the production of sickle-shaped red blood cells.
In 2017, the FDA approved several treatments for sickle cell disease, including L-glutamine, crizanlizumab-tmca, and voxelotor. Some medications can run upwards of $100,000 a year. For families with more than one member with sickle cell disease, even the more affordable medications can be a significant financial burden.
Sickle cell disease is chronically under-funded and receives little awareness, largely due to systemic racial disparities, according to Little. Patients with other hereditary chronic illnesses, such as cystic fibrosis (CF) and hemophilia, are typically Caucasians and have access to pharmaceutical funding, sustained resources, and support registries, which have not been accessible to patients with sickle cell disease.
Of the scant research being conducted on sickle cell disease, much is concentrated on curative treatments like gene therapy and stem cell therapy. These therapies, although promising and ingenious, often involve long hospital stays and incur harsh side effects that may hinder young patient’s social lives and quality of life, according to Little and Boucher.
“There’s a lot of stuff we don’t know about sickle cell disease because we don’t have 50 years of registries informing us about patient care and quality,” said Little. “Not everyone with sickle cell is going to qualify for gene therapy or the stem cell cures. It’s like, we haven’t built a dock and the boat that’s coming for our patients is tiny.”
A Tough Transition
Patients are under medical care for their entire lifetimes. With more people living longer with sickle cell disease than ever before, patients will need to transition from well-established pediatric sickle cell programs to adult programs. The latter of which are sparse and lack the expertise and financial safety nets.
The transition for pediatric to adult programs can be particularly risky for young adult patients because they lose their long-standing connection with their pediatric providers. Lapses in medications, forging new patient-provider relationships, and lack of healthcare access can be incredibly stressful for these patients.
With many sickle cell programs lacking specific transition programs, providers do their best to communicate with one another and prepare patients for their transition well ahead of time.
“The more we do to try either to treat or prevent sickle cell disease while they are kids, the better off they’ll go to the adult world,” said Boucher. “We work really closely with the adult programs to have this transition process go as well as it can, but the more resources we have and the more we do upfront, the better.”
Because North Carolina is a large state, it can be challenging for patients to quickly access the care they require; the major sickle cell programs are in the Triangle region.
For example, patients in UNC’s Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease program typically travel 1.5 hours for their medical care on average. To alleviate the issues with healthcare access, many providers are travelling to satellite clinics during the work week or attending community outreach events.
“We need to go to the patient instead the other way around,” said Boucher. “Because North Carolina is such a huge state, I had a child come for a special transfusion who had to drive three hours one way to get to me.”
How to Help
Sickle cell disease providers, like Boucher and Little, rely heavily on funding from the Governor’s NC Appointed Council on Sickle Cell Disease and Other Blood Disorders and other state funding for outreach and longitudinal care. But more is needed to help their patients thrive.
On September 23, the UNC Comprehensive Sickle Cell Program is hosting a large-scale fundraiser to support Pediatric to Adult Transition programs in our North Carolina clinics and the Malawi Sickle Cell Clinic. The Full Court Press for Sickle Cell Basketball Tournament Fundraiser will be providing food, a blood drive, a bone marrow drive, and a knock-out basketball tournament on the UNC-Chapel Hill practice court.
Patients with sickle cell disease need blood transfusions and bone marrow transplants fairly often. African Americans are much more likely to be a blood or bone marrow match for someone with sickle cell disease, however, African Americans are less likely to donate blood or sign up for the bone marrow registry, making it much harder for sickle cell patients to have a match and get the care that they need.
“We are all part of the sickle cell community, not just the family members,” said Little. “These are North Carolinians, our neighbors. These are children and young adults, who are suffering more than you know and we should support them. Anything we can do to support these young people who are struggling, I’m all for it!”
