UN donates telemedicine devices to boost healthcare services in Somalia
Jessamyn Stanley needs you to know what yoga is really about - and it's not the poses. In her new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, the yoga instructor and body activist shares reflective personal essays that touch upon everything from racism to the cultural appropriation of American yoga, from consumerism to cannabis. And while the timing couldn't be better considering the current cultural climate, the idea for the book came to her years ago while she was writing her first book, Every Body Yoga, a guide to developing a yoga practice. "I realized yoga is a lot more than postures," she tells PEOPLE. "The postures get to be more complicated, not because you're practicing harder gymnastics or physical postures, but because you're practicing emotional and mental and really spiritual postures." In fact, she says, yoga is not supposed to feel good. Take the example of someone expecting a Zen-like experience from a yoga practice - only to be disappointed. "You're like, 'This is hard. Everyone else seems to know what they're doing. I am not good enough, I shouldn't be doing this, maybe my body is supposed to look different, maybe my life's supposed to be different.' All these feelings start to come up. That's what the postures are leading you towards, is to have that experience." RELATED: Jessamyn Stanley Found Body Acceptance Through Yoga and Can Help You Do the Same Stanley has been nurturing this self-awareness in the nearly 10 years since she has been breaking barriers in the yoga world, tackling topics like fat-shaming, her queer Black identity and unattainable beauty standards. In Yoke - which means yoga in Sanskrit - she uses her own life as a a metaphor to further explore the coming together of mind and body, light and the dark, good and the bad - both on and off the mat. "I wanted to reflect on what it is to practice yoga when we are as a society being forced to reckon with the long, deep, systemic, down-to-the-bone problems. We're being forced to look at things that we've never wanted to look at. And that's all that yoga is, is looking at the things that you don't want to look at. And ultimately, come hell or high water, accepting them." Story continues Workman Publishing
MOGADISHU, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The UN migration agency said Friday it has donated telemedicine devices to help Somalia provide improved healthcare services in hospitals and clinics across the country.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said through funding from the multi-donor Somalia Humanitarian Fund (SHF), it handed over digital devices and office equipment to the ministry of health to support the introduction of telemedicine in Somalia's health system.
"This project will link doctors in Somalia with experts abroad and in other parts of the country to complement the diaspora program which physically places diaspora doctors in the country," Kerry Kyaa, IOM's Senior Health expert, said in a statement issued in Mogadishu.
"Telemedicine will also mitigate the limitations placed by COVID-19 on international travel and physical distancing," Kyaa added.
He said the expert doctors will help those on the frontlines with clinical diagnosis and will give real-time recommendations for patient management and reduce morbidity and mortality. This will be achieved through the setup of collaboration systems to facilitate videoconferencing and teleconsultation.
The donation includes screens, video cameras, a PC, video conference equipment and 50 iPads.
Somalia's health system has been significantly damaged by years of conflict and recurrent humanitarian crises, and most of the health care workers working on the frontlines against COVID-19 and other diseases of epidemic potential have limited expertise and experience of treating critically ill patients.
IOM said the new telemedicine project aims to set up the necessary facilities to enable these local medical professionals to access a growing body of health knowledge and expertise inside and outside the country.
"Knowledge-transfer resulting from this project will pave the way to revolutionizing the Somalia healthcare system through a systematic knowledge-transfer to improve healthcare service provision in the country," said the UN migration agency.
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, IOM said it has been increasingly difficult to recruit senior health care workers to respond to the urgent demand for expertise to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fawziya Abikar Nur, Somalia Health Minister said the tools will help training health professionals to overcome geographical barriers and increase access to health services across the country.
"IOM has done a great job with the ministry of health before, during, and after COVID-19. This telemedicine project is very crucial for the health sector and the people in Somalia will benefit immensely from it," Nur said. Enditem
Jessamyn Stanley needs you to know what yoga is really about - and it's not the poses. In her new book Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, the yoga instructor and body activist shares reflective personal essays that touch upon everything from racism to the cultural appropriation of American yoga, from consumerism to cannabis. And while the timing couldn't be better considering the current cultural climate, the idea for the book came to her years ago while she was writing her first book, Every Body Yoga, a guide to developing a yoga practice. "I realized yoga is a lot more than postures," she tells PEOPLE. "The postures get to be more complicated, not because you're practicing harder gymnastics or physical postures, but because you're practicing emotional and mental and really spiritual postures." In fact, she says, yoga is not supposed to feel good. Take the example of someone expecting a Zen-like experience from a yoga practice - only to be disappointed. "You're like, 'This is hard. Everyone else seems to know what they're doing. I am not good enough, I shouldn't be doing this, maybe my body is supposed to look different, maybe my life's supposed to be different.' All these feelings start to come up. That's what the postures are leading you towards, is to have that experience." RELATED: Jessamyn Stanley Found Body Acceptance Through Yoga and Can Help You Do the Same Stanley has been nurturing this self-awareness in the nearly 10 years since she has been breaking barriers in the yoga world, tackling topics like fat-shaming, her queer Black identity and unattainable beauty standards. In Yoke - which means yoga in Sanskrit - she uses her own life as a a metaphor to further explore the coming together of mind and body, light and the dark, good and the bad - both on and off the mat. "I wanted to reflect on what it is to practice yoga when we are as a society being forced to reckon with the long, deep, systemic, down-to-the-bone problems. We're being forced to look at things that we've never wanted to look at. And that's all that yoga is, is looking at the things that you don't want to look at. And ultimately, come hell or high water, accepting them." Story continues Workman Publishing