Thesis published

We light a candle

Article published in BIoHS

Poetry

Honors

10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON Food Studies

Student Testimonials

Smelling success with AIU

Matthews Phiri | Bachelor Degree in Entrepreneurship

I was privileged to participate in Curriculum development for woodwork technology at diploma level and review of carpentry and joinery programmes at Certificate level held on 16th January 2020, facilitated by the Technical Education Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority (TEVETA) which is an institution established under TEVET act No.13 of 1998. Its functions are to regulate, coordinate and monitor Technical Education Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training in Zambia.

TEVETA executes its regulatory function through the provision of services amongst others, the development, reviewal of TEVET curricula in consultation with industry, employer, employee and other stakeholders. In the past years construction programmes have registered a low turnout in terms of enrolments, these includes; carpentry and joinery, bricklaying and plastering, plumbing and sheet metal. To normalize this, the Government of the Republic of Zambia through TEVETA decided to elevate all the above mentioned programmes to Diploma level and review and rebrand all the programmes at certificate level to meet the demand of the industry.

To carry out this crucial exercise three experts in each programme were invited countrywide and the criterion for selection was:

• Each expert should at least have a diploma or degree in their area of specialisation.
• Each expert should at least possess knowledge in entrepreneurship with proof of certification from a recognised institution.
• Each expert should be a registered member with TEVETA.
• Each expert should possess a teaching qualification.

I made an effort to apply for participation in developing and reviewing the carpentry and joinery curriculum by attaching my qualifications together with the letter of completion from Atlantic International University, to my surprise I was among the three selected experts in carpentry and joinery. I don’t regret joining AIU, I have been with AIU for a while and I can openly promote that it is a good and well organised university which has made lives of many easy by studying in their comfort of their homes with up to date technology. I completed Bache

lors of Entrepreneurship at AIU in 2019 but not yet graduated because of the pending balances on tuition fees, which I have committed to pay a certain amount every month. I see all closed doors opening soon I receive official document from AIU.

Publications by Students: aiu.edu/StudentPublication.html

COVID-19 lessons and sustaining safety strategy in preventing future pandemic risk

Monday O. Odili | Doctorate's Degree in Occupational Health and Safety

As I reflect deeply on the pandemic (COVID-19) currently ravaging the global stage and the resultant panic it has created with the race against time for a vaccine and flattening the curve of the spread which has resulted to lock-down of cities across the globe with no clear standard specific treatment, the more it done on my thought that safety is the truly one watch word that cannot be ignored in all known human sphere of influence and endeavors. It is not for want of celebration the world day for safety is introduced and celebrated on the 28th of April every year to create awareness of keeping the world and workforce safe, in fact COVID-19 has brought a salient fact why world day for safety should be given more attention and global coverage, which the UN (United Nations) and the global communities leaders should strongly put in the front burners to raise global awareness to resonate with people everywhere as the globe cannot afford to be complacent with safety rules any longer, with the outbreak of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This COVID-19 outbreak clearly demonstrated that safety is the one thing if it goes wrong, no matter how small its begins, if not properly manage or control has the potential of a catastrophic impact that could cripple a system, county, country, region and the globe, whether it is in business, culture, religion, daily socio cultural interaction and other activities factor by the mere mishandling or wrong communication of a process.

What then is safety In the term that does not resonate with most class or cadres, is not just the mere absent of risk, but the planning to prevent the loss, injury or failing from happening and to certain extent the control and management of the risk in the micro, macro and global scale within a system should any accident happened.

Why safety Is a commitment of assurance or pledge that ensure a safety net in a given system or business (or for the operators) operational strategy in the smooth running of any system to control and prevent any unforeseen incident through identified risk to or through the human resources (which is the most valuable resource available to any system) that might lead to a catastrophic or fatal consequence/ or event with lots of human (physical and health), economic and financial ruin/failure and loss of confidence or damage image.

Safety representation Safety is commonly used to denote or represent HSE (Health Safety and Environment) or OH&S (Occupational Health & Safety) in many public discuss generally by many people. Safety: can be seen or talked from the Health angle. Safety: can be seen or talked from regulatory requirements and the Well Being (physical), economic angle or occupational approach. Safety: can be seen or talked from the Environment angle. Therefore, the safety profession to some extent is “caught in-between” the legal and medical discipline, playing the dual role in term of recommendation and advisory of the Health and Regulation requirement, which the safety profession are passionately committed in keeping the medical doctors and lawyers a little quite in their comfort areas (Hospitals and the law courts). This bring to mind how the “Lawyers” pride themselves or are acclaimed to be the ‘learned people’ and the “Medical Doctors” also pride themselves or are acclaimed to belonging to the ‘noble profession’, in the same vein, the “Safety Practitioners” also pride themselves and are acclaimed to be the ‘sustainer’ of humanity, environment and the global system.

Some practical safety learning that has cut across the globe in recent time The recent pandemic outbreak ravaging the global system started in late December 2019, (awareness was delayed from the originating country) and came to the world attention in early January 2020, (there was still no concrete proactive measure on ground globally), which originated from China industrial city of Wuhan with one of the two speculations in the public domain (print and electronic media) to be the true source of the pandemic outbreak known as COVID-19, a virus that is unknown to human until its outbreak has been established to belong in the families of the corona virus like SARS, MERS, Bird-Flu, Ebola and Lassa fever, which has forced the global economy into another recession as declared by the World Bank/IMF (International Monetary Fund) within three months (this is safety represented FACTS AND DETAILS before our very eyes unfolding). In any case of the two speculations in the public domain lies the fact of negligence or violation of basic SAFETY rules within such industry playing a major role lets summarize the two speculations.

Theory 1: Animal to Human and Human transmission of the virus The Bat animal is said to be the origin of the carrier of the virus (primary carrier) and the bat was then eaten by a snake species, which make it the secondary carrier and the snake was then eaten by human, which then make human the transmitter of the virus from human to human, through the following established (medium) fact sneezing, coughing, depositing of the virus on a surface which can survive for some time and the subsequent touching of such surfaces and having a direct contact with the human face opening like the nose, mouth and eyes. The virus first stayed around the throat and nose region for a couple of days which incubating period is within one and fourteen days before exhibiting feverish symptoms from pains, headache and running temperature leading to respiratory failure and death.

Theory 2: Man-made Biological agent A supposedly man-made biological agent to build a military biological weapon being developed in a military laboratory facility intended for use to suppress the rising protest in some part of the world seen as a grave threat to the power of an empire influence, during the process of the transportation for further experimentation of the biological agent near a province of Hubei one thing lead to another, a specimen of the biological agent in a seal container escaped when the seal container fell through safety negligence of one of the researcher who has full knowledge of how fatal this biological agent was to human exposure. This event allegedly happened near Wuhan wild animal market which has since been wildly reported in various media outlet, which makes it easier for some secret agents to cleverly pin the outbreak as a result of theory-1 “Animal to Human transmission”. What went wrong on both speculations: in one word, basic safety rules in the two industries caught in the speculation were neglected and failed to follow best industry practices with poor communication.

Though this is an unfortunate pandemic outbreak that has brought untold suffering and pain, it has help to raise basic safety precautionary awareness across the globe as never seen, which safety practitioners has been trying to propagate for a long time with not much success in various industries is now resonating well in the global communities cutting across race, tribe and breaking cultural and religious boundaries on a daily basis through different print, electronic and social media outlets which in many respect has reinforce some of the principle of safety (which I will attempt to highlight in ‘Conclusions’).

Let’s examine some of these basic safety precautionary measures and strategies in the prevention and containment of the COVID-19 virus (will also be useful for other known and unknown epidemic prevention) which should be adopted as a global standard after the defeat of COVID-19 and linked to the safety acronym “HSE” The ‘H’- Health: Personal hygiene through hand washing with water and soap, alcohol base sanitizers in the absence of running water and soap, drying of cloths after every use under sunlight, sanitizing of surface objects, promotion of good dietary habit to boost immune system (drinking of hot/warm water with herbal tea) as against the usual ice cold water at all time, intakes of vitamin ‘C’, lemon or lime in hot water to produce alkaline, vegetables and onions a natural antibiotic.

The ‘S’- Safety: The use of basic Personal Protective Equipment otherwise called as PPE for front liner responders like the medical team and the general public which includes Nose protection (mask), Hand protection (medical and other hand gloves), Full face shield protection (strictly for the medical team), Body protection (coverall for medical team), foot protection and the safety precaution of social distancing to curb the transmission from person to person spread for the virus which is not airborne because of the weight, which limit the virus to travel less than a meter in the air.

The ‘E’- Environment: Good ground and House-keeping has become the order of the day leading to city wild fumigations exercises of public and market places across the globe (surprisingly African cities are also part of the action) and good laboratory practices strictly observed as never before in medical facilities. It is important to note that a particular ancient cultural treatment that west Africans has jettison has returned and the need to sustain and improved certain trado-medical treatment like the improvise sauna practiced by the Africans fore-fathers, which is the bringing of certain carefully selected herbs into a cooking pot heated to a hundred degrees Celsius, the heated pot brought down and a low bench brought close alongside with the feverish patient seat and covered with a thick blanket or clothing material, as steam vapors produced within the covered patient is directly inhale and targeted at the patient nostril and throat region producing lots of sweating from the patient. The western world has developed this local sauna with a coil heated in an enclosed chamber.

However, the unfortunate lesson of the use of PPE was wrongly presented to the general public due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, to correct this notation, use of PPE is not just in crisis period, PPE is to be use at all time during operation or when within an hazardous areas or during a spread of harmful agents like in the case at hand (COVID-19 outbreak). PPE is one of the five lines of defense in safety and it is the fifth or last line of defense that support all other defense like the engineering or design control, administrative procedures control, transfer and elimination control.

The 2020, COVID-19 pandemic is not rated among the top seven pandemic fatality rate or the leading causes of death in the world using the same period of times the COVID-19 outbreak has lasted to measure other outbreak or killer factors according to source: University of Hamburg data for the first two months of the COVID-19 outbreak, but what makes the COVID-19 outbreak spectacular or terrifying was the reproductive or transmission rate, unprecedented total world man-hour (MH) disruption leading to a global recession and number of countries or continent it has spread to due to the ease of travel and mixed residency round the world in the 21st century improved transport system and immigration policies.’ The COVID-19 death rate is relatively lower when compared to other families of corona virus or diseases according to WHO (World Health Organization), UNAIDS, CDC/ COMO Meningitis sources of common cold influenza, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), HIV/AIDS, Ebola (EVD) and the Bird Flu. At the end of COVID-19 pandemic, it would have present a food for thought and a turning point for humans to start considering and re-strategizing future travel and resident policies, gathering in public space arrangement. It will strongly re-enforce thinking of the future workplace and manpower with artificial intelligence an already suggested option on the table and also altering saving for corporation by e-working from homes and future corporation labor contract.

What this portend for safety practitioners, a challenge ahead of future occupational health and safety regulation and other requirements for the future workplace, a challenge which some learning will come as a result or experience of incident. The time is now for the world to be proactive and start thinking one step ahead for safety of the future global system to prevent another catastrophic and fatalities.

Conclusion
It’s imperative for leaders to pay closer attention and set strong safety regulatory institution (in the case of corporation, strong autonomous HSE department) to monitor and enforce safety compliance across board at all time and themselves be an exemplary safety role model leading from the front to be clearly seen by all. It’s equally important leaders do not loose or become docile from the learning COVID- 19 pandemic has brought to the fore that clearly highlights some of the safety principles below: a) Management/leadership is responsible: we all saw the rise of global leadership, leading from the front and corporate ownership (leadership) also joining by donation of various financial support and material with infrastructures to combat the pandemic (COVID-19) outbreak. This leadership demonstration should not begin and end with COVID-19 or in crisis situation, but should be demonstrated at all time.

b) Safety is good business: with what we all know now (financial ruin, human suffering and fatalities, economic implication across corporation worldwide and the global recession) and the over stressing of nations institutions capabilities like the medical and other support service facilities to a breaking or halting point, lets for a moment cast our mind or re-wind the hand of the clock backward or undo the deed in our imagination and assume all safety precaution was followed strictly in the industries highlighted in the two case speculation above. Who would have ever imagine in terms of accuracy what keeping or maintaining strict safety rules in place would have saved humanity and the global communities and economies, now leaders and all operators can easily understand and imagine how many times in the past has safety averts bending risk and sustained corporation financial base and global economy including humanity safety yet safety are the unsung heroes that are not celebrated, ignored in many countries, corporation and institution and has largely gone unnoticed.

c) Safety is an ethical responsibility and should be a way of life: That’s the only way this catastrophe and fatalities we are currently going through would have been prevented if the whole operators or public interest (customers) involved had hold this ethical responsibility first and foremost in all their decision or actions. d) Safety is a condition of employment (and a condition to continue in employment): This COVID-19 pandemic outbreak reinforces why operatives and manager alike must be trained o work safely and should hold safety first and foremost above all other consideration in their activities.

Again, the recent COVID-19 pandemic reinforces why it makes sense for good and proactive safety decision to move faster. The main reason the framers of HSE/ or OH&S (safety) policy in the workplace and any system thought it wise that safety shall have a direct access to the highest level of leadership/management in a given system. The safety access present leadership and management first hand information of recommendation and advise to help make the system operation safer and avoid loss that may arise from litigation from various injuries, which management/ leadership can then use to bench mark with other factors report as a parameter to measure performance in operation and other support services.

Safety can only hope (leaders) the global system and corporation across would have learnt and make a tacit giant stride going forward to strengthen safety compliance and enforcement when we eventually overcome the storm COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon us, which is just a matter of time and it would be history to redirect our ways of thinking. In view of the pandemic, in the forth coming world day for safety the world should demonstrate a greater commitment towards safety and our learning from the COVID- 19 a rigorous campaign and awareness with leaders on the fore front.

The world we need

By Dr. Rosa Hilda Lora M. Advisor at AIU | rosa@aiu

We get to observe any of the big cities and they have huge buildings with extraordinary shops, people walking fast to everywhere and great transport movement. It seems that the days only have 10 minutes, so everything you want to do has to be at high speed. If we go to the fields there are few people who dedicate to be farmer because the vast majority of them have migrated to the big cities.

Everyone is behind the money and everyone is buying and buying because they have to have. Since the Renaissance human beings have had themselves as the maximum of the world. With the last stage of the development of capitalism, everything is to see where more wealth is obtained: the rivers are diverted because now we want them here because a dam is better here, now this forest will be cut down because we will build large buildings, because factories of this and that will be built here. Communication is more to generate markets and we see a world that many men of scientists asking them.

Where are we going as a society? What is life becoming? Communication is also used to generate the same needs to facilitate the market and make it global because we sell them the same and not goods that represent cultural differences. That is why it appears in the Colloquia of the 21st Century, which was directed by Jérome Bindé and which was published as: Where are values headed.

“Today’s world has preferred development in its material dimension, often sacrificing numerous moral and spiritual values for the sake of the god of material progress”. (Bindé, 2006, p. 25) We have to ask ourselves: where is the human condition? The world we live in seems that we don’t think about what happens to natural resources. “Today it is established that development can’t be infinite, at least in quantitative terms”. (Bindé, 2006, p. 33) If development can’t be infinite because infinity is only as a mathematic topic where do they think, those who are only money and money will go even though there are many human beings who in the world of abundance starve or they are homeless.

The world situation we are experiencing is tremendously surprising; we are with a pandemic due to the coronavirus called Covid-19. What is happening? The mentioned virus passed from the animals to the human beings, being with them very aggressive. Today countries are lagging behind in health systems and people die in a short time. Countries have had to recommend, and in others to compel the population to remain at home and to maintain a certain distance from other people to avoid contagion.

What we are experiencing brings as a consequence that the work activity of some rubles has to be done from the houses. This form of production will bring its consequences to each country. Developed countries are looking for mechanisms so that production doesn’t contract due to the social problems that the situation will generate. We have organizations like the United Nations that are requesting funds to help those less favored countries. The world situation, at the moment, is somewhat complicated because many economic resources are required to invest them in health care, and after the time production is on a smaller scale, many resources will also be needed for the industry to reach a level that allows the necessary well-being of humanity.

The question is: where will the forgotten of all political and economic systems be? You hear about a lot of money to boost industrial development and the well-being of societies again, but the large amounts of money will go to the same people who have put this Homeland of Morin, this pale blue point of Sagan in the conditions that we are living today. Believe that we could get resources and natural resources; creating and creating needs, reversing the order of nature to do this and that and that nothing would happen was unthinkable.

Our planet Earth, the only place where life is possible until now, can’t give us that life if we treat it as we have done so far. As we mentioned, since the Renaissance the human beings have thought of themselves as the best in our world and at this time they have had to recognize that all the knowledge that we have enters into the order that nature has: you can’t develop a vaccine to the speed with which we do everything. According to scientists a vaccine won’t be ready at least until one year.

Our planet needs to create life, our planet needs to become a planet that lives and gives life. Our planet needs to be green. We have to leave prints of life instead of what we are living now: death here and there. Now there are so many infected and we have already reached this other amount and tomorrow we are going to see if we have reached this other amount. Our mother Earth is teaching us that the path we take leads only to death. What we are living we will give us a great experience. Hopefully it will be the learning we need. According to Bindé Colloquiums:

“It is possible to give a less aggressive dimension to our development, and reproduce it in the area of the quality of relations between people and between societies”. (Bindé, 2006, p. 35)

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bindé, Jérome. (2006). ¿Hacia dónde se dirigen los valores? Coloquios del siglo XXI. México: FCE. | Morin, E. (2007). Introducción a una política del hombre. Buenos Aires: Gedisa. | Naciones Unidas, Home page. Retrieved from http:// www.un.org/es/index.html | Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO), Home page. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/es | Sagan, Carl. (2003). El Punto azul Pálido, una visión del futuro humano en el espacio. México: Planeta. Retrieved from: https://lasteologias. files.wordpress.com/2008/06/sagan-carl-un-punto-azul-palido-unavision- del-futuro-humano-en-el-espacio.pdf

The Big Bang

Why it produced something, rather than nothing.

How coronavirus kills

Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body.

AIU makes a huge contribution to the world by giving new scient ifics the space for original investigations and research. Visit MyAIU Evolution

An opportunity to remake cities

KFC Middle East has launched

Powwow

In an unprecedented social distancing version.

Prevent body aches

during the time you have to work from home.

The one thing to do in lockdown

According to PTs, Doctors, Nutritionists and Fitness Experts.

Live a better life learning how to keep your body, mind and soul balanced. Visit regularly MyAIU Body / MyAIU Mind / MyAIU Spirit and MyAIU Energy.

Get a better knowledge about our rights and the way we can use them on a daily basis to prevent any abuse or limitations of them. Visit MyAIU Human Rights.

Eco Tip: Simplify your life as much as possible. Only keep belongings that you use/enjoy. Change your life, get sustainable, visit MyAIU Knowledge