In the Al-Sayeda Zeinab and Al-Sayeda Aisha neighborhoods of Cairo, hundreds of people lined up outside polling stations ahead of poll opening at 8 a.m. They warmly welcomed President and Mrs. Carter as they arrived to witness voting as part of the 100-member Carter Center delegation.

Those in line expressed enthusiasm, many preparing to vote for the first time in their lives. “These are two days of feast for us,” an elderly voter told Mrs. Carter. “The sun has risen in Egypt,” said another.

Some of those who participated in the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak had lost enthusiasm, but 24-year-old Gehad Abada still thought it was important to vote.

“I am not hopeful about who we will elect as the next president per se, but I am hopeful that he will leave after four years and that we will hold him accountable for what he does, and for anything that goes wrong,” she said.

In a country holding its first real election after decades of dictatorship under one person, that hope means a lot.

President Carter and Carter Center witnesses are welcomed into a polling station by the presiding judge on Wednesday, May 23. (All Photos: D. Hakes/The Carter Center)

A poll worker waits for the next voter to approach his table so he can check his voter identification card.

Shortly after voting began on May 23, a man casts his ballot in Cairo.

Mrs. Carter talks with a female political party observer in Cairo.

President Carter watches as poll workers check a voter’s ID.

Perhaps tired from a long wait in line, a child rests on his mother as she signs in to vote.

President Carter poses for a photo with a voter in Cairo. The Carters were warmly welcomed at every polling station that they visited on May 23.

Women prepare to vote in Cairo.

A woman casts her ballot in Cairo on May 23.

View the updated schedule, find the American Public Television station nearest you (PDF) >                

By June 1, 2012, the documentary will have aired 642 times and covered more than 76 percent of the U.S. market.

For nearly three years, “Foul Water Fiery Serpent” tracked determined teams of men and women as they fought the closing skirmishes to wipe out some of the last Guinea worms in Ghana and Southern Sudan, attacking the parasite where it thrived: in poor, remote villages that rely on contaminated water. Ghana has since stopped transmission of the disease, and the majority of the world’s remaining cases—fewer than 1,100*—are located in South Sudan, Mali, Ethiopia, and an isolated outbreak in Chad.

“And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died…” Numbers 21:4-9.

Parasitologists believe the “fiery serpents” of the Bible might have been Guinea worms. The disease would have been present in the Middle East at the time of the Exodus, as it was until recently. The worms can be the width of a piece of spaghetti and cause excruciating pain when breaking through the skin to release their larvae, so it is easy to understand how they could be called “fiery serpents.”

For thousands of years, the Guinea worm parasite (Dracunculus medinensis) has caused disabling misery, infecting people who drink stagnant water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. After growing inside the human host for a year, the adult female worm, up to 3-feet-long, emerges from the body through a skin blister, causing incapacitating pain and sometimes crippling its victims. There is no cure for Guinea worm disease, and the only treatment is wrapping the worm around a piece of gauze or a stick and painfully pulling it out, inch by inch, every day, for weeks. Learn more about the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program >

When The Carter Center-led initiative began in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of the disease in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Guinea worm disease has been reduced by more than 99.9 percent through the work of The Carter Center and its partners, and is likely to be only the second human disease in history, after smallpox, to be eradicated from the Earth, and the first to be wiped out without a medicine or vaccine.

Narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver, the documentary was produced by Cielo Productions. Visit the website >

*Provisional, Jan-Dec. 2011

Read the full release from the Sudan Ministry of Health (PDF) >

Resources:

Read more about the Carter Center’s River Blindness Program >

Watch “Eliminating River Blindness in Sudan” (three-part video) >

Read more about the Carter Center’s river blindness efforts in Sudan >

Focusing Philanthropy was co-founded and is chaired by Larry Gilson, a former investment broker whose company handled more than $1.5 billion of equity capital from pension funds, insurance companies, college endowments, and high net worth individuals.

Part of the first class of Carter Center trainees in 2011, newly graduated and credentialed mental health clinician Quendi Appleton celebrates the beginning of her career helping people with mental illness in her country. Since the first class, The Carter Center has trained 39 local mental health clinicians, with an ultimate goal of 150 within the next few years. (Photo: Carter Center/P.Rohe)

Gilson says he and his colleagues wanted to find charities to support that could stand up to the same rigorous evaluations as the funds they had managed during their professional careers.

“We are all exposed to nonprofits tackling worthy causes, but which of them have substantial impact?”Gilson asked. “Which are institutionally credible? Which have shown the capacity to use additional donations effectively? Our goal is to make other conscientious donors aware of the opportunities we have winnowed through this extensive vetting.”

Focusing Philanthropy selected 14 U.S.-based and international organizations that work in three key areas: helping to build community infrastructure and resources, increasing self-sufficiency, or raising individual and community income.

The psychological impact of the long civil war in Liberia, which ended in 2003, has contributed to a mental health crisis. Less than 1 percent of Liberians have access to appropriate mental health services. In partnership with the Liberian government, The Carter Center aims to train 150 local, credentialed mental health clinicians, improve mental health policy, as well as conduct other activities to reduce stigma against mental illnesses.

“We are grateful for Focusing Philanthropy’s dedication to making a difference in lives of those with mental illnesses in Liberia,” said Rebecca Brookshire, senior associate director of development for health programs at The Carter Center.

Read the press release from Focusing Philanthropy highlighting The Carter Center >

Read the blog: Liberia’s First Mental Health Clinicians Deploy To Fight Disease, Build Hope >

Watch the PBS NewsHour segment on Liberia featuring Carter Center student Quendi Appleton: War-Torn Liberia Struggles to Care for Mentally Ill >

Listen to the National Public Radio’s “Tell Me More” interview with Dr. Janice Cooper: “Liberia Marks Milestone in Mental Illness Fight” >

The wishbone-like tweezers, folded from pieces of tin cans, look like a charm or pendant, but have a gruesome purpose. In a desperate measure to find relief from the agony of advanced-stage trachoma — during which a person’s eyelashes turn inward, scraping the cornea with every excruciating blink — people use the crude tweezers or forceps to pull out their own eyelashes.

A woman holds up a pair of tweezers, fashioned from a food can and worn around her neck. These tweezers are becoming rarer in Amhara Region, Ethiopia, thanks to the hard work of The Carter Center and its partners to stop the blinding disease trachoma. (Photo Credit: The Carter Center/P. Emerson)

The world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, trachoma spreads easily from person to person, mostly affecting children. Women, as traditional caretakers of children, are repeatedly exposed to the disease, and as a result, are almost twice as likely as men to go blind from the advanced stage of trachoma – trichiasis. Sunlight, smoke from cooking fires, and dust aggravate trichiasis, making even the most basic of necessary tasks – such as cooking or gathering water – impossibly painful for a sufferer.

The Carter Center, in partnership with the ministries of health and others, works in six African countries to eliminate blinding trachoma through a series of World Health Organization-approved interventions called the SAFE strategy. The SAFE strategy has been instrumental in helping Ghana become the first sub-Saharan African nation to eliminate blinding trachoma as a public health problem.

“Trachoma destroys the lives of its victims and their families, many of whom already live at the edge of survival” said Dr. Paul Emerson, director of the Carter Center’s Trachoma Control Program. “Women, particularly, are ostracized from their communities and can be cruelly ridiculed by their families and friends for being unable to care for themselves. Fortunately, we have the tools to stop this disease for good, and we’re making major progress.”

Experts hope that one day Ethiopia also can wipe out blinding trachoma, but the nation faces a heroic task. The Amhara Region is one of the most severely trachoma-endemic areas of the world, with more than 18 million people at risk. The lack of roads and access to basic health care further complicate disease prevention activities.

Yet, close collaborations on the ground with local communities have inspired innovative outreach programs mobilizing millions of people, and  large-scale surgery campaigns are helping to address the backlog of nearly half a million patients in immediate need of surgery to prevent blindness from trachoma.

The advanced stage of trachoma, trichiasis is the inward turning of eyelashes. Trichiasis causes extraordinary pain and discomfort to the sufferer and eventually leads to blindness. In 2011, with Carter Center support, local trained health workers conducted more than 39,000 surgeries in patients at immediate risk of blindness to preserve their sight. (Photo Credit: The Carter Center/V. Vick)

As a result of these hard-won efforts, last year alone more than 14 million doses of the antibiotic Zithromax® (azithromycin, donated by Pfizer Inc.) were distributed in Amhara to treat active trachoma infections; more than 39,000 surgeries were conducted to prevent blindness; more than 284,000 latrines were built to improve environmental sanitation; and health education was routinely conducted in more than 3,400 villages to prevent the disease.

“If we see fewer people wearing tweezers, it means fewer people need them because of trachoma, and, aside from the other data we collect in the field, this is supporting evidence that our interventions to fight this dreadful disease are working,” said Dr. Emerson.

Two young mothers in Amhara practice good facial hygiene and other trachoma interventions to keep their families healthy. They are among millions of recipients of health education, antibiotic distribution, and other services provided each year in their region with support from The Carter Center.  (Photo Credit: The Carter Center/P. Emerson)

Learn more about the Carter Center’s work to fight trachoma >

Learn more about the Carter Center’s Health Work in Ethiopia >

Watch the video: Women and Trachoma >

Read the feature: Return Visit Confirms Family’s Continued Vigilance Against Trachoma >

Read the Q&A with Dr. Paul Emerson: Maltra Success Measured in Millions >

For nearly three years, “Foul Water Fiery Serpent” tracked determined teams of men and women as they fought the closing skirmishes to wipe out some of the last Guinea worms in Ghana and Southern Sudan, attacking the parasite where it thrived: in poor, remote villages that rely on contaminated water.  Ghana has since stopped transmission of the disease, and the majority of the world’s remaining cases—fewer than 1,100*—are located in South Sudan, Mali, Ethiopia, and an isolated outbreak in Chad.

“And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died…” Numbers 21:4-9.

Parasitologists believe the “fiery serpents” of the Bible might have been Guinea worms. The disease would have been present in the Middle East at the time of the Exodus, as it was until recently. The worms can be the width of a piece of spaghetti and cause excruciating pain when breaking through the skin to release their larvae, so it is easy to understand how they could be called “fiery serpents.”

For thousands of years, the Guinea worm parasite (Dracunculus medinensis) has caused disabling misery, infecting people who drink stagnant water contaminated with the worm’s larvae. After growing inside the human host for a year, the adult female worm, up to 3-feet-long, emerges from the body through a skin blister, causing incapacitating pain and sometimes crippling its victims. There is no cure for Guinea worm disease, and the only treatment is wrapping the worm around a piece of gauze or a stick and painfully pulling it out, inch by inch, every day, for weeks.  Learn more about the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm Eradication Program >

When The Carter Center-led initiative began in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases of the disease in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Guinea worm disease has been reduced by more than 99.9 percent through the work of The Carter Center and its partners, and is likely to be only the second human disease in history, after smallpox, to be eradicated from the Earth, and the first to be wiped out without a medicine or vaccine.

Narrated by actress Sigourney Weaver, the documentary was produced by Cielo Productions.  Visit the website >

*Provisional, Jan-Dec. 2011.

Air Dates/Locations:  “Foul Water Fiery Serpent”
Cielo Productions – Directed by Gary Strieker – 88 min.

Note:  Local airtimes listed. More dates to be added.

• Baltimore (WMPT2) – April 1 @ 10:30 p.m.
• Miami (WLRN) – April 2 @ 11 p.m.; April 3 @ 5 a.m.
• Georgia (GPB) – April 4 @ 7 p.m.
• San Antonio (KLRN/World Channel) – April 4 @ 10 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• Tampa (WUSF) – April 5 @ 10 p.m.; April 6 @ 1 a.m., 4 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m.
• Oregon (OPB) – April 5 @ 8 p.m. (OPB Plus)
• Denver (KBDI) – April 5 @ 9 p.m.; April 6 @ 12 a.m.; April 7 @ 7 p.m.
• Seattle (KCTS) – April 6 @ 12 p.m.; April 22 @ 11 p.m.
• West Palm Beach (WXEL) – April 7 @ 8 p.m.
• Detroit (WTVS) – April 9 @ 12 a.m.
• Nashville (WNPT) – April 9 @ 11 p.m.
• North Carolina (UNCTV-MX) – April 10 @ 10 p.m. and April 16 @ 6 a.m.
• Sacramento (KVIE) – April 11 @ 11 p.m.; April 13 @ 2 a.m.; April 16 @ 4 a.m. on KVIE2; April 18 @ 7 p.m. on KVIE2
• San Francisco (KRCB) – April 17 @ 9 p.m.
• Kansas City (KCPT 19.1) – April 20 @ 10 p.m.; (KCPT 19.2) – April 1 @ 3 p.m., April 5 @ 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.; April 6 @ 1 a.m., April 7 @ 4 a.m.
• Harrisburg, PA (WITF) – April 20 @ 10 p.m.
• New York (WLIW) – April 20 @ 2 a.m. and April 22 @ 5 a.m.
• Cleveland (WVIZ) April 22 @ 3 p.m.
• Washington DC (WHUT): April 22 @ 10 p.m. and April 24 @ 8 p.m.
• Los Angeles (KLCS) April 24 @ 8 p.m.
• Milwaukee (PTV) – April 29 @ 9 a.m.
• South Carolina (SCETV) – April 30 @ 10 p.m. (SCETV is a statewide network that overlaps into Ga. and N.C.).
• World TV, formerly known as PBSWorld, is a PBS-affiliated channel that simulcasts on more than 50 subscriber stations nationwide. (For stations in other time zones, adjust air times accordingly):
  • May 27 @ 8 a.m., 2 p.m., 9 p.m. EDT
  • May 28 @ 1 a.m. EDT (10 p.m. PDT on May 27)
  • May 31 @5 a.m., 11 a.m. EDT
  • June 1 @6 a.m. EDT
• Indianapolis (WFYI) – May 10 @ 9 p.m.

Click here for additional air dates for May 9, 2012, and following (PDF) >

The monitoring process involves catching and testing the flies that spread river blindness using the best bait available: a shirtless health worker.

Watch the video:

Once captured, the flies are tested by a polymerase chain reaction test that indicates whether the DNA of the river blindness parasite is present.  After three years of clean tests, the countries can join Colombia – and apply to be declared river blindness free!

Learn more about the interruption of transmission of river blindness in Chiapas, Mexico and about the Carter Center’s River Blindness Program >

On a cold December afternoon in 2011, the picture of a smiling teenage girl illuminated the darkened Ivan Allen Pavilion at The Carter Center. Her name was Sarah Crider. More than five years ago, at the age of 14, Sarah died from a preventable complication during treatment at a state-run psychiatric hospital in Atlanta. Her story was one of several cases of patient neglect brought to light in a 2007 Atlanta Journal-Constitution exposé of Georgia’s crumbling mental health care system.

Since 2008, The Carter Center has helped mobilize the mental health and addictive diseases communities in the state, as well as other stakeholder groups to help identify solutions to Georgia’s behavioral health crisis. The goal is to prevent the systemic failures that allowed Sarah and other Georgians with serious mental illnesses to fall through the cracks—ending up in jails, on the streets, or lost forever. As part of this work, The Carter Center has published a report of recommendations (PDF) for areas not covered by the landmark 2010 federal settlement with the state—such as the children’s mental health care systems that served Sarah.

Through a series of three town hall meetings held in different regions across the state, The Carter Center, in partnership with the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) and others, have solicited feedback on the Center’s report and overall progress on Georgia’s implementation of the settlement agreement. The report will be finalized to include community feedback in the late spring.

Mental Heath America advocate and Georgian Cynthia Wainscott and Carter Center Mental Health Program Director Dr. Thom Bornemann lead a town hall meeting in Cartersville, Ga., on solutions to the state’s mental health care crisis. The event was the first of three regional meetings held by The Carter Center, state officials, and community stakeholders to generate support for improving public behavioral health systems.  Photo: P. Rohe/The Carter Center

Carter Center Mental Health Program Director Dr. Thom Bornemann says the report and the town hall meetings have helped build public momentum toward a more solid foundation for Georgia’s mental health and addictive disease services.

Georgia is not the only state facing serious challenges providing for people with behavioral health challenges, but local experts say the state’s stakeholders are more committed than ever before to creating an evidence-based care system that can improve patient outcomes.

“The level of collaboration between the state and the mental health community means many more Georgians will have a chance to live healthier, more productive lives in their own communities,” says Dr. Bornemann.

As the more than 100 attendees at the Carter Center’s Atlanta regional town hall meeting soberly reflected on Sarah’s portrait, it was clear they understood the stakes are high.

“Working together, we can end this long era of tragedy for thousands of Georgia’s most vulnerable citizens and build a more hopeful future for all of us,” said Dr. Bornemann.

Read More:

Fixing Ailing System Achievable >

Building a Vision for Community Services for Children, Adolescents and Adults with Behavioral Health Disorders in Georgia (PDF) >

Read more: Jimmy Carter to Lead Carter Center Delegation to Egypt (عربي) >

Dispatches from Egypt – Carter Center Witnesses Reflect on Election Voices, Symbols >

Below, Deborah Hakes, assistant director of the Carter Center’s Office of Public Information, blogs from Cairo about Jan. 10 election day activities.

Photos:  D. Hakes/The Carter Center
A delegation of 40 witnesses representing 21 countries has been deployed by The Carter Center since mid-November to witness all three phases of voting in Egypt’s lower house parliamentary elections.

A polling station in northern Cairo.  Voting took place Jan. 10-11 for a runoff of the third round of parliamentary elections.

Carter Center witness Nicholas Alexander talks with poll workers on Jan. 10.

A young daughter accompanies her mother to vote in the runoff for the third round of lower house parliamentary elections in Cairo.

A woman voting in Cairo.

A judge answers a voter’s question in a polling center for men in Cairo.

A poll worker checks the ID of a man preparing to vote.

A man casts his ballot toward the end of voting on Jan. 10.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter visits a polling station during runoff voting in Cairo’s Shoubra neighborhood.

A polling official shows President Carter the voters’ registry for that polling station, which lists a voter named “Jimmy Carter.”

Voters dipped their fingers in indelible ink after casting their ballots.

Read more:

Jimmy Carter to Lead Carter Center Delegation to Egypt (عربي) >

Dispatches from Egypt – Carter Center Witnesses Reflect on Election Voices, Symbols >

Filed under: Democracy, Egypt, Elections, Videos

Making bricks from scratch is just one way the Center’s staff is overcoming huge odds to wipe out Guinea worm once and for all. See how the program moves material across a country the size of Texas without using paved roads >