Blog Archive
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Dec 30, 2009
Collective Effervescence at the International Family Planning Conference
Kampala, Uganda, November 15–18 As the final plenary session ended in Uganda last week, I felt a sense of excitement. Exhaustion, yes, but also this urge to stand up and shout…let’s do something, anything, to make the dream of ready access to family planning services world over a reality… What a privilege to spend a few days with the best minds and nearly 1300 like minded souls thinking and talking and learning about family planning. I and others commented on a real sense of feeling a mission, feeling what sociologist Emile Durkheim dubbed “collective effervescence,” that special, exuberant energy of a group with a strong common belief. The International Family Planning Conference focused on sharing research and best practices in family planning, as well as highlighting how to bring research findings and those practices to action. The meeting was supported by the new Bill and Melinda Gates Institute at the Johns Hopkins’ School of Public Health , Makerere University’s School of Public Health , the Implementing Best Practices Initiative and USAID, along with... Read More »
