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Be in Earnest
Speech
No. 2 in the Toastmasters "Communication and Leadership"
Manual
Date
presented: 27 Sept,1994
The
objectives of this speech were:
- To convince the audience of your earnestness,
sincerity and conviction on a subject.
- To confront any nervousness.
Time 5 to 7 minutes.
Who
Killed Kasseim?
I
watched him die.
I
looked on helplessly as he struggled to breathe. They put tubes in his
mouth and nose.
They searched for veins in his wasted arms and gave him blood. He
moaned as
they drained the
poison from his swollen belly. Finally they wrapped his lifeless body
in a
blaket and covered
his wizened old man's face.
He
was 25 days old.
I
sat in front of my television set and wept with his anguished mother as
she cradled his limp
body. I longed to comfort her. How could I reach out to a woman in far
off
Pakistan? How
could I know the depth of her suffering?
Who
killed Kasseim?
Could
it have been....his mother?
But
she loved him! He was her first child, after 14 years of fruitless
marriage - the
long awaited fulfilment of her dreams and hope for the future. Could
she
have killed him?
She
believed she was giving him the best care when she weaned him onto an
expensive milk
formula.
But when it cost more than she could afford - did she over
dilute it?
When clean water was scarce and expensive to buy - did she draw it from
the river,
contaminated with raw sewage?
Did she have enough money to buy fuel to boil the water?
And when Kasseim inevitably succombed to diarrhoea - could she give him
the correct
dose of medicine, when she had never learned to read?
Or did the Health Worker kill him, when she introduced the mother to
the
milk formula
- surely she knew that a bottled fed baby in a third world country is
14
times more likely
to die.
"Just in case your milk fails," she told the grateful mother, as
she handed her a
sample of highly promoted, expensive infant formula. Was this a kind
act? -
or an insidious
ploy to undermine breast feeding?
Was
Kasseim killed by the manufacturers of the formula, when they ignored
the International
Code of Marketing? They promoted their product in clinics and
hospitals,
making gifts to
doctors and health workers who recommended the formula, even though in
a
country like
Pakistan, the lack of refrigeration and sanitation means that a baby
will
suffer from
10 to 12 bouts of diarrhoea before his first birthday - if he lives
that
long!
Did
they killl him, or was it the doctor, who derives most of his income
from the
medicine he sells. When the distraught mother brought Kasseim to him,
did he
prescribe
a potent unnecessary drug?
Did
the drug company kill him? When they refused to withdraw their
anti-diarrhoeal
drops - drugs that had been banned in the western world when it was
proved
that they
caused intestinal paralysis, toxic shock and death in young babies?
Who
is responsible for half a million babies in Pakistan
alone,
who die
unnecessarily each year from diarrhoea and dehydration?
"Oh,
God," I cried, as I watched Kasseim die. I don't know if it was a
prayer or
accusation.Can we blame God for man's inhumanity and greed?
Soon
after this television programme was aired, one drug company did
withdraw the Drops.
Public pressure finally caused at least one infant formula company to
heed
the International
Marketing code.
It
was too late for Kasseim.
But
I had heard about the practices of these Multinational Companies
several years before.
I was going to protest - but I was too busy - too apathetic.
Did
I kill Kasseim?
COMMENTS
It seemed to go over well. I wasn't quite so nervous
presenting my
second speech,
but I still felt shaky for the rest of the evening and couldn't get to
sleep
for hours
after I got home that night!
MAMALADE
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