Evaluation research is desperately needed to provide the evidence needed to guide effective prevention, preparation, and response efforts for countering the deadly effects of pandemics, such as COVID-19! We need to conduct surveillance research (such as epidemiological research) to monitor impending health risks, disseminate the latest surveillance data about health risks to policy makers, first-responders, and affected publics, using research to guide evidence-based health risk reduction efforts. Research should guide mobilization of essential risk response resources and personnel, determine needed education and training activities, and guide the implementation of relevant public policies and programs to prepare for pandemics.

When pandemics do hit, we need good data to guide development of coordinated treatment and mitigation programs, including designing relevant communication efforts to inform, persuade, and enforce the best evidence-based health risk response activities. These risk response efforts must be carefully monitored and evaluated to identify what is working and what is not when responding to pandemics, to guide needed refinements to health risk programs and policies. Needs analysis research must examine the nature of health risks, identify who is at risk, and suggest what can be done to reduce their risks. Audience analysis must guide appropriate communication with key at-risk populations, especially by actively engaging members of these populations to participate in developing and implementing appropriate response programs. Dr Gary L. Kreps examines the best evaluation research strategies for guiding effective communication and response efforts for pandemics to reduce risks and save lives!

Watch the full lecture on https://www.facebook.com/CAREMassey/

The health and economic impacts of the covid-19 pandemic have spun our world on its axis. What was ‘normal’ before the covid-19 crisis hit is unlikely to ever be the same ‘normal’ again. In this contribution to the discussions taking place across progressive left communities at present, Dr Sue Bradford, Community Educator with Kotare Research and Education for Social Change in Aotearoa, explores some of the opportunities she sees opening in front of us to imagine together a vision for this country which moves us not only post-covid but also post-capitalism and post-colonialism; and to share some ideas about how we might invigorate our work within and across some of the sectoral, geographical, academic/activist and other differences which too often divide and weaken our efforts. On its own, imagining a better future is never enough, although a vision that inspires is essential to creating change.

Bio: Dr Sue Bradford, Community Educator with Kotare Research and Education for Social Change in Aotearoa, former longtime unemployed workers’ rights activist and Green MP (1999 – 2009).

Dr. Sue is CARE’s first ActivistInResidence at Massey University

Watch the lecture on CARE Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CAREMassey/

Poet Teng Qian Xi and Center for Culture Centered Approach to Reseach and Evaluation Director Mohan J Dutta will discuss resistance, poetry, and the intersections between the two. Drawing on her experience of publishing politically critical poetry as a teenager, her longtime engagement with the Singaporean poetry and activism scene, and her experience of teaching literature and creative writing, she will discuss the potential and limitations of poetry as a form of resistance in Singapore under COVID-19. She will also share her perspective on how she thinks poetry and activism can complement each other to offer more just and compassionate narratives around which we can build our lives and societies.

Teng Qian Xi’s poetry has appeared in several anthologies and journals, including Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia (2007), Language for a New Century (2008) and Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women’s Writing (Penguin India, 2009). Her poetry collection, They hear salt crystallising (2010), was shortlisted in 2012 for the English-language category of the Singapore Literature Prize.

Her translations of Tan Chee Lay’s poems have appeared in Some Kind of Beautiful Signal, published by Two Lines Press (2010), and online journal Asymptote. She has taught literature at the School of the Arts and Raffles Girls’ School, and is now a full-time private tutor specialising in A-level Literature. She has also given creative writing workshops at the Creative Arts Programme, the School of the Arts and Raffles Girls’ School.

She was born in Singapore, and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Comparative Literature and Society.

Facebook Livestream link:
https://www.facebook.com/CAREMassey/videos/2916683465078666/