Planned and unplanned migrations, diverse social practices, and emerging disease vectors transform how health and wellbeing are understood and negotiated. Simultaneously, familiar illnesses-both communicable and non-communicable-continue to affect individual health and household, community, and state economies. Together, these forces shape medical knowledge and how it is understood, how it comes to be valued, and when and how it is adopted and applied.
Background report
Culture and Health
On 21 November 2015, (right) UNICEF Advocate for Children Affected by War Ishmael Beah talks with children at a centre supported by UNICEF in Juba.
In late November, Beah travelled to South Sudan with UNICEF to meet with former child soldiers, along with different parties to the conflict so as to advocate for the release of child soldiers and their re-integration into their communities and families. A peace agreement was signed in August this year, but fierce fighting has continued in parts of South Sudan. Since the beginning of 2015, the situation for children has worsened, and there are now as many as 16,000 associated with armed forces or groups.
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