Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112902

M. Begheri, MD, Shiraz Philandthropic Center, c/o 144 Apple Blossom Dr., Brandon, MS 39047, Zahra Sarraf, MD, Department of Obstetric Gynecology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Zand Street, Shiraz, Iran, 0119871648453, sarrafz@pearl.sums.ac.ir, Mohammad Shahbazi, PhD, MPH, CHES, Public Health, Jackson State University, 144 Apple Blossom Dr., Brandon, MS 39047, and Mahbubeh Sarraf, MS, Emergency Room, Shiraz University of Med. Sciences, Zand Street, Shiraz, Iran.

Well known is that many racial minority youth in developed countries fail to make a successful transition into adulthood. Research-based analyses have offered a number of explanations for such a social phenomenon. Many of these studies focus on individuals deficiencies. They see individual behavior as a significant contributor to such outcomes. Accordingly public investments have been on prevention by changing youths' behavior. There is a mixed and controversial debate on both approaches and the results. However, less known is the status of children and youth in the less developed and the developing countries, the Middle Eastern Countries in particular? Is such phenomenon exists in the region? If so, what do we know about them; how is it similar or different from the related issues in the western societies.

Our primary goal in this study is to learn about the socially marginalized children/youth's status in the Middle East Region and compare our findings with such populations in the United States. For this purpose, we chose a city in southern Iran (Shiraz) and contacted the founder of a non-governmental organization (NGO). With an anthropologically based observation participatory approach, we focused on the goals and objectives of the NGO, budgetary sources, capacity, children/youth's activities, and their demographic and overall public health and educational programs that in place.

Our initial data indicate that majority of the children/youth at the center are part of a displaced immigrant population. They departed their motherland due to war, lack of security, and in search of job and a better life. The center's staffs seem to have taken an innovative approach, advocating the need to look beyond fixing the victims' problem. They are attempting to develop in youth the broad range of capacities they need to transit successfully into productive adulthood. The center has also implemented programs that actively engage the children/youth in this process. They are helped to develop social/emotional, moral/spiritual, civic, personal and cultural skills.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will learn that children/youth in less developed and developed countries are also subject to some of similar social phenomenon faced by racially marginalized youth in the developed countries. Participants will recognize that community-based philanthropic non-governmental organizations can instill capacities in the youths and provide them with skills that are healthy, sustainable, and empowering.

Keywords: Children, Homelessness

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.