It’s Day Two of Brain Awareness Week. After a virtual trip to the continent of Africa yesterday, today we travel to Asia and the Middle East.
This year 12 nations have planned brainy fun: Armenia, Bangladesh, India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arabic Emirates.
BAW 2011: Children in Eskisehir, Turkey play with brain models. (Credit: Hakan Koç)
In Turkey where there are 24 events scheduled, the week will kick off with the award ceremony for the winners of the Sixth Turkish National Brain Bee competition. Professors and university students in Turkey will also be visiting local schools to talk about the brain and distribute Turkish translations of Dana Alliance publications like the Mindboggling Series. The Turkish It’s Mindboggling is available on the Brain Awareness Week website. Brain Awareness fever has also taken hold in India, with 17 events on the International Calendar. After days of poster presentations, lectures and live demonstrations in Mumbai, doctors and nurses from a local health institute will offer two days of free diagnostic screening of the brain to members of the public. Lectures and panel discussions also will be taking place across the nation, including a presentation based on Dana’s Staying Sharp program.
BAW 2012: School children in
Varanasi, India present their posters.
BAW Partners in Japan have worked hard to translate Dana web resources and publications into Japanese for Brain Awareness Week, and will be using them to introduce the city of Matsumoto to the brain. In Pakistan, middle school students will learn about causes underlying neurological and psychiatric diseases through some fun and creative approaches; experts in Nepal will help debunk myths regarding schizophrenia, depression and epilepsy; and, in Israel, there will be six nights of lectures followed by related film screenings at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
--Simon Fischweicher
