Just wait until the Ebola virus sees this Vancouver flash mob

by Stephen Hui on September 22nd, 2014 at 1:12 PM

1 of 1 2 of 1

Remember when flash mob organizers didn't send out press releases to announce the date, time, and place of their "surprise" events? Those days are long gone.

On Tuesday (September 23) at 1:45 p.m., there'll be one of these orchestrated spectacles at UBC's Point Grey campus. This flash mob aims to raise awarenes and spur action on the Ebola crisis in Africa.

UBC students from the school of population and public health are claiming responsibility for this flash mob. Here's the organizers' blurb:

Students will use a “fun” event to encourage action about the serious Ebola crisis in West Africa. Dressed up as doctors and Ebola, a group of enthusiastic Docs will chase Ebola through public spaces on campus in a flash mob-style event, raising eyebrows and piquing interest. The event aims to counter the on-going apathy and lack of international response to the Ebola crisis, and encourage political action.

On September 18, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization, called the Ebola outbreak the "greatest peacetime challenge that the United Nations and its agencies have ever faced".

"None of us experienced in containing outbreaks has ever seen, in our lifetimes, an emergency on this scale, with this degree of suffering, and with this magnitude of cascading consequences," Chan said.

While over 5,500 people have been infected and more than 2,500 have died, Chan asserted that the outbreak can be contained.

Comments

6 Comments

Concerned Citizen

Sep 22, 2014 at 2:01pm

Good to see UBC coming forward with practical, actionable solutions to the crisis. I'm starting to think that some 'activists' don't understand that 'awareness' isn't a useful end in and of itself.

Sure, Ebola is a fast spreading, horrible, and deadly virus, but don't let that stop you from planning an event where we face paint and wander around aimlessly for a few hours.

This is idiotic and an insult to those who are working toward real solutions.

Nora Venter

Sep 23, 2014 at 7:33am

While I suspect that peoples' hearts are in the right place in organizing this event, I have to say, I find this an incredibly insensitive and inappropriate response to an ongoing international health crisis. There is nothing wrong with attempting to draw attention to the issue, but to me, there is something very wrong in this particular approach. Awareness is important, but rather hold a mass vigil for the thousands who have died, and the many more who will die before this outbreak is contained. There is nothing "fun" about Ebola, and turning the issue into a version of a campus dress-up party seems to me a deeply disrespectful and disturbing course of action.

Maria

Sep 23, 2014 at 2:15pm

The money they spent on the flash-mob costumes could have been better used to send basic protective equipment to healthcare workers in the hot zone.

In addition, they could have held an old-fashioned bake sale or some other fundraiser to raise money to help. It seems like young people these days don't know how to do anything except protest and "demonstrate" for the government to "do something."

VanMD_63

Sep 23, 2014 at 2:45pm

How many of these students will actually do what counts and work on the front lines in Liberia and Sierra Leone, I wonder? As someone who's seen similar outbreaks on the ground, I find this juvenile and "FUN" plea for attention just infuriating. Especially considering the gravity of the health crisis going on currently... It's amazing what a myopic world view some kids have these days.