Above shows what I call 'The Eye of Exclusion." The eye has four circles that move towards the middle. The individual spaces represent the system or bureaucracy we all have to deal with on a daily basis. The second space is the neighborhood where we live. The third is our extended family. Finally, the center is the individual who currently or previously had Hansen's disease.
The center is connected by seven major nerves called law enforcement starting at the top, followed clockwise by education, media, politics, health, housing and economics.
The nerves of the eye represent the force that negatively impact the persons with the HD bacillus. For example, the media has traditionally had limited or inaccurate information on leprosy and when they sell their "news" to the community, sterotypes are born. This process finds a path to the individual when exclucion from the mainstream of society occurs.
Another example is in the nerve of politics. I mentioned earlier that numbers affect the way politicians establish priorities. Considering the low number of persons with HD throughout the world and the decline of prevalence, and depending on how one defines prevalence, then the result is exclusion from the political base.
Due to time constraints I will not address the other five nerves, but I wish to briefly discuss "The Eye of Networking."
