PHR Student Program South Regional Hub

Every year, PHR’s National Student Program works with chapters across the country to organize and lead a Global Health Week of Action (GHWA). The GHWA is an opportunity to educate your campus about global health and encourage your colleagues to act on their new knowledge to make a difference.

Check out the new GHWA Toolkit for more information.

This year we’re encouraging chapters to focus their GHWA on the global health workforce crisis and the 2010 Global HEALTH Act, which will be introduced soon in the House of Representatives. You can raise awareness about the need for more health workers and better health systems in developing countries, and then take steps to address that need.

The first step: set your Global Health Week of Action date. Because April 7, 2010, is World Health Day, April 4-10 is the official week of action date. If you need to move the date because of spring break or campus calendars, go for it – just try to stay within 2-3 weeks of this date.

Please refer to the GHWA Toolkit to find resources for planning a successful week of events! The Toolkit includes an Issue and Action Guide, ideas for great events, suggestions on how to fundraise and publicize, and resources to share with your community.

We hope these resources – along with your creativity, energy, and education and advocacy skills – will help ensure that your GHWA has real impact.

Want more support? That’s what we’re here for. Email Hope O’Brien anytime at hobrien[at]phrusa[dot]org.

Even after months of preparation, I wasn’t ready for the incredible energy at Saturday’s 2010 PHR National Conference, Health & Human Rights Education in 2010!

Each of us, over 120 students and faculty from 43 US and International PHR Chapters, brought our own reasons for pursuing health and human rights education, and we all returned to different situations at our schools. We came together for one day to inspire others with our successes, share solutions to our challenges, and generate the energy that will sustain our work to advance Health and Human Rights Education (HHRE).

The day was designed to provide inspiration, resources, and skill-building. It began with PHR Board Chair Dr. Robert Lawrence’s compelling opening keynote, which offered participants an historical context, challenged them to approach obstacles from more than one angle, and inspired them with a sense of what might be possible. Panels and strategy sessions with HHRE pioneers and student-led workshops followed. Students inspired one another in the Education in Action Expo. The closing session, a Town Hall meeting with Rep. Jim McGovern, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, sustained the day’s momentum with his straightforward take on promoting and protecting human rights.

I hope that you all left the Conference with concrete plans for introducing or improving HHRE at your schools. I was so impressed by the plans you shared at the end of the day.

How can PHR support your plans? Take a look at the HHRE Toolkit – either online or in the CD in your Conference Packet. Your Chapter will be contacted twice in the next couple of months by the Student Advisory Board to help you can take advantage of PHR’s network of support as you advance HHRE at your school.

We’ll also work with you to create tools for your Chapter (like the Regional Hubs) to gather useful information and share it with other Chapters. And we will soon share resources for April’s Global Health Week of Action to help engage people in your Chapter’s vision of HHRE!

We’re very much looking forward to meeting you at the National Conference this Saturday, February 20! We want to remind you about the two additional opportunities you’ll have to meet and mingle with fellow PHR chapter members from around the country.

• Friday Night Meet-Ups: Come to Boston the night before the National Conference to meet up with other PHR members from your region! Join your Regional Mentors and members at The Beehive at 8 pm on Friday night to connect with other passionate advocates and enjoy some of Boston’s best live jazz.
• Saturday Night Social: The fun continues after the conference on Saturday night! Join fellow conference attendees and PHR staff members at 33 Restaurant & Lounge, a South End hotspot. Please email Hannah at hlauber[at]phrusa[dot]org if you’re planning to attend the Saturday Night Social.

We hope to see you on both Friday and Saturday nights!

We’re looking forward to meeting you in person at PHR’s National Conference at Boston University Medical School on February 20, 2010!

To have the best possible Conference experience:

• Read the Health and Human Rights literature we have posted on the Conference website. These articles represent some of the foundational literature published by pioneering thinkers in the field, as well as more recent publications that highlight current developments and consider the future of health and human rights.
• Respond to the articles by commenting online. Share your thoughts and see what other participants are saying.
• Present at the Expo! Does your school offer Health and Human Rights Education (HHRE)? Inspire other Chapters by sharing your school’s approach to HHRE. This can be a course for credit, reading or film discussion group, or extracurricular activity, and it doesn’t need to be something that you or even your PHR chapter has started.
• Bring answers to the following questions to the Conference:
  • What kind of HHRE initiative would work best at my school? What do I envision as the ideal HHR curriculum at my school in two or three years?
  • What faculty members are our allies in this process?
  • How does curriculum get changed at my school? Who has influence on those decisions, and who has the final authority? Which offices and individuals should we consult?
  • What resources do we have and what do we need?

Please contact me at hlauber[at]phrusa[dot]org if you have any questions or need help brainstorming!

Make sure to arrive early on Friday night to attend the Regional Socials. Your Regional Mentor will be in touch with you soon with details. Also, check out the map of Boston University School of Medicine’s campus to familiarize yourself with the area!

We look forward to meeting you soon!

Are Health and Human Rights linked at your school? Showcase your school’s education initiatives at the National Conference’s Education in Action Expo!

Initiatives could include:

• Offering a new elective
• Persuading professors to devote a class session to human rights
• Helping professors integrate human rights into discussions of other topics
• Dedicating a journal club meeting to human rights literature
• Inviting a human rights advocate to speak at your school
• Demonstrating a commitment to the right to health through direct service

Don’t be bashful – your idea could be an inspiration for other schools!

Presenters will display their projects on posters during breakfast and lunch on the day of the conference. To be considered for the Expo, please email 300 words (or less) about your school’s human rights education to expo[at]phrusa[dot]org.

Don’t forget to ask your school if support is available for students who present at conferences.

Questions? Just contact me.

Everyone at PHR is getting excited about next month’s National Conference, Health and Human Rights Education in 2010. The Conference will take place on Saturday, February 20^th, at Boston University Medical School. The Conference is a chance for representatives from your Chapter to plan how to improve human rights education at your school and nationwide.

Have you been accepted? When you’re accepted, you will be sent a confirmation email with a link to the official registration page. Please be sure to click on that link and complete the registration process.

If you’ve already registered, thank you! Make your arrangements for travel and lodging soon to get the best deals. If you’re interested in meeting other students from your region, join your regional social the Friday evening before the conference. More information will be announced soon.

Are you bringing a faculty member? Need ideas about who to invite, or how? We’ve put together a guide to inviting faculty who might be interested in the Conference’s Educator track.

If you have any questions, contact me and let me know how I can help.

We are thrilled to announce that Representative James McGovern (D-MA) will lead the closing National Conference Town-Hall Meeting on February 20^th, 2010.

Representative McGovern is the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress, as well as the Vice Chairman of the House Rules Committee and co-chair of the House Hunger Caucus.

Drawing on extensive policy experience defending human rights, Representative McGovern will bring his unique insight to the Conference. In Congress, Representative McGovern has championed education initiatives, fought to provide adequate health care for Americans, and has led congressional investigations into human rights abuses.

This conversation will be an opportunity for Conference participants to discuss how to advance a health and human rights agenda through legislative action. We anticipate that this will be an informative and inspiring conclusion to the day.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Representative McGovern and other leaders in the health and human rights field. Coordinate with other students at your school to submit an application to attend the National Conference today! The final deadline to apply is January 20^th, but with rolling admissions, there are limited spaces left!

As we enter the New Year and welcome our new Coordinator, Hope O’Brien, the PHR Student Program is also introducing the new Student Blog, PHRstudents.org! Along with an improved design and new features and resources, our new blog brings a whole new element to the Student Program – social networking! Create a profile, upload your photo, and connect with other members, locally and nationwide. We’ll be expanding these features over the coming months as we build our online community.

Register today and help us strengthen our network of student activists.

On the new blog you’ll also find handy PHR Links, a Videos Page, a digest of recent mentions of PHR In the News, and a calendar of upcoming Events and important dates. As you browse the site you’ll also see that we’ve created five Regional Hubs. Expect to hear more about these Hubs in the near feature from PHR and your Regional Chapter Mentor.

The Student Blog (and Regional Hubs) will soon develop into a new home for exchanging ideas, sharing resources, and networking with like-minded student activists.

See what PHRstudents.org has to offer and join our online community.

Welcome back! We’re excited to confirm several world-renowned speakers who will be presenting at the National Conference on February 20, 2010.

• Helen Potts, PhD, Chief Program Officer of Health Programs, Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Potts will speak about the Right to Health on a panel entitled “Human Rights and Health Education: Dueling Frameworks or Essential Integration?”
• Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, Professor of Epidemiology, International Health and Health, Behavior and Society; Director of Johns Hopkins Fogarty AIDS International Training and Research Program. Dr. Beyrer will co-facilitate a Strategy Session entitled “Human Rights in Graduate Education.”
• Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School; Senior Medical Advisor to Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Iacopino will co-lead the panel entitled “Human Rights and Health Education: Dueling Frameworks or Essential Integration?” and will speak about the urgency of incorporating a human rights approach in professional medical training.

The deadline to apply to the Conference is January 20, 2010, so start building a team from your chapter, and be sure to reach out to faculty members you would like to invite! Consult our Faculty Guide if you have any questions. We look forward to reading your application!

(After nearly ten years of dedication to PHR – first as in intern, and most recently as the Student Program Coordinator – Danielle Fox has moved on to a new position. PHR is delighted to introduce Hope O’Brien as the new Student Program Coordinator.)

As the new National Student Program Coordinator, I am honored to join the staff of Physicians for Human Rights and I look forward to working with you all.

My commitment to health as a human right began when I volunteered in Mother Teresa’s homes in Kolkata, India. Every day, I was struck by the suffering – hungry children, mentally ill women, and those needing a quiet place to die with dignity all sought sanctuary in these homes. It seemed fundamentally unjust that for some – often the poor – deprivation, injury, and disease were widely tolerated or ignored. I began to see the links between health and human rights.

A few years later, I returned to India to work with a grassroots reproductive health and rights organization. We strove to protect the right to health and to prevent the suffering that results when this right is denied. We weren’t always able to overcome the cultural or political resistance to the notion of health as a human right, and these experiences inspired me to work for a rights-based approach to health.

I have a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington in Seattle (my home town) and in June I graduated from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) with a Master of Public Health. While there, I encountered other students who passionately believed that access to health care was a fundamental human right, and that health professionals have a special duty to protect and promote that right.

Two projects took me overseas in my year at HSPH. In one, my team worked with social entrepreneurs in a grassroots effort to provide health care in the slums of Mumbai. In the other, I worked on health workforce capacity development with the Thai Ministry of Health. Both of these experiences encouraged my conviction that every person is entitled to a right to health.

I am excited about PHR’s mission and its work at the forefront of critical human rights issues. I am even more excited by the prospect of working with you. Students are crucial to any human or civil rights movement. You inspire and sustain the movement with your courage, your conscience, and your sense of urgency. As members of PHR, and as students, you are standing alongside student activists in Iran, Burma, China, and other hotspots around the world who have taken to the streets to demand recognition of their rights. You are an ally of those who are breaking the silence, and your alliance amplifies their voices.

I look forward to getting to know each of you. We will work together to inspire other students across the nation and further the movement to advance health and human rights around the world.

Please contact me anytime.