(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.
