IFMSA at the 2012 International AIDS Conference: Getting ready

After 22 years, the International AIDS Conference has finally returned to American soil. And with more than 23,000 delegates from over 195 countries, it is bigger than ever! The theme this year is “Turning the Tide Together” and it marks the critical moment in history in which society has just emerged on the winning side of the fight against HIV/AIDS. HIV rates in many countries have stabilized, ARV therapy has significantly reduced mortality, more people with HIV have access to adequate healthcare and, as Michel Sidibé stated at the conference, “The number of people receiving ARV treatment worldwide is now larger than those without.”

Since the conference was not officially opening until later in the evening, IFMSA spent most of the first day setting up the IFMSA booth inside the global village. The global village is the hub of the conference for the IFMSA as it is the place where HIV/AIDS organizations from across the world display their hard work to conference participants and the public. In fact, it is the only area inside the conference that’s open to the public!

At 7pm the opening ceremonies for AIDS2012 began! “Condoms are still the cheapest and most effective method in preventing HIV. It is time for all of us to condomize!!!” announced Sidibé.

Some speakers at the conference included World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim (pictured above), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, celebrities and many more!

The speakers’ talks reflected the “Turning the Tide” theme. Most speakers expressed the desire to have an “AIDS free generation” and emphasized that more work and funding is still needed to “bridge the gap” between the people receiving adequate care and the millions more who are not. “Now I want you to close your eyes and listen to my words: we can end AIDS. And this opportunity will be missed out if we do not act now; if we do not eliminate mother to child transmission; put 35 million people on treatment and prevent new HIV infections” said Sebelius.

“As I look out to you today I can actually see the end of AIDS” exclaimed Jim Yong Kim, closing his speech.” Do you agree? Do you think International AIDS Conference 2012 will become a significant part of history in turning the tide against HIV/AIDS?

-Wiliam Stokes

Contact: Josko Mise, scorad@ifmsa.org

61st General Assembly, August Meeting 2012–The Indian Experience (MSAI-India)

The next IFMSA General Assembly, August Meeting 2012 will be held in Mumbai, India. The host is one of our most recent candidate members MSAI (IFMSA-India). The theme will focus on universal health care.

Theme: Universal Health Care – The Time is Now!

Universal health care – sometimes referred to as universal health coverage, universal coverage, universal care or social health protection – describes health care systems organized around providing a specified package of benefits to all members of a society with the end goal of providing financial risk protection, improved access to health services, and improved health outcomes (World Health Report, 2010).

Last year, our Federation renewed its commitment to the vision of Alma Ata – a world where health is a fundamental human right, a universal societal goal, and a state of well-being enjoyed by everyone. In short, health is for all.

Our tracks…

• In March Meeting 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia we looked into the gross disparities in health that continue to afflict the majority of the world’s peoples.
• Our 60th anniversary General Assembly in Copenhagen, Denmark last August Meeting 2011, we imagined the future of health and looked into various ways towards achieving a healthier and more just world.
• March Meeting 2012 in Accra, Ghana, we recognized action on social determinants of health as the key intervention for achieving global health equity.

Action…

Beginning by addressing health inequalities through action on social determinants of health?

The WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health identified the health system as one of the crucial determinants of health within countries, and proposed that universal access to health care as a starting point. Today, nearly 100 countries are investing huge resources, establishing agencies, commissioning researches, and holding consultations as they all rush towards the finish line of universal health coverage.

In line with IFMSA’s commitment on this, Universal Health Care will be the theme for the IFMSA General Assembly this August Meeting 2012.

India is a great place to collaborate, share, exchange and build efforts surrounding universal health care. India is a country experiencing a transition towards provisions of easily accessible and affordable health care to all Indians by 2022. A national health-insurance scheme geared towards increasing access for the poor started rolling in April 2008, and so far it has enabled 100 million to have cashless, paperless, portable access to inpatient health care provided by more than 8,000 public and private hospitals across the country. India is more than willing to share its universal health care journey to IFMSA, and to learn from other health systems through IFMSA’s medical students from around the world.

Through the theme events of IFMSA-India and the OC, they hope to gather in one room the leaders of the Universal Health Care movement in India and the amazing medical student-advocates of IFMSA, and spark dynamic discussions about how universal health care can be a reality – and how we doctors-in-training can play our part.

Mumbai

Mumbai being the hosting city for IFMSA’s 62nd GA – AM 2012 India is, known as the commercial capital of India. Before 1996, Mumbai was known as ‘Bombay. Its original name ‘Bombay’ emerged from the Portugal term ‘Bom Bahai’ meaning good bay/harbor. It is also known as Manchester of India. With the opening up of the Suez Canal in 1869 the city’s future as India’s primary port, was assured. Now, it is the second biggest city in the world.

India

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world’s major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region’s diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance and led by Mahatma Gandhi.

The Indian economy is the world’s tenth-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest-growing major economies; it is considered a newly industrialized country. India is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system consisting of 28 states and 7 union territories. India is a pluralistic, multilingual, and multi-ethnic society.

IFMSA-INDIA (MSAI)

MSAI – The Medical Students Association of India is India’s largest represented Medical Student Organization & the offical organization that represents IFMSA – India

Mission

To be a forum for medical students throughout the world to discuss topics related to health, education and medicine; to formulate policies from such discussions and to carry out appropriate activities; To promote humanitarian ideals and medical ethics amongst medical students; To act as a mechanism for medical students’ professional and scientific exchange and projects; To be a body through which cooperation and contacts with other international organizations are established; To act as a mechanism for member organizations to raise funds for projects recognized by the IFMSA.

Description

India finally joined the IFMSA family and today Medical Students’ Association of India is also known as “IFMSA INDIA.” Our mission is to improve the medical education and public health care management in India & our vision is to enhance medical education, facilitate & establish communication between student organization, not to forget organize rural health programs in the country.

 

http://www.msa-india.org

Author: Roopa Dhatt, IFMSA VPE 2011/12

Contacts:

OC Chair || Pratap Naidu A. Contact: am2012india@msa-india.org

IFMSA Requests: gs@ifmsa.org

Day 4 in the 7th UNESCO Youth Forum in Paris:A happy ending!

Welcome to the 4th and last day of the 7th Youth Forum live from UNESCO headquarter in Paris.

IFMSA  was missing one powerful member: Our LO to SCORP Nassima as she had to leave the previous day  but the delegation was still as effective as before.

In the morning session, every region had a meeting to discuss the final report written by the drafting committee. After 2 hours of suggestions and amendments, the delegates gathered all together to agree on the final draft.

As I said before” EFFECTIVENESS ” but also “SATISFACTION” were the key words of the day.

I was extremely happy to see that my recommendation for the National Commissions to advertise the participation program in their countries and prioritize youth initiatives was adopted in the report.

We even succeeded to include the recommendations about sexual education and HIV/AIDS to which Joško, our SCORA-D contributed  during the ‘cafe discussion’ on HIV-related issues and AIDS activism. For instance, IFMSA was part of the interview and the article published in UNAIDS website http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2011/october/20111021unescoyouthforum/

In the afternoon ,me and Josko had a meeting with the HIV/AIDS UNESCO section that were very helpful and open to our questions and suggestions. We discussed new opportunities that lie ahead such as externals for the Regional Meetings and General Assemblies, collaboration on sexuality education programmes, creating a publication of good practices on sexuality education programmes driven and led by youth organizations (hint – SCORA and IFMSA!). They were very interested in that idea that definitely must be followed upon!

Later, I met the people from the Climate Change section and gathered UNESCO interesting publications about both topics.I also tried to get UNESCO send us some hard copies for our next meetings.

Last night and of course last adventures of the forum: Lamia loosing her hat and gloves that she finds back  while waiting for the metro in the possession of a youth delegate from Uganda. Joško experiencing the Magheb culture in a nice Algerian restaurant with Tunisian and Algerian delegates. And last but not least Josko forgetting the IFMSA posters twice in the way to our way back home.  This time we did take the right metro direction

Dear IFMSA friends, this is the end of the IFMSA participation to the 7th UNESCO Youth Forum. Being both an IFMSA observer and a Tunisian young delegate was a rewarding learning experience: Exchanging of leadership experiences, identifying youth problems and advocating for change, contributing to the recommendations, observing the intercultural interaction…

The youth forum is organized every 2 years and the delegates are selected by the National Commissions. Therefore,I’d invite all of you to be in contact with your national commissions so that you may get the chance to be part of the next big adventure.

And as s LO to UNESCO,I would like to emphisize on the importance of UNESCO as one of the main partner of our Federation.I encourage all of you to seek for more information about what this UN agency is doing and how you can benefit from it.

Hope you were pleased to read this report and thank you very much for you trust. Also big thank you to my fellow IFMSA delegates Joško Miše (SCORA Director) and Nassima Dzair (SCORP LO) in being part of this amazing adventure and for giving input for the blog.

Your devoted LO to UNESCO Lamia Jouini.