PHR Student Blog

Our Chapter

The University of Minnesota students involved with Physicians for Human Rights have incredible passion and knowledge. This knowledge comes from educational efforts we work on with PHR and personal experiences working in health and human rights. Our understanding and compassion are why UMN students remain committed to advancing health and human rights, and the University’s shared passion for this goal is incredibly motivating.

Why Did I Become a Chapter Leader?

I joined PHR after a few months of med school at the University of Minnesota. I’m in the MD/MPH dual degree program and will graduate in 2012. One of my biggest personal motivators is being an Olympic biathlete. Olympians have access to resources to make our bodies just 10 seconds faster, while millions of people don’t even have the resources to reach a basic level of health. Working on PHR initiatives is a special opportunity to promote the health of others. Physicians for Human Rights responds to real, immediate, and desperate needs around the world with thoughtful analysis based on evidence and thorough investigation. Perhaps the greatest motivation for my involvement is the people of PHR themselves; their knowledge and passion convey the importance of PHR’s work in areas that I would otherwise not have been exposed to, such as the feminization of HIV/AIDS in Kenya. As a chapter leader I made sure to share action alerts and worked closely with PHR, University faculty, and other student organizations on various events and campaigns like Women’s Health Week, AIDS week, Global Health week, and the week leading up to World AIDS Day.

Four Tips for PHR Student Chapters

1. Build and strengthen your chapter early. It’s important to make information about PHR, activity opportunities, and accessible tasks immediately available for first year students because it sets a tone of creativity and personal ownership early on. Chapter strengthening was something we prioritized because we built up from a chapter with minimal activity.
2. We recommend that you always take advantage of great collaborative opportunities, with an emphasis on clear communication processes and thoughtful consideration of your shared goals. Our experience in co-sponsoring Invisible Children (see below) was a lesson in collaboration.
3. We encourage chapter members to apply for grants from Student Activities Office in partnership with other groups, as this will increase your chances of receiving them.
4. Whenever you have a chance to work with or attend an event offered by PHR’s Student Program, you should. It is always a worthwhile experience. We made a regular effort to forward PHR action alerts to our student-listserve, so that people were personally connected to PHR’s campaigns. It can be hard to stay on top of emails from PHR, but they’re still an incredible resource.

Looking Forward

The new leadership at UMN is knowledgeable and extremely motivated, which inspires all of us in the chapter to continue our involvement with PHR and build awareness. The new leaders are beginning to get the chapter together regularly for short meetings to plan for upcoming initiatives and action alerts together. I have full confidence that it will be another exciting year for the University of Minnesota chapter!

Activity Highlights

• Townhall Meeting with Representative Betty McCollum (April 2008): Over 240 attended this discussion about the devastating effects of the feminization of HIV/AIDS with local physicians, the Health Action AIDS campaign, and the policy director for Partners in Health.
• Tour of Center for Victims of Torture (September): Minnesota is home to many immigrant communities, including many from Somalia, Sudan, and Southeast Asia. The Center for Victims of Torture is very close to the Medical School and offers counseling and medical services to individuals who have experienced physical and emotional torture.
• Lunch lectures during Women’s Health Week, World AIDS Week, and Global Health Week (throughout the year): We’ve sponsored and co-sponsored a variety of different lunch lectures, ranging in topic from Microbicides to the causes of homelessness.
• Photo-petition drive in support of hospitals, health care professionals, and students in Zimbabwe (November): We gathered large groups of students, talked briefly about the situation in Zimbabwe (government hospitals being closed, medical education compromised, patient care almost impossible, etc), and then took pictures of ourselves with signs voicing our concerns.
• Participated in the nationwide screening of Standard Operating Procedure in partnership with the Center for Victims of Torture (October): We screened the film on the same night as many other schools.
• Visit to Betty McCollum’s District Office (April): We wanted to follow up on the townhall and reiterate points about keeping PEPFAR fully funded and removing the ABC clauses. This meeting went very well and concluded with her acknowledgment of the growing relationship between the chapter and herself.
• Co-sponsor of Invisible Children (April): Invisible Children was brought to UMN by several undergraduate organizations. We helped by publicizing and co-sponsoring it.

UMN students participating in the photo-petition drive in support of hospitals, healthcare professionals, and students in Zimbabwe.