Think Global is proud to landscape our achievements from the IFMSA March Meeting 2014, “post 2015, Get Involved!”. We at Think Global with the support of many of the Think Global passionate team certainly did get involved!
Firstly, Think Global is here to stay thanks to your support! The Initiative has been successfully and unanimously re-endorsed for another two years by the plenary. And on the note of elections, Think Global co-coordinator Claudel was elected to next year’s Executive Board as Vice-president for External Affairs.
Back to business; how does one go about creating the next generation of global health leaders? Think Global took every approach we could think of to ensure we were doing just that throughout MM14. Starting with the preGA Think Global was represented in four preGAs spanning global health leadership through to training trainers in advocacy. New Generation of Global Health Leaders participants acted as civil society advocates in the GlobalWHO final day honing their advocacy skills to fight for the advances in global health they feel so passionately about: climate change, health economy, mental health, non communicable diseases and universal health coverage. Cautious not to miss an opportunity, Claudel also ran a session on global health and sustainable development in the exchanges preGA workshop whilst Anya support the advocacy preGA from afar!
Think Global’s name was beginning to seep into the consciousness of those global health minded individuals. Yet more was to come from the team of passionate young global health lovers. The theme of March Meeting 2014 was the post Millenium Development Goals, post 2015 development agenda, suiting Think Global members down to the ground. The topic was introduced through excellent talks from inspiring externals each introducing varying aspects of the post-2015 clearly leading us through what has been a confused and overlapping process. Three subsequent parallel events aimed to educate participants on specific issues within the post2015 agenda. Think Global Coordinators Anya and Claudel facilitated sessions on Health Policies and Sustainable wellbeing respectively, where small group discussions led to excellent debate and intriguing questions to be answered. The need for a health revolution emerged…yet time was insufficient for this to be planned in detail!
Finally the theme event was rounded off with a stimulating interactive session. After being caught up on all the other sessions, a debate on the health aspect of the post-2015 agenda was staged between Mike Kalmus Eliasz (former Think Global coordinator) arguing for Healthy Life Expectancy and Waraguru Wanjau (the IFMSA Liaison Officer to the WHO) arguing for Universal Health Coverage. With IFMSA President implementing his SCORA upbringing and getting the whole room got involved, enraged and subsequently contributed to the creation of the Hammamet Resolution. A truly collaborative document clearly articulating the global views of medical students regarding the future development agenda.
Think Global representatives at the meeting didn’t stop there, there was more work to be done! During the joint Standing Committee sessions we twice ran a session on “Global Health Education – what, why and how?” In total around 60 participants explored the concept of global health and how to tackle their universities to include more of it in the curricula. This showcases the IFMSA at it’s best, where we can all share our experiences to develop the achievements of others and will be carried forward for the next couple of months in order to develop an international guiding document. In addition, you may have already heard that the IFMSA is working to develop a standardised Global Health Advocacy Training; a three day workshop which can be implemented worldwide empowering youth to make change, work is continuing and all will soon be revealed.
We also collaborated on IFMSA policy statements which were successfully adopted, including one on trade and health and one the future development goals. Plus, we have helped increasing the knowledge and interest regarding the Trans-pacific and Trans-atlantic trade agreements. We were also able to meeting with many members of the Team of Officials, specifically including the standing committee directors with whom we met and pledged to improve our communication to facilitate united activities for an even better IFMSA.
Finally, for us as Think Global coordinators meeting some of our inspirational team members face-to-face was a highlight of the conference. There is no amount of words that can thank you all for the hard work you do around the world.
If you are interested in getting involved with us for the rest of the term, please fill out this form. We are very much looking forward your bright ideas and meaningful input!
On behalf of the International Think Global Team,
Claudel & Anya
[email protected]
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