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IPPNW-Students Denmark

Danish Student Report, 2004

The Danish IPPNW Section (DLMK) currently has eight paying student members. Two-thirds are medical students, the last third are students with another background working with NWIP and paying as associate members. Furthermore, DLMK and IFMSA-SCORP have a special arrangement where SCORP pays a common membership for its members. In return, they receive the newsletter in all the IFMSA offices in Denmark and have access to international IPPNW student activities. A couple are also subscribed to the student server. SCORP has a short summary of activities and contact info on the DLMK home page and the NWIP are described on the Danish IFMSA Homepage. This arrangement has worked out to the advantage of both parts.

The student group in Denmark focused their energy on nuclear disarmament. All activities in 2003/2004 have been connected to disarmament and the war in Iraq. The Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project (NWIP) is coordinated internationally from Denmark and Sweden. The project and its results have been described in detail in the annual report of IPPNW. In short, the project advocates and raise awareness amongst university students, trains student activists and empowers student groups in nuclear weapon states to speak out. Danish students have participated in delegations to India, Pakistan, the UK (three times) and the US. They’ve also been to trainings in India, Berlin, the UK, Pakistan, USA and Ireland. They have presented NWIP at the IFMSA march meetings in Estonia and Venezuela and at McMaster University, Canada.

The Danish group is multi-disciplined and its main focus in 2004 was to create a good communication strategy for the project and standardized training material, up-dating the NWIP section of the IPPNW Student Website, formulating an evaluation strategy, adjusting the method so that the project became attractive to students from a different background than health. Danish students have also participated in dialogues with decision-makers in London, and Moscow (twice).

IPPNW students have been asked to train SCORP students at national seminars in the health consequences of war, ABC disarmament, the war in Iraq and student activism. SCORP and IPPNW students also participated in the campaign against the war in Iraq together. Under the banner “Health professionals for peace”, they participated in the large international demonstrations in 2003 and 2004 and a couple of students wrote letters to the editor published in national newspapers. Some facts to illustrate the Danish students’ activism: One Danish medical student (Caecilie Buhmann) is represented on the DLMK national board. One fourth of DLMK funds are given to student activities - especially the NWIP. Danish IPPNW students also contributed articles to the SLMK/DLMK newsletter in every edition.