IPPNW
student projects in Germany
German IPPNW students
participate in and organize projects on a local, national and
international
level. Most students focus on working within their local student group,
usually
in the city where they study.
Local
projects:
Although every local group within each
city has their own projects, the latter are often similar in regards to
their
topics. Refugees in Germany,
medical care of people without passports, nuclear energy and ethics in
medicine
are only some of them. The following examples give a slight idea of
some of the
projects at German universities:
Students in Berlin, for example, have created an
exhibition on refugees without papers which is currently being shown
throughout
the country. They’re also closely involved in trying to organize
medical
treatment for paperless immigrants, an effort that is being coordinated
by a
central office in Berlin.
In Leipzig,
IPPNW students cooperate with the local counsellour for refugees. At
present,
some students give classes on general school subjects and hold seminars
on
medical issues for refugee children. The students in Leipzig also
organized last year’s national
student meeting of IPPNW.
In Halle,
students have established an office that helps refugees without papers
to
access the medical care that they require.
Tübingen has a similar project which
uses
the assistance of a designated cafe.
Düsseldorf`s
IPPNW students have
implemented weekly seminars on “Medicine in social responsibility”,
held by IPPNW-students
for other students. There are various topics ranging from “medicine and
racism”
to “peace through health”.
Moreover, most local groups regularly
organize events such as movie showings with subsequent discussions,
podium
discussions or poetry evenings.
A group of IPPNW students is currently
planning a third “Conference on ethical medicine”, which is due to take
place
in Erlangen,
some time in 2006. The two pervious conferences have received
widespread media
echo, especially amongst students and have attracted many new members
to IPPNW.
In Düsseldorf, a charity-Vollyball match
involving students from all faculties, professional volleyball teams
and
foreign students at Düsseldorf’s Heinrich
Heine University
is being organized by IPPNW to raise money for a new model hospital
being set
up in Kenya.
National
projects
Currently the following projects are
being undertaken on a national scale:
Electives nationwide is a project that was recently implemented; it allows
medical
students throughout the country to find IPPNW doctors in Germany
where
they can do an elective. The goal is for medical students to learn more
about
medicine than just the theoretical and practical knowledge they aquire
at their
usual classes: by doing an elective with an interested, probably
socially
active IPPNW doctor. The offer is used a lot and up to now the feedback
from
the students has been pretty good.
Famulieren
& Engagieren (practice and
engage) is a special exchange programm where every year, twelve
German
students travel abroad (e.g. to Israel,
India, Canada, Nigeria, etc.) for an
elective and
gain insight into local social projects at the same time. The programme
is very
popular and at the moment we are trying to raise money in order to give
more
foreign students the possibility to come to Germany and experience a
similar
programme here.
An annual student magazine entitled Amatom is being published by IPPNW
students in close cooperation with the national affiliate and is being
widely
distributed at college campuses all over the country. The goal is to
advertise
IPPNW and its topics amongst students and gain a larger reputation as a
relevant medical student organization.
As many IPPNW students are also members
of the International Federation of Medical Students Association
(IFMSA), there
is an intense cooperation with students that are involved in
IFMSA´s Standing
Committee on Refugees and Peace (SCORP). One of their most recent projects involved collecting money for MFS
(Doctors without borders) and their involvement in Sudan.
For this cause, students
showed a power point presentation on Sudan during lectures and
collected
money from their fellow students afterwards. Very successfully!
International projects
At the moment Germany
is
mostly involved in three international projects:
The Nuclear Weapons
Inheritance
Project (NWIP) is another important international project. The idea
is for
students to go to official nuclear weapon states, visit selected
universities
and get into contact with students from such countries. The question
they want
to raise is whether we (as the coming generation) are willing to
inherit the
nuclear burden or rather become the first generation to stop its
spreading.
The Refugee Camp project organized by
some Palestinian students and Sina Helbig of Berlin,
sends a group of students to a Palestinian Refugee Camp near Bethlehem, where
they can experience the
situation the people in these camps are faced with every day, help
social
workers and work in the medical care of the camp for some time.
As for Europe,
German students are more and more involved in the European
Recruitment
Campaign. This project aims at implementing IPPNW in European
countries
where the organization is either very small or non-existent. Students,
mostly
from cities near the borders (e.g. Düsseldorf near Holland, Leipzig
near Poland),
are planning to
organize
visits to universities of their neighbouring countries to inform
students and
to peak their interest in IPPNW.
Julia
von Oettingen
German National Student
Representative
