1.)  World Student Congress in Beijing, China, September 2004

2.)  Introduction of the two new ISR’s

3.)  2005 MedEx Exchange Opportunities

4.)  Initial Planning for Regional Student Meetings

5.)  IPPNW Student Activity Reports and Project Updates

6.)  Student Website News

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1)    World Student Congress

Overview:

From September 15 to 19, 2004, around 500 physicians, health, peace and human right activists and medical students from around the world convened in Beijing, the capital of China. The occasion was the 16^th world congress of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) organized by Chinese Society of Radiological Medicine and Protection and Chinese Medical Association on behalf of IPPNW. IPPNW, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate for its contribution towards establishment of peace through nuclear disarmament, holds its international congress every 2 years. The 16^th World Congress titled, “Peace through Health” was divided into a 2-day student pre-congress followed by the main congress for three days.  The student congress was co-chaired by Dr. Andrew Kanter (PSR-USA) and Molly Goggin (Central Office Medical Student Coordinator).

Student Pre-Congress:

For two days, around 100 students from 20 countries of almost all regions of the world sat down together and discussed various topics addressed within the Congress program.  Students from their respective countries shared their experiences within the IPPNW student movement.  Students presented their projects such as the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project (NWIP), MedEx, ReCap, and Small Arms. Two projects – Children and war and Brain Drain- were proposed during the conference and received broad attention.

Prior to elections, candidates for IMSR explained how they would assist in the development of better communication between the many IPPNW student chapters in different parts of the world.  Once these presentations were concluded, elections were held and the Regional and International Representatives for next 2 years were chosen.

Day I:

Introductions and welcomes were given by Dr. Victor Sidel, Chair of the Student Board of Trustees (BoT), Molly Goggin, Medical Student Coordinator at IPPNW central office, and our Chinese Medical Student host – Li Yanchang.

Dr. Andrew Kanter from PSR-USA presented a slide show on the history of IPPNW history and its current activities.  This presentation was followed by a poster presentation given by the Japanese Student Chapter.

Participants were educated on the core issues of IPPNW. Dr Victor Sidel spoke on Nuclear weapons, Maria Valenti on Small Arms and Dr. Robert Mtonga on landmines.

The most important discussions were those given on different student projects. The two International Coordinators of NWIP, Caecilie (Denmark) and Richard (Sweden), presented their NWIP project, Ademar Guardado from El Salvador spoke on Small Arms work in El Salvador, Molly Goggin introduced the Medical Exchange Program (MedEx) to participants, Ashok Bhurtyal and Khagendra Dahal (Nepal) proposed projects on Children and War and Brain Drain.  In conclusion, Alex Rosen discussed the IPPNW student website and his hope to improve communication throughout the student movement via the web and Liam Brunham from Canada gave a brief training on how to build activism among IPPNW medical students.

National Student Representatives (NSRs) from each country present at the Congress gave their Country Report explaining their current IPPNW activities in each of their respective countries.

Day II:

Participants divided into different working groups based on their interests.  Students formed working groups on Nuclear weapons, Small Arms and Landmines, Peace Education Initiatives and Refugees.  Each individual working group presented to the larger group.

Maria Valenti led a brief intro session on organizing cross-regional student projects and fundraising techniques for IPPNW student projects.  Following Maria’s presentation was an open discussion on the IPPNW student movement in today’s context and the student movements’ focus for the next two years.

A discussion was held concerning the student guidelines and national student chapter protocol. This session was moderated by Dr. Andrew Kanter on behalf of the 2002-2004 ISRs, Proochista Ariana and Ahmed Geneid who were unable to attend the Congress. Many students enthusiastically participated in the discussion.  It was agreed that a group of students would work on finalizing a draft of the student guidelines which would later be posted on the student website and voted on electronically.

A new group of students were elected as the International Student Representatives (ISRs) and the Regional Student Representatives (RSRs). Alex Rosen from Germany and Khagendra Dahal from Nepal were elected as the ISRs.

The following students were elected as 2004-2006 RSR's:

Africa
Monica Bowa, Zambia
africa@ippnw-students.org

Europe
Vicky Fera, Ireland & Simon Achter, Austria
europe@ippnw-students.org

Latin America      
Ademar Guardado, El Salvador latinamerica@ippnw-students.org

Middle East         
Ahmed Saada, Egypt
mideast@ippnw-students.org

North America    
Lisa Jacobson, USA & Liam Brunham, Canada        
northamerica@ippnw-students.org

North Asia           
Ryoma Kayano, Japan                                       northasia@ippnw-students.org

South Asia          
Michael Gnilo, Philippines                                southasia@ippnw-students.org

Ethnic Night:

At the close of the student pre-congress students had an ethnic night – a Congress tradition.  Students from different countries around the world shared their cultural traditions, songs, dances, and music with each other.  Ethnic night is always a wonderful multicultural affair where we can all gain exposure to one another’s traditions.

Poster competition:

Throughout the Congress the Medical Aspects of Nuclear War poster exhibit was on display.  The idea for this poster display was originally initiated by Ujjwal Ramtekkar of India and students from Russia, Nepal and India.

2)    Introduction of the new ISR’s

With the World Congress in Beijing over, there are two new International Student Representatives reporting for duty: Khagendra Dahal from Kathmandu, Nepal and me, Alex Rosen from Dusseldorf, Germany. We've both been involved in IPPNW for some years now and previously held the positions of Regional Student Representatives of South Asia and Europe, respectively. We look forward to working together with all of you, setting up the framework for successful student initiatives and projects, spreading information and raising funds to enable you to do your work.

The most important thing to us as the new ISR’s is hat you talk to us. Please let us know when you are facing a problem that you can't seem to tackle (programmatically or financially).  We would like to know about your activities, your problems and your successes.  The more we know the more we can share with the rest of the student movement.  We hope we can motivate each other and others to raise funds for student projects.   So please - keep us informed of what's going on, contact us when you have questions and tell us about your plans - we might be able to come up with some unexpected help ;-) In order to help you with your yearly reports, we've devised a clever report form for you to use.  Also, please let us know about any plans for regional or national meetings because we hope to have the opportunity to meet many of you personally.

We also invite you to read our intentions for the next two years at

3)    2005 MedEx Exchange Opportunities

 
IPPNW's International Medical Student Exchange Program (MedEx) offers a unique medical exchange opportunity encompassing both a clinical and a social service experience in another country.

Programs will run for approximately 8 weeks, with 4 weeks devoted to clinical work and the remaining 4 weeks with an IPPNW social service project.  To date, we have opportunities available in Canada, Egypt, Ireland, Kenya, Philippines, and Zambia.  If your national affiliate is not currently offering an IPPNW MedEx exchange program please encourage them to do so by filling out a country profile form at

http://www.ippnw-students.org/MedEx/AffForm.doc

For more information on the IPPNW MedEx exchange program, contact Molly Goggin at mgoggin@ippnw.org or go to the website:

where you can:

* Read about the participating countries

* Download an application form

* Review selection procedure for qualified applicants

Please note that funding is not available at this time to subsidize exchanges.  As such, students are expected to cover the expenses of their exchange.

Alex Rosen and Khagendra Dahal, the two new International Student Representatives of IPPNW would like to encourage students to think about the possibility of holding an IPPNW regional meeting in their country! 

During the recent World Congress in Beijing, Alex and Khagendra talked with National and Regional Student Representatives about the possibility of organizing regional IPPNW student conferences around the world. In light of the existing funding restraints within IPPNW, Alex and Khagendra encourage students to discuss the initial steps involved in planning regional conferences.  Once these initial discussions have taken place the IPPNW student movement can begin talking about more specific ways in which to find financial support for these types of meetings. 

If you are interested in trying to plan a student meeting in your region – please take a look at the below planning steps and send your ideas to Alex and Khagendra at ISR@ippnw-students.org:

Alex and Khagendra are very much look forward to your suggestions on Regional Meeting Planning Initiatives at ISR@ippnw-students.org

Latin American Regional Report

European Student
Recruitment Campaign

This year, more than 100 students from all over Europe attended the European Student congress in Dublin. From all over Europe? Well, not quite. In recent years, we've had some problems recruiting students from several countries, even a few with otherwise highly active and motivated IPPNW affiliates. While countries like Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria, Russia, Germany and Estonia have managed to maintain high student membership (in Germany, for example, students make up more than 10% of the total members), some other countries have not. This development might not seem to influence the work of IPPNW right now, but it will have serious repercussions in the future, when finding interested physicians to continue IPPNW's mission will pose an even greater problem than today.

We, as European Student Representatives have talked about this problem many times and have, in close cooperation with Herman Spanjaard, the 2002-2004 European Vice-President of IPPNW, come up with a concrete plan to combat this situation, aptly named the "European Student Recruitment Campaign 2004". 

We have published a number of informative publications such as posters and flyers, which should be in English and easy to copy and send by mail so that we can rely on helpers in the different regions to duplicate and distribute them. These posters and flyers include contact information and our homepage address as well as focus on concrete projects, such as NWIP or MedEx, ReCap or next year's European student congress. By giving students a broad idea of what IPPNW is all about and combining this with a concrete project, the probability of increased recruitment is likely, just as similar campaigns have shown in recent years. Instead of asking students to "inform themselves and start a local group", as we've done (unsuccessfully) in the past, we would give students the opportunity to "work in a Refugee Camp" (with ReCap), "practice and learn abroad" (with MedEx) or "meet and discuss nuclear topics with Indian and Pakistani students" (with NWIP).

In addition to these publications, we have started off the Recruitment Campaign with a new website www.ippnw-students.org/ESRC, where participants in the campaign can exchange ideas, plans and success-stories, communicate problems they've been having or post the results of their initiatives. There is a page with information for interested new-comers with links to the main student homepage and other IPPNW sites. "Ask, what IPPNW can do for you, then ask how you can get it involved."

Next, the active student members all over Europe, as well as the physicians of IPPNW’s National Affiliates will be informed about the campaign through e-mails and asked to participate. The actual "field work" will be done in two ways.

First, we want to have former students who are now physicians in different countries visiting universities in an attempt to distribute flyers and posters and spread the word about IPPNW. This could mean communicating with the medical student representatives or deans of students at the universities or just simply hanging up the posters where students can see them. In some universities, it would surely also be possible to offer a lecture on "A physician's social responsibility" or something similar, depending on the connections that our "field-workers" have with the university.

Secondly, we would institute a twinning-program, where students from a country with IPPNW activity visit students in countries where we don't have any members yet. Several viable possibilities for such twinnings are German students visiting Poland, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands or Belgium. There is bound to be more ways in which such twinnings would be possible (exchange students, etc.), if we can motivate the students to participate in the campaign and provide them with materials they need to be successful.

We would then try to keep new members active by supporting interested students through invitations to congresses, visits, distribution of informational materials and, most importantly, by asking them to participate in projects such as NWIP.  We've come to the conclusion that expecting students to start up new IPPNW groups from scratch is a lot to ask for and that by introducing single students to the organization through participation in programs or by inviting them to congresses, we can ultimately reach more people than if we just wait for students to organize themselves locally, without ever having had the chance to meet other IPPNW students in person or to have worked in IPPNW projects. 

While the long-term goal would be to expand the IPPNW student movement to countries all over Europe, the concrete goal of this campaign is to identify interested students in different countries and to invite them to next year’s European Student Congress in St. Petersburg, where we could then reflect on the campaign (which will by then have lasted half a year), decide on the next steps and evaluate the progress made so far. The progress of this campaign would then be published on the website.

If Dublin showed us anything it’s that there is a number of interested students all over Europe, who just haven't heard of us yet. Similarly, there are many active medical students in other organizations, such as IFMSA; seeking a broader political agenda. A recruitment campaign such as this one, which would not only include students, but also physicians from countries with low student participation, and might be just the right way to ensure continuous student activity and lay the foundation for future generations of IPPNW physicians within Europe, while at the same time getting them acquainted directly with experienced physician members. We hope to win the backing of some of the European Affiliates and be able to motivate physicians and students throughout the continent to participate in the campaign.

Please direct any comments, remarks or questions to esrc@ippnw-students.org

In the early fall of 2004, Inga Blum and Camilla Mattsson went to London for a meeting with Caecilie Buhmann (one of the founders of NWIP who recently stepped down as International Coordinator of the project). The purpose of this meeting was to help the new coordinators familiarize themselves with the project. After the weekend, we held a workshop in a class with medical students studying International Health.

In Beijing, we met many new students who showed an interest in NWIP.  One of them, Chris Brubaker from SPSR-USA, showed serious interest in helping us arrange a delegation to the US. Rune Dahl, NWIP contact for the US, worked together with Chris and succeeded to arrange a tour to five different universities in the states of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana during seven hectic days in November. They also conducted a training at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.  International NWIP participants on the delegation to the US were Caecilie Buhmann (Denmark), Rune Dahl (Norway), Martina Grosch (Sweden) and Camilla Mattson (Sweden).  Much was learned and many useful contacts were made for our future work in USA. A group of NWIP-students is planning on going back for the student-PSR meeting in March 2005. If you are interested in learning more about this delegation, please visit our homepage and read the report, or send an e-mail to Camilla Mattsson camillanwip@yahoo.se if you want her to send you the report via e-mail.

During the NWIP delegation to the US, Inga Blum held three workshops in Germany, one of which was held with Xanthe Hall of IPPNW-Germany.  As a result, the German section of NWIP grew in size and formed a local German students group which will support the Mayors for Peace Campaign.

Towards the end of November Caecilie Buhmann and Inga Blum joined IPPNW physicians at their Dialogues with Decision Makers meeting in London. This was a good meeting and an interesting experience. From London we took the Eurostar to Brussels where we met with a high-ranking NATO-official who was open and interested in our project. We made plans with him for a round table-meeting where students from many nuclear weapon states plus NWIP-students will have the chance to discuss nuclear policies with NATO-officials. This is an excellent opportunity for NWIP and opens new doors for our project.  The round table meeting will hopefully take place in 2005.

Overview:

The Brain Drain project is an IPPNW student initiative led by Proochista Ariana, Munanga Mwandila, and Emily Spry aiming at a preliminary assessment of health care professionals emigration from developing countries to developed countries.

The objectives of the project:

(1) Survey medical students in our IPPNW chapters in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia about their post-graduate plans.

(2) Determine the context of health professional employment within respective countries (opportunities, income, and continuing education)

(3) Assess feasibility of emigration and admittance to health programs in Europe and North America.

(4) European and North American medical student chapters will survey foreign medical graduates in order to find out the reasons for immigrating and their long-term plans (whether or not they plan to return and their reasons for this decision)

(5) Ascertain the social and economic impact of healthcare professional emigration

(6) Compare and contrast data obtained from 4 distinct regions:  Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa from both the perspective of those wanting to leave and those whom have already left.

Updates:

(1) Egyptian Medical Students for Social Responsibility (EMSSR), have voluntarily proposed to design a pilot questionnaire to be distributed randomly between 100 student in Mansoura Faculty of Medicine (one of the Egyptian medical schools in Egypt which is located in the north of Egypt beside the Dameitta Branch of the River Nile) with a deadline for data collection and data Analysis 30/4/2005.

(2) A working group of students in the Brain Drain project are subscribed to

Everyone is welcome to join the working group and yahoo listserve and can send his/her suggestions to this group directly.

(3) If you have any questions about the project please email Proochista Ariana, Khagendra Dahal and Ahmed Saada at braindrain@ippnw-students.org

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Recap Report

Intro and Background of the ReCap Project:

The plight of the Palestinian people has recently resurfaced in the international press on the dawn of the death of their president Arafat. Unlike this recent coverage, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from transient, and can be traced back over 50 years to 1948, if not before that. The occupation of Palestine (as defined by the green line) is a violation of human rights and has harsh repercussions on all Palestinians, most notably the refugees.

Their physical health and mental well are challenged daily by transport and communication restrictions, water and land seizures, humiliation encountered at roadblocks and checkpoints, the low standard of living and low sources of income.  Perhaps the most tragic and enduring effects of the wall and the occupation are those on the refugee children who grow up within such an environment; estranged to notions of security, stability and trust.  If one should extrapolate from the fact that this is the longest standing refugee crisis in history, you would determine that the parents of the refugee children today, were also born as refugees, this impressive fact further underlines the seriousness and depth of the issue at hand.

International efforts have long been involved in attempts to restore peace and safety to the region; however this task is complicated by the ever compounding refugee problem, ethical issues surrounding the occupation and the separation wall, and discussions between the two factions are riddled by misunderstanding, racism and armed fighting.

ReCap First Session

At the European/Middle East – IPPNW students’ meeting in Berlin in June 2003 the Palestinian Refugee Camp Project was launched.  The First ReCap session was completed in August 2004.  Five international students participated from different countries around the world.   Further contacts with cooperating organisations were made, and the refugee campsite was chosen, and the first part of the project (a survey) was successfully completed.  However, in August the ReCap schedule had changed because of a lack of enough funding for both drama therapy and English language teaching.

The project itself was carried out in three refugee camps in Bethlehem in August 2004 by 5 international medical students representing Germany, Denmark, Sweden, the U.S.A. and Canada. The focus of the project was to evaluate the impact of the wall and the Israeli occupation on the mental health of the children of these refugee camps and determine what interventions they would best benefit from and subsequently adjust the aid programs to address the problems.  This was accomplished by working with the UNWRA in refugee centers and using art and games to communicate with the children, furthermore all the participants lived in the camps with the children and after founding solid relationships with the children and their families.

In addition we worked mornings doing rounds at the hospitals and here were able to directly observe the delivery of health care to the refugees and the obstacles to overcome for both the patients (financial, transportation, religious) as well as for the physicians (overworked, lack of funding and materials, lack of technology and training). These experiences will help to develop future refugee interventions.

Because this was a pilot project, we wanted to facilitate and encourage the intervention of international health professionals and students in the field of psychological and community health; in order to establish continuity in the communities while simultaneously providing training to the students in these domains. We were fortunate enough to establish many contacts at various refugee centers (the Amal centre and Al Rouad) that are in constantly searching for volunteers to work with the children in various domains, as well as Palestinian medical student contacts at the Al Quds University and physicians and the various hospitals in Bethlehem and Ramallah.

The survey was the first phase of the project.  The survey was focused on the impact of war on Palestinian refugee children and their mental health issues in the Bethlehem area. This had been distributed by Palestinian students in cooperation with Red Crescent.

The second part of the project was held in cooperation with local Palestinian students and consisted of two parts: a four-day-long workshop at Al Quds University in Abu Dis, and 2 and a half weeks of practical training at hospitals, clinics and refugee camps in the Bethlehem area.  Workshop participants were taught Palestinian history and given background on how the refugee crisis began, what their situation is like today, and what it's like to live and work in the camps.  Facts and statistics where varied, with discussions and questions to the lecturers, who came from different organizations working with refugees.  Palestinian students gave a presentation about the survey.  After the workshops participants went into the practical training in Aida Camp, Bethlehem.  Each morning, students participated in a hospital rotation followed by UNRWA activities with the children in the afternoons.  UNRWA provided games for the children so they could learn to express themselves in a non-violent way. Hospital rotations were in private clinics, governmental hospitals and the UNRWA clinic. This gave the participants a wide range of experiences.  They received training from doctors and were exposed to the different hospitals and clinics.  Overall, participants were given a general overview of the health status of the children living in the refugee camps.  Participants also traveled to Tel Aviv for a day to hear a lecture on the Israeli health system and to visit a local hospital.

Ultimately, following the peace through health ideology, we hope that by improving the psychological health of the refugee population, the Palestinians will be in a better position to negotiate the process for establishing permanent peace.  Although we understand that the road to peace will be long and fraught with effort and disappointment, especially in the light of recent events, we are optimistic that with the international eye on the situation in Palestine and Israel the leaders will be forced to work together.

ReCap returns once again to Bethlehem with some modifications to the program, to find out more about our program and how to participate in it please visit our website.

ReCap Second session

Tentative Project Schedule for the second ReCap session in 2005 -- may be subject to change, please contact Kathryn Leccese or Anas Eid for the most recent and up-to-date information on the ReCap schedule.  The project will take place in the summer of 2005 in the West Bank.  Applications will be restricted to international medical students, interested in the following:

-refugee health, particularly mental health

-practical work within the field of mental health

-There will be workshops throughout the first week, covering the following topics:

To date, the participants are working on the survey conducted in spring 2004 and the psychological impact of war and occupation on refugee children in three refugee camps in Bethlehem. The results will be used as a platform from which to perform the project.  The final proposal and schedule of ReCap is currently be worked on and workshop lecturers from UNRWA (United Nation Relief Work Agency for Palestinian refugees), BADIL (Resource Centre for Palestinian refugees), and the Red Crescent Society have yet to be confirmed. The workshops will take place in Al-Quds-University, Abu Dis.

The next ReCap session will consist of two or three weeks of clinical rotations similar to the activities done in the first session of ReCap as well as the activities with refugee children in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The activities, such as drama and teaching English, will take place in the afternoons with children who are between the ages of 10 and 16 years old.  The program provides a three day introduction to drama performance and English teaching.  Both will include a focus on expressive therapy.  Hopefully, ReCap will increase hygiene and health care awareness among refugee children.  Our goal is to help children find ways in which to express themselves and their feelings, apart from the violence they are accustomed to

Contact and Application

ReCap Project information and applications can be found on the IPPNW student homepage: www.ippnw-students.org/ReCap .  Simply click on ReCap! There you will find the application forms, pictures, and contact information for those who wish to participate in the project! Also the organizing committee always can use a hand, so if you are interested to join the organizing committee, feel free to contact the Coordinators. Kathryn Leccese kathryn.leccese@UMontreal.CA or Anas Eid anaseid_md@yahoo.com. 

contributed by Kathryn Leccese and Anas Eid,
International Project Coordinators

The IPPNW International Student Website is in its second year and many improvements have been made in recent months.  Andrea Santiago from the Philippines is helping with the website as webmaster, but we're still looking for people who want to help us with administration and creativity. In order to encourage student chapters to contribute to the website, we recently had the great idea to feature a different country on the website each month.  That way, all of the great work that you’re doing can be presented and appreciated by students and physicians from all over the world, hopefully inspiring them to join our movement or to pick up on ideas and start their own projects.

The Egyptian students volunteered to be the first country, Germany has followed suit. We’re now looking for more student chapters that want to present their work in the following months. The idea is to have a gathering of documents, information, pictures, articles, etc. and then use the time span of one month to upload all of it to fill the website with life.

This is much easier than it might sound. First, you might consider writing up some articles about your work, present a summary of past activities, send us some publications or documents concerning your group or scan photos of your group, your members, your projects or activities so that we can upload them. All you have to do is send us a quick e-mail and we’ll take care of the rest.

You might have several local groups within your country (in Egypt Mansoura, Zagazig and Ismaelia, for example). Each group can have their own small page included within the national one, showing a photo of the local group and their contact information as well as any information about ongoing projects.  Links are also very helpful to  people visiting the site.  In Beijing I presented the statistics of how many people visit our website – more than 150 each day! Presenting your work and yourselves on the website is the best way of getting new students interested and motivated to join IPPNW and help you with your work.