| The
annual IPPNW
European Student Conference was held from the 8th to
12th
of April in Dublin. Roughly one hundred students from all over Europe
and beyond
attended the event. NWIP was given two slots in a hectic conference
program;
one two-hour workshop on “Health and Security” and then a “Training
day” of 6
hours. There were about twenty participants for both of the days. The
Health
and Security workshop started with a controversial question; “If the
overall
goal is Health for all, which it is for many of us socially engaged
medical students,
should we study medicine, or should we rather go into studies of for
example
social-science?”. This was asked as a part of a game, where the
participants
were encouraged to argue both sides.
The
workshop was
organized in an interactive style, with the
participants working in small groups, discussing what is needed to
achieve the
overall goal of “Health for all”. The participants sketched out plans
spanning
from economic issues to security. We then explained “The Model of
Change” and
spoke about “Security”, and how nuclear weapons is a major part in this
regard.
The workshop was well received and I think we benefited from making it
as
interactive as we did. We also encouraged people to attend the
NWIP-Training
the next day. The training day followed the standardised procedure,
which
Caecilie and Richard have worked on and used many times educating
students all
over the world. I have myself participated in the training earlier, but
this
time I was in the “hot-seat”- they made me part of the training-crew
for the session. This
is one of the strategies of the project; to get new students involved,
by
making them work and challenging them as early as possible. Although I
was not
very experienced this gave me the opportunity to learn how to speak
about the
issues in front of others, and I have to say it was a tremendously
valuable
experience. Presenting an argument to others is a challenge as it
forces you to
broaden your knowledge of the topic to be able to formulate arguments.
The
training day was quite successful, and we recruited several new
students to the
project.
Click here for
photos of the event
|
