What is the NWIP? >>
Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project (NWIP) is a student project of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). It is funded by IPPNW and its affiliates and receives support form the IPPNW Board of Directors and the International Medcial Student Representatives. The project is at present coordinated by IPPNW students Jakob Gierten from Germany, Wenjing Tao from Sweden and Veevek Thankey from Australia.
THE GOAL OF NWIP
- To raise awareness among the young generation of the political and humanitarian consequences of security policies relying solely on military power and weapons of mass destruction.
- To empower the young generation to undertake disarmament activities on local, regional and international level
HOW NWIP WORKS
NWIP aims to achieve its goal by:
- Meeting university students in non-confrontational dialogues primarily in nuclear weapon states. NWIP uses the Oxford Research Group Dialogue Technique – method.
- Training students in dialogue technique and conflict resolution in order to prepare them for disarmament activities on both local and international levels.
- Helping students acquire knowledge on nuclear weapons and security issues through trainings, conferences, workshops and information materials.
- Raising public awareness and influencing public opinion on nuclear weapons
- Building an international community of student activists working for disarmament under the Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project and enabling exchange of experience and information
NWIP also:
- Participates in Dialogues with Decision Makers in order to inform the politicians about Nuclear Weapons from a health and young people’s perspective.
NWIP aims to educate students and future decision makers about nuclear weapons and start opinion building amongst them. Furthermore, it strives to establish new local student chapters in different countries and train a core group of students to undertake dialogues, thereby creating a network of people working together to raise awareness about the threat of nuclear arms.
Dialogues with students take place at faculties of health sciences, political sciences and natural sciences. In addition, trainings in dialogue technique and nuclear weapons basics are undertaken with local active and to-become-active students (whose interest has been awakened during the dialogue sessions). Local students form a vital part of NWIP, initiating disarmament activities and undergoing dialogues with university students on continuos basis in their hometown and nationally.
The international group serves as resource persons for the local chapters after delegations, providing support and information resources. New members to the international group are recruited the local chapters as well as from the IPPNW student network. The international co-ordinators keep an overview of the NWIP activities globally and presents the results to the IPPNW. They also maintain the contacts with the Board of Advisors, which is a group of IPPNW doctors and members that NWIP can turn to in need of advice or contacts.
BACKGROUND
Ever since the end of the Cold War, the interest in nuclear weapon abolition has reduced. IPPNW has had increasing difficulty involving medical students in nuclear disarmament activities, while the attraction among students for work within the fields of global health, poverty and environment has expanded. In order to address this issue, the idea to this project came up during the European Student Meeting of IPPNW in Uppsala 2001. With the help of the Swedish Affiliate of IPPNW (SLMK) Ceacilie Böck Buhmann from Denmark and Richard Fristedt from Sweden initiated the project. The name Nuclear Weapons Inheritance Project was adopted, referring to the young generation bound to inherit and take responsibility of what the former generations leave for them.
The members of NWIP travelled to different nuclear weapons states to raise awareness of the nuclear threat amongst local health care students. During the first three years, dialogues were undertaken with around 1000 students in Russia, France, India, USA, China, Pakistan and the U.K. More than 100 students from South East Asia and Europe were trained in dialogue technique and disarmament issues. The NWIP students also participated in dialogues with decision makers together with doctors in the nuclear weapon states.
After the IPPNW World Congress in Beijing 2004, the co-ordinator positions for the project were taken over by Inga Blum from Germany and Camilla Mattsson from Sweden. The project continued to operate in the same way, now with the addition of public awareness campaigns such as Target X, an idea that took form during a NWIP workshop in Chicago. Another shift in co-ordination took place during the IPPNW World Congress in Helsinki 2006 and at the moment Jakob Gierten from Germany, Wenjing Tao from Sweden and Veevek Thankey from Australia are co-ordinating the project.
In 2007, NWIP has sent delegations to Iran and North Korea amongst other countries, to undertake dialogues with local students and train them in activism. Helping the Iranian affiliate of IPPNW to establish a local group, the members of the Iranian student group have now grown to more than one hundred. Another goal has been to create an updated website with information materials and documents so that any student can start up their own local NWIP group or arrange a delegation (this very website you are reading). For the coming year NWIP expect to send delegations to Russia, China and NATO in Brussel, plus establishing a common NWIP fund.