Opening, welcomes, orientation
David Legge welcomed participants and spoke about IPHU. Not a traditional academic course. Focused on the barriers to health, both access and the conditions which shape people's health. Sharingg experiences and building a people's health movement.
David introduced some of the activities planned for the course, in particular for the first few days including:
- reflections on the People's Charter for Health
- plans for the field visits on Tuesday
- panel discussions
- country and thematic groups
- participating in a meeting of the Municipal Council of Health of Porto Alegre.
PHM is an organisation, a network of networks, a global social movement. It is a vision and a project; building a global social movement. Based almost entirely on volunteers.
David spoke about three key documents:
1 - People's Charter for Health (2000)
2 - Mumbai Declaraion (2004)
3 - Cuenca Declaration - (2005)
Overall it is important to think of PHM in terms of the link between the global and the local.
PHM was established at Savar in 2000.
IPHU was created as a project to support the building of PHM. The 1st IPHU was in 2005 in Cuenca. See website for others.
About the origins of PHM.
About what PHM does globally.
About what is happening in different countries
Governance Structure: Steering Council, Coordinating Commission
Therefore, PHM is an organisation and it is network and a project. But it is above all a movement that is fighting for peoples' health.
Theories which are useful in thinking about PHM's work
- Governance theory
- Historical, political theories of social change
- Globalisation theory
- Social movement theory
- Legitimation theory and Ideology
- PHC and community mobilisation.
How does PHM work?
Linking domestic issues with global issues.
Building links, network of networks.
Creating a shared vision among local groups around local issues and making the links with the global factors.
Dealing with global issues, social determinants, environmental, engagement with the movements, with communities, gender and race, ethnicity.
Working in Country and Thematic Groups
Country Groups: how to build PHM in our own country, making the links between our problems; building solidarity; working together on the common factors globally.
Thematic Groups: working on issues that we share in common across countries, such as trade reform and the health of the 3rd world peoples. What should we do in relation to the reform of intellectual property or the food crisis. You create a plan for a project, possible to implement in practice, and implement across several countries.
Working on the People's Charter for Health
Critically read and discuss the Charter.
Where could it be strengthened?
What needs to be changed?
What added?
1. If the letter is useful and can be used in practice
2. If the letter deserves new look
3. What changes the charter could have in the next edition
The Country Groups were formed for this first group discussion. The groups are:
- Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico
- Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Australia
- Brazil
Reports from the group discussions.
Useful discussion. David clarified that there is no immediate plan to reopen the Charter. It could only occur at the next Assembly in 2010. This exercise is designed to get a sense of what the charter is. It is a theoretical exercise to think, reflect. The Charter is the basis for reaching out to other networks in building the people's health movement.
Information and Communications Technology for Health Activism
Virgilio gave a general introduction to ICT. This was very interactive.
He spoke about the importance of open access applications:
Ubuntu - operating system
Open Office - applications
Firefox - browser
Thunderbird - mail
Pidgin - Instant Messaging
VLC - multimedia
Drupal - web content manager
Virgilio then introduced blogging
He set up an activity for each of the country and regional groups to create a blog for each group and to go with feeding the daily experiences of this course. www.blogspot.com
See
CentroAmericaAndina Blogspot
MSP ConoSur Blogspot
IPHU Brasil Blogspot
(This page condensed from notes kept by Eloir Vial.)
Return to Program Page for Monday 8th September (Day One)
Proceed to Notes Page for Tuesday 9th (Day Two)
Return to the Porto Alegre index page
