A decade of SCORP by Mahmood Al-Hamody, Director on Human Rights and Peace
As we concluded another decade, we had to reflect on the history of our beloved Standing Committee, SCORP, and the trajectory of its development and growth over the years.
The Standing Committee on Human Rights and Peace has come a long way, in terms of advocacy, capacity building and raising awareness. During the past decade, the TNHRT was brought to life. ITDM, HRMP and HCiD, among others, followed. SCORP Camp and GoSCORP were born. Campaigning and PR have been established as the trademark of SCORP. Without you, SCORPions, this would not be possible!
On the first day of this decade, we wanted to share with you another milestone: the SCORP Database website https://scorpdatabase.ifmsa.org/ ... This comes as a continuation of the efforts to take SCORP forward towards transparency, accessibility, inclusiveness as well as laying a base for a Human Rights-Based Approach within the Standing Committee and channeling it to the whole Federation.
Lastly, we want to wish a happy new decade, starting with this year. A decade full of health and joy. A decade where diversity is embraced. A decade where peaceful dialogue is the norm. A decade where norms and structures are thought of and reflected upon. A decade where human rights are more than mere articles or treaties!
To more empowered youth. To meaningful engagement and advocacy. To a culture of human rights. To co-existence. To sustainable development (not only as words, but as actions!). To health for all. To SCORP 2030!
To human rights, to peace … and beyond!
External Representation Updates By Tammy Yu, Liaison Officer for Human Rights and Peace
The first three months of the term is exciting not only for me but also for SCORP's external world! For our external relations, the communication with all of SCORP's externals have started for the term and discussions regarding substantial collaborations has also been initiated. I had email communications and several online meetings with WADEM, ICRC, PHR-Israel, the Steering Committee of Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, CRIMEDIM, IPPNW-Students, UNHCR and UNRWA, where we tried to discover more opportunities on capacity building for our members and showcased more advocacy efforts on behalf of SCORPions within IFMSA. I have also reached out to one new external partner who is ELSA, the European Law Students Association, and start discussing our collaboration plans at an international level.
For our internal communication platforms, I have worked closely with our SCORP Director and PRC Assistant to reform and standardized the promotion of external opportunities and materials, and there are also plans on bringing our external work closer and more transparent to our members. Needs assessment for members and the IT were also created in order for me to reorganize the capacity building content of external representation to more cater to our Federation's needs.
For meetings, the term started with TOM1 in Bucharest, Romania with other inspiring officials, giving me a lot more confidence in myself after many fruitful discussions with TOs and other LOs. In October, I was also invited to speak on behalf of IFMSA at UNDP's HIV and Health Community of Practice Meeting, to share our efforts in disaster medicine, humanitarian actions and crisis response.
Last but not least, we have been quite active on sharing our stances on humanitarian crisis around the world through press releases. So far, three press releases have been published, which were about the Americas, Hong Kong and Iraq. We stand in solidarity with our member at all times, and we are trying our best to achieve that by revising our press release processes in order to speak up for our NMOs and our world in a more on-spot way.
March Meeting preparations are on their way and I can't wait to meet SCORPions all around the world in Kigali! I hope all of this sounds exciting and please stay tuned for more in the future! Don't forget that you are always more than welcome to approach me if you have questions regarding our external work.
Events in Green
Healthcare in Danger - PreMM20 Apply now to be a participant!
The Healthcare in Danger workshop aims to deliver the core knowledge of violence against health services, with particular emphasis on the impact of these attacks on sustainability of health systems. It covers various topics such as ethics, rights and responsibilities of the staff of health and pre-hospital personnel, emergency preparedness from a human rights based aspect, disaster risk reduction, issues related to international law and humanitarian law, international human rights, caregivers and patient safety as well as the role of communities to address and reduce violence against health care.
When:
The PreGA will be held from 26th of Feb to the 1st of March Where:
Kigali, Rwanda How to apply:
Fill in this form Deadline:
5th of Jan 2020 - 23:59 GMT.
Protecting Human Rights in today's world:
How can youth participate?
World Human Rights Day statement By Mahmood Al-Hamody, Director On Human Rights and Peace
SCORPions' Activities
Post, Don't Roast By Vidisha Maurya, MSAI-India
ANTI-CYBER BULLYING: WE STAND FOR A CAUSE
“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”
― Ansel Adams
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights focuses on the Freedom of Opinion and Expression. Taking the current situation into consideration, this right is often overlooked and it is used beyond boundaries. Often regarded as hate speech, it ends up in a vicious cycle of vilification and intolerance; commonly leading to incitement.
A well-known example of the same is cyber bullying that is rampant among teenagers and results in emotional strain, mental stress and severe psychological consequences. This age group being the vulnerable section of the society is the most effortless target leading to loneliness, depression combined with loss of confidence.
The youth of today makes up the future of tomorrow and we believe that the better understanding of the situation would help them to react better and it would eventually be evanescent.
We at MSAI-SCORP strived to achieve the same through our activity: Post, Don’t Roast. Where we aimed to sensitize the community about the issues, its detrimental consequences on the victim through 20 events influencing around three thousand individuals. Spreading the awareness, voicing your opinions, supporting the victims were few of the many steps that were discussed; focusing on creating a safe social environment that can be used positively. As it is rightly said that “Change starts from within”; one must try to be the change that they want to see in the world. Influencing and encouraging the people around oneself can help create a domino effect and thus spread the message of anti-cyber bullying eventually helping in shaping up the perfect world that we want to live in.
Separate Human Rights Sessions: SCORP Camp [Magna Carta] - As Right as Rain By Yomna Kadry, IFMSA - Egypt
''All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
- United Nations, Charter, 1945.
From here, and believing in the importance of advocating for human rights, we have conducted a local activity in BSSS-Benha under the title of Magna Carta.
We aimed to Build capacity of 15-20 BSSS members who are well-oriented about all the aspects of human rights as well as some soft skills in a 4-day camp, in the period 5th to 8th of August 2019, and also have well-oriented members about SCORP's principles, mission, and vision.
We also made a session in October that aimed to have at least 10 medical students from Benha Faculty of Medicine, who understand and are aware of the 25th article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services …"
We made new creative activities, names for the sessions, and methods and made an online event for the camp.
From SCORPions
Sara kadkhodazade, IFMSA - Iran
I am Sara kadkhodazade, LORP in Iran University of medical sciences, and I'm about to tell you the story of how we started SCORP in our LC.
It all beggan with a small dedicated group of people who were interested in humanity issues. We wanted first to know more about SCORP and its relevant subjects so that we could understand on which part we would be more affective.
At that time "doctor-patient relationship " was a breaking issue which the university's Medical Ethics group was working on. So, we decided to cooperate with them as a one-day workshop "what to say, whay not to say" held on march 8th 2018.
After meetings to discuss the collaboration, we came to the conclusion that the to topic of our workshop was going to be about: "truth telling, confidentiality and informed consent".
The very hardest part was accordancing with university and finding a place to hold the work shop because it required lots of letter-writings. But at the very end of the day we all felt so good that we had done such an effective program and the participants' feedback energized us and washed all of fatigue away.
