Action Guide: How to Mobilize Your Campus For Universal Access

Hold Educational Events

To build awareness and energy on your campus about the need for access to essential medicines, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, host a series of educational events. Highlight your National Action with an informational discussion, captivating visual display or performance, or memorable film. Events can stimulate interest and build momentum.  They are both educational and a chance for advocacy. At each event, encourage participants to sign a copy of the letter urging Tibotec, Merck, and Bristol-Myers Squibb to release its patents for certain ARVs to the Medicines Patent Pool.

Photograph your event- you can use the photos to promote your Chapter.  Please share it with us (by emailing Hope O’Brien [3]) and we’ll feature your chapter on the student blog. [2]

Lead a Presentation

“The Access to Medicines Crisis: A Role for our Universities”

Check out “The Access to Medicines Crisis: A Role for our Universities” presentation by Rachel Kiddell-Monroe, President of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.  This was filmed at the First Annual Neglected Global Diseases Symposium which took place on the University of British Columbia campus on September 18-19, 2010.  This video, and the accompanying PowerPoint, could be used together to stimulate a discussion or to introduce a panel discussion to educate your peers about the origins of the essential medicines access crisis.

Video: “The Access to Medicines Crisis: A Role for our Universities” [1]

PowerPoint: “The Access to Medicines Crisis: A Role for our Universities” [4]

• HOST A PANEL – Invite faculty and community leaders to speak to students.

• BROWN BAG LUNCH – Invite a speaker or discuss relevant literature in a lunchtime journal club.

• PUT TOGETHER A PHOTO EXHIBIT – Photography can be a powerful medium to document the human impact of global health disparities.  An exhibit can portray the issues with realism and have a very personal impact on the audience.

• HOST A BATTLE OF BANDS OR TALENT SHOW – Use difference types of performances to bring people together, spread awareness, raise money and advocate for a cause.

• CREATE A PUBLIC DISPLAY – Host a table in a busy part of campus, using displays (posters with charts, photos, art, costumed actors, or larger structures) to pull people in and educate them about global health. Be creative: put large AIDS ribbons on the campus green or do guerilla marketing by blanketing your campus with posters featuring startling facts about global health.

• HOST A FILM SCREENING – Show a film and invite a speaker to host a post-film discussion.  Be sure to have a sign-up sheet and plenty of postcards so people can stay involved after the event.

Frontline: The Age of Aids (2006) [5]

A comprehensive examination of the history of AIDS.  It includes a thorough review of the growing need in the developing world to have access to generics and modern treatment options (more effective, less toxic ARVs and fixed dose combinations).

We Are Together ( 2006) [7]

This film focuses on the story of a orphanage in South Africa that houses children who have lost their parents to AIDS. Over the course of this intimate documentary, the children cope with their hardships through song and eventually travel to the U.S. to raise funds and awareness for HIV/AIDS issues. Winner of the Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award and with several other accolades.

The Value of Life: AIDS in Africa Revisited (2004) [6]

A comprehensive look at struggle developing nations face as prevalence of HIV rapidly increases.  This documentary follows the efforts of Stephen Lewis, the former UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa (who also was a keynote speaker at the 2009 PHR National Conference). Detailing the battle over generics and the struggle to obtain affordable ARVs, the depth of information in this film is deep.

A Closer Walk (2005) [8]

Catering towards a large general audience and narrated by Glenn Close and Will Smith, this film focuses on the human rights and basic sense of human dignity that are endangered by international inaction against HIV/AIDS.  With numerous interviews, amongst academics, celebrities, and politicians, this documentary carries a fair amount of information without excess.

Be creative

Got a great idea about inspiring your campus? Go for it! Let us know how we can support you to make your National Action a success.