Amsterdam meeting 27th-30th November 2008
http://ippnw08.wordpress.com/
Key words: Resilience, ME (Middle East), Europe, OC (Organizing committee), MEDACT (IPPNW-UK), AMFPGN (IPPNW-France).
Palestinian participants: Rajai Atout and Mustafa Ghanim. Both are PhD students in Paris and working with the Palestinian and European affiliates of IPPNW.
Funds for participation: AMFPGN and MEDACT and the OC of Target Earth conference.
Aims of the participation:
1-To have European OC for the Resilience project.
2-To organize the workshop about extreme groups and kidnapping by Mustafa.
3-To take part in the conference to benefit from other projects.
Activities:
1- 28th November 2008, morning. Mustafa Ghanim had done a detailed plenary session in front of all participants. He had made a detailed description of the project from Teramo IPPNW meeting in 2004 when the medical road map project was firstly adopted, then he spoke about the idea of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder which was presented in Strasbourg 2007, then the common training programme in Porto, then the change which was done in London to have a common ME and European meeting in Strasbourg, followed by the ratification on this idea by ME and European affiliates at Delhi congress. Finally our success in Strasbourg 2008 to have a meeting of 20 interested members from Israel, Palestine and five European countries (France, the Netherlands, UK, Germany and Portugal). The rich discussion of that meeting has yielded a common agreement for organizing three OCs (Palestinian, Israeli, and European) so as to organize a summer school in a ME country around August 2010 (reference, Report of Loes Kleijn on the website).
http://ippnw08.wordpress.com/resillience-project/
Mustafa Explained at the end of the plenary session that forming the European OC will be at the conference itself and we already have the Palestinian OC, and then we will start to search for interested Israeli members directly after the conference. He focused on the point that although this project is not political at all, it will be considered by some as political. Furthermore, it will be indirectly affected by the political changes on the ground. So we should be careful while putting official announcements on internet and also while speaking to people on the ground. Finally, it can succeed and it will be a very amazing achievement.
2- 28th November, afternoon. We participated at the workshop of the Resilience project facilitated by Lori Postema, Sophie Bernelot Moens and Loes Kleijn, all of them from the Netherlands. About 12 interested students including Carlos Ferreira from Portugal, the newly elected European student representative, attended. We discussed in details all the concerns of European students, especially concerning the difficulty of recruiting interested members on the ground due to social, political, and possibly security issues. Interestingly, there were three students interested to be the coordinators of the project; one of them is from Manchester in UK and she is active with MEDSIN (British-IFMSA-IPPNW). We agreed that this European committee should be in contact by emails and by chatting room. That is to organize together the coming step of having three OCs and to try to organize a common meeting for them. We focused on the importance of starting our practical work even if with small number. It was also agreed to include young doctors in the programme together with medical students. We agreed that many modifications concerning the time, the number, the place, and the programme will be expected when we will start in the practical details. We focused on the importance that the meeting take place in Turkey as the Turkish affiliate of IPPNW has organized a meeting for the ME in 2002, in addition to the fact that Turkey is part of the ME and Europe as well. Also to get the Turkish visa is not difficult for Palestinians.
3- 28th November afternoon. Mustafa has done a workshop about the kidnapping done the extreme groups. (Reference, http://ippnw08.wordpress.com/workshops/).
4- 29th November. We took part in workshops, debate training, and project management.
5- 30th November. We took part in Target X, although it was rainy and very cold, we succeeded in it, and you can find the photos also on the website
http://flickr.com/photos/roman_sandoz/collections/72157610624662607/
Recommendations
After we returned back to Paris, we contacted our Palestinian colleagues in Palestine. Also we met with Abraham Behar, the president of AMFPGN and the president of the Mediterranean commission of IPPNW. We agreed on the following recommendations:
1- It is important that the project include young doctors beside medical students.
2- It is important to have the first common meeting even if it is a small meeting.
3- It is preferable to consider the possibility of holding the first meeting in Turkey.
4- Logistic issues like, VISAs, Funds, and time schedule will be important factors affecting the progress of our work.
5- It is strongly recommended that the Europeans start from now to search for few interested Israeli members to form the Israeli OC.
8- We in the Palestinian OC are waiting enthusiastically the European OC to organize the online meeting we agreed on for all interested members in the project.
9- Europeans should lead the project so as to make it a neutral and encouraging project.
10- The official announcements of the project should show the project as a health and a humanitarian project.
11- The project is now an international project (ME-EU project).
12- The meeting of the three OCs (expectedly in Turkey) will decide the shape and the size of the future work.
Acknowledgments:
We would like to express our deep thanks to the following organizations and people:
1- Abraham Behar, the president of AMFPGN and the president of the Mediterranean commission of IPPNW, for his continuous support to peace and health in the ME, and as well to all friends in the French affiliate of IPPNW.
2- Liz Waterston and Jack Piachaud from MEDACT for their endless support to humanitarian projects in the ME, and also to all friends in the British affiliate of IPPNW.
3- Anne-Lorraine Bouquiaux, the French national student representative, and all French students for their efforts to organize the Strasbourg meeting 2008.
4- The organizing committee of Target Earth conference, namely Lori Postema, Sophie Bernelot Moens and Loes Kleijn and all Dutch friends.
5- The organizing committee of Porto conference 2007, namely Carlos Ferreira, the European regional student representative and all friends in Porto.
With best regards
Palestinian Organizing committee of Resilience project
Contact details
France/Paris Rajai ATOUT
rajaiatout@hotmail.com
Palestine/Tulkarm Mahmoud Abuissa
m_abuissa@hotmail.com
France/Paris Mustafa Ghanim
mustafa.ghanim@upmc.fr