Human Rights preGA Workshop

Jamie Yeats, Medsin Sheffield branch president, reports on his experiences on the pre General Assembly ‘Human Rights and Peace’ workshop.

 

Imagine this: I am sat in a group of 5 people, we have never met before and can barely pronounce each others names. We all represent different countries and even cover 4 continents. Students from Egypt, Peru, Japan, Tunisia and myself, sat there very pleased I’m able to speak in my first language. The Egyptian is very confident, the Peruvian very passionate, the Japanese reserved and the Tunisian keeps energetically wanting to teach us all her local dances. We are very different people.  We come from very different backgrounds but I cant help thinking that this is incredible and this mix of people and opinions led to the most interesting discussion of my life.

 

So what were we talking about? Well I attended the preGA session on Human Rights and Peace. A very broad topic that strongly focused on the rights of women, human trafficking and the right to health. Two Dutch ladies from the International Federation of Human Rights Organisation’s led this 3 day workshop and through a series of activities, energisers and discussions spelt out what human rights means in 2011. They gave some really motivating training which I would really recommend checking out online at http://www.ifhro-training-manual.org.

 

Despite everyone’s differences (and a few culture clashes!) we were all united by the desire to change what is unjust, the people I have met and the stories I have heard have been so inspiring. If these are the Doctors of tomorrow.. the future looks bright.

 

Jamie Yeats

Sheffield University