UNIVERSITY COALITIONS for GLOBAL HEALTH

Hello UCGHers!

As you’re participating in your call-in day to Representative Ros-Lehtinen below are some thoughts from the Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC) Mid-Atlantic Coordinator Tucker about why he was surrounded by hundreds of socks on Capitol Hill.

Tuesday was sock day. A group of dedicated activists from SGAC, ACT UP Philadelphia, Health GAP, UCGH, Americans for Informed Democracy and Advocates for Youth gathered on Capitol Hill to call on Congress to fund PEPFAR fully and create greater flexibility in the global AIDS legislation, including comprehensive sex education, accessible treatment, a repeal of the anti-prostitution loyalty pledge, and support for in-country healthcare workers.

Despite the cold and the rain, grassroots activists from DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey came together to deliver hundreds of socks strung on clotheslines and shoved into laundry bags and backpacks. We urged Representative Ros-Lehtinen and Senator Lugar not to get COLD FEET when it comes to PEPFAR.

Some congressional staffers were receptive to our concerns, reminding us that global AIDS is not a partisan issue and encouraging us to continue the struggle for universal access to prevention, care, and treatment.

Unfortunately, some members of Congress, despite recognizing that AIDS lies beyond party lines, will continue to weaken the legislation. Our goal as a student movement is to remind our representatives that PEPFAR is about one fundamental thing: saving lives. Apparently, that is easy to forget in the crazy political mess that is Congress. That is why we have to keep our representatives in line—hold them accountable! We must call upon important and influential representatives such as Ros-Lehtinen to stand for conscience and medical fact.

Those of us who took part in Tuesday’s action, those of us who have had the opportunity to lobby our representatives in Washington or in our home states, can attest that we have social power as students. We are the grassroots movement, and we do make a difference when we mobilize effectively. That is why we all must rally together in unison and urge Representative Ros-Lehtinen to forget about divisive political agendas when it comes to something so vitally important as saving lives.

- Tucker Landesman is a member of George Washington University’s SGAC chapter and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Outreach Coordinator

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Women's Health, Healthcare Workers, Events, HIV/AIDS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.