UNIVERSITY COALITIONS for GLOBAL HEALTH

Hey UCGHers!

Today is Youth AIDS Day, and people and groups around the country need you to take five minutes to help pass legislation that will save millions of lives worldwide. In the next few weeks, Congress will consider reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, President Bush’s 2003 proposal to treat 2 million people with AIDS and prevent 7 million HIV infections by the end of 2008. This plan expires at the end of this year, and must be continued.

There are two things you can do today to make sure this PEPFAR legislation passes:

First, email your Members of Congress and ask them to support reauthorization of the US Global AIDS Initiative (PEPFAR)?

Second, please call Senator Lugar (202) 224-4814, the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who is drafting the Senate bill at this time, and ask him to support a bill modeled on the one that is being considered by the House?

Click here to send an email to your Member of Congress. Then, call Senator Lugar at (202) 224-4814. Here’s a sample script, but you should feel free to modify it:
“Hi, my name is _______ and I’m from ___(organization)___. Today is Youth AIDS Day, and I’m calling to encourage Senator Lugar to work with Senator Biden to craft a bill to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. President Bush began this program in 2003, and it has been an immense success and must continue. But we need to make sure that we do the most good possible, and I hope Senator Lugar can support a bill that continues the progress President Bush started - the bill should include $50 billion over five years in funding, an end to the abstinence-only funding earmark, treatment for four million people, and train 140,000 new healthcare workers to address the key bottleneck to treating the people we’ve promised to treat in Africa.”
The PEPFAR reauthorization bill currently in the House includes $50 billion over five years, which is sufficient funding to treat one-third of people in need of treatment worldwide, begin to address the dire shortage of healthcare workers, treat and prevent TB and malaria, the leading killers of people with AIDS, and prevent HIV with evidence-based programs.

Your Member of Congress and Senator Lugar (202) 224-4814 need to hear from you that this bill must pass in order to save the most number of lives.

Around the country, hundreds of thousands of people are waking up and seeing this email in their inbox. Each person is given an opportunity to take action; to do something to make sure that every person living with HIV has access to treatment to save their lives, and every person at risk for HIV infection has the tools needed to prevent infection. But of these hundreds of thousands of people, how many will take action? Knowledge is only power when you use that knowledge to win changes in the lives of people around the world. Will you be one of the people who take action?

Can we count on you to email your Member of Congress and call Senator Lugar (202) 224-4814 today to ensure that the US Global AIDS Plan is reauthorized, with the best possible language so that we do the most good around the world?

Thank you for your hard work,

ActionAid USA
Advocates for Youth
American Medical Student Association
Americans for Informed Democracy
Global AIDS Alliance
Health GAP
Physicians for Human Rights
RESULTS
Student Global AIDS Campaign
University Coalitions for Global Health

PS- The House Committee on Foreign Affairs votes on PEPFAR reauthorization on Wednesday, Feb. 27th. On Thursday, Feb. 28th at 8pm ET and again on Friday, Feb. 29th at 2pm ET, we will be hosting a conference call to update everyone on the status of the bill, and what steps to take next. Please join us to learn how you can continue to take action to make sure this important piece of legislation passes. At the start time, call in to 800-505-4464 and type the passcode 951678# to join the call.
PPS- To learn more about this bill and all the good provisions that are included, click here.

Youth AIDS Day, February 26 2008

WHAT: Join students all over the U.S. by taking action to increase funding for global HIV/AIDS as part of Youth AIDS Day 2008.As you may know, Congress is considering legislation that would re-authorize the President’s Global AIDS Initiative. As I’ve written before, this is an opportunity to scale up the US response to AIDS and to reform policies like the failed abstinence only earmark.

* Increase funding levels to at least $50 billion
* End the required abstinence-only-til-marriage earmark
* Provide the training and support for urgently needed new healthcare workers
* Integrate women’s health and social services programs
* Address the structural inequalities that leave women vulnerable to HIV/AIDS
* Eliminate the HIV/AIDS travel ban that prohibits people with HIV from entering the United
States

WHEN: February 26th 2008

WHO: This event is being sponsored by a coalition of student organizations including: University Coalitions for Global Health (UCGH); Physicians for
Human Rights (PHR); Student Global AIDS Campaign (SGAC); Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) ; Americans Medical Student Association (AMSA)

WHY: Of the 2.5 million new HIV infections each year, forty percent are among
people ages 15-24. Myriad social and economic factors increase young people’s vulnerability to infection, and children and adolescents in many places are uniquely affected by the pandemic as they lose a generation of parents, teachers, and doctors. In some regions, youth are ill-equipped to protect themselves, for lack of knowledge about the modes of transmission. Yet young leaders are taking action, effectively changing behaviors, and shaping a better future. On February 26, student organizations all over the US will be taking action on funding for global HIV/AIDS as part of Youth AIDS Day.

Last year’s theme was Our Future, Our Crisis: Universal Access by 2010. Students challenged the political obstacles in the way of achieving this goal and providing treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS in the Global South. They held dozens of actions across the country, including demonstrations and events, to demand immediate change to address inequalities of access. Youth AIDS Day 2008 will see students pushing their political leaders to reauthorize an improved PEPFAR and to allocate the necessary resources- at least $50 billion- for it to effectively continue to fight AIDS around the world.

Global Health Week of Action, March 24-28*

The annual Global Health Week of Action is set for March 24-28th.* We will distribute a Week of Action Organizing Guide with resources for how to plan your events and actions, educational resources, and issue specific action kits. The guide will be posted on our website and distributed to students by March 1st.

*If these dates do not work because of exam or spring break conflicts, please choose the “best” set of dates for your school. We suggest the 1-2 weeks immediately after spring break as the “best” set of dates.

Prepare for the most mind-blowing, earth-shattering, life-altering conference in human history. The Student Campaign for Child Survival and the Student Global AIDS Campaign are teaming up to bring you the second annual National Youth and Student Conference on AIDS, Trade and Child Survival. It’s March 29-31 in Washington, DC, at Georgetown University and will have workshops, speakers, and a national lobby day. For more information, visit us at www.globaljusticenow.org/conference or email hayley.hathaway@fightglobalaids.org

Hope to see you all there!

Hey All—Check out a word from our partners at SPW! If you’re looking to volunteer abroad then they’re your people!

Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW) was a founding member of UCGH, and currently works as part of the professional development working group. SPW was established in London in 1985, and has developed a respected international reputation for its youth-led health and environmental education programs, with endorsements from the World Bank, UNESCO, WHO and UNAIDS.

SPW harnesses the energy and enthusiasm of trained volunteers (aged 18-28) to run targeted, peer-led education programs to empower young people in rural communities in Africa and Asia. Nearly 1000 volunteers a year participate in SPW programs: over 85% of the participants are African or Asian, while the other 15% are recruited from North America, Europe and Australia. This diversity brings an enormous range of skills and experience to each program, as well as an enjoyable opportunity for meaningful cultural exchange.

Following 3-6 weeks of intensive training, international volunteers are placed in pairs or small groups with national and local volunteers within rural communities in Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia, India or Nepal. These teams live and work together full time for 5-12 months. SPW volunteers use a range of formal and informal methods (school lessons, extracurricular activities, community seminars, youth resource centers, and community-wide festivals) to teach about issues such as sanitation, nutrition, organic farming techniques, HIV/AIDS, and child rights. To promote sustainability, the focus of each project is decided on through collaboration between the volunteers and local community members and leaders.

Want to learn more? Join our next FREE Information Session conference call! The information session will last about an hour and will give you a chance to hear more about our programs, our application process, and why SPW is unique among international volunteer opportunities. Just shoot an email to info@spw-usa.org to register for the free call. For more information, please see our website www.spw-usa.org

Here’s a PEPFAR update from one of our UCGH partners over at HealthGAP. All of our UCGH groups and students from across the country have been working hard this week to support PEPFAR so please keep up the good work!
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Hi everyone-

We’ve had amazing success in the past week. Hundreds of calls went to the offices of the Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and guess what- they worked! Nearly every member committed to attending the hearing on reauthorization of the amazing PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) bill drafted by Congressman Lantos.

Unfortunately, due to the devastating tornadoes in Tennessee and Arkansas last night, one of our major supporters, Congressman Tanner of TN, had to return to his district. Because of this, Democratic staff is not sure there will be enough votes to pass the bill out of committee, so they have postponed the voting until next Thursday at 9:30am.

So we have another week, and another challenge. Over the next seven days, we are hoping to generate even more calls to Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee members. PEPFAR has always been a bipartisan initiative, which means we need support from both sides of the aisle. We need to try and get as many Republicans to support the bill as possible!

Do you have (another) half hour to spare to help pass this critical bill? If you do, email Kaytee Riek at kaytee@healthgap.org to receive a custom-made list of Republican Foreign Affairs Committee members that need to hear from you. You’ll also get a sample script. We need to generate as many calls as possible to Congress in the next seven days. Can you help out?

Thank you for all the work you’ve done! We’ve come a long way already, and with your help, we will get this bill through committee.

-Kaytee