Vision MSAND (University of Notre Dame, Fremantle) Jasmine O’Neill and Nick Baillieu
In 2011 we held our first event as a Global Health Group at Notre Dame Fremantle. We endeavored to find a warm spring night to hold an outdoor airing of “A Walk to Beautiful” to raise awareness of the atrocities and hardship of obstetric fistula, but alas we were forced inside due to poor weather conditions. We began the night with a feast of barbecued South African sausages (plus a hearty vegan substitute) and corn cobs in their husks, accompanied with salad and couscous before we ventured inside to escape the wind. The amazing and truly inspiring Margaret Lobo AM, Past President of Soroptimist International who was last year honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours and made a Member of the Order of Australia for services as an advocate and promoter of Human Rights and Health of Women, spoke to of her experience visiting the Hamlin Fistula clinic in Addis Ababa during 2009. She told of her project to provide hope, help, love and life to those few young women who were unable to be cured of the condition that otherwise shunned them to the darkest corners of society. This was followed by the screening of Mary Olive’s “A Walk to Beautiful” which follows the story of five women in Ethiopia suffering from fistulas and on their journey to the fistula hospital in Addis Ababa where they find solace for the first time in years, enabling their lives begin to change. The new lease of life afforded to these brave women casts a bright light upon the powerful potential that we fervent, budding doctors possess. Potential that can be harnessed to procure such an immeasurable difference to life those less fortunate parts of our planet. To find out more visit www.hamlinfistula.org.au/ and soroptimistinternational.org/.
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With Octobers Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM) being held in Perth we supported the End of Polio campaign. Ambassadors flash mobbed in Perth CBD and Fremantle CBD before gaining signatories on the petition for the End of Polio, and raised awareness of further initiatives at the End of Polio Concert. The petition called on World Leaders to support and fully fund the critical work of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. An initiative that provides vaccines for hundreds of millions of the worlds poorest children and supports health workers, in hope of protecting future generations from debilitating disease. During the concert Prime Minister Julia Gillard pledged that the Australian Government would contribute $50 million to global polio eradication efforts. The following day, 5 world leaders and Bill Gates pledged a further $118 million, in addition leaders of Nigeria and Pakistan committed to addressing the spread of Polio in their communities – Monumental feats through local advocacy. To find out more visit www.theendofpolio.com/home/category/blog/ and www.facebook.com/theendofpolio.
vector magazine
amsa global health committee
page 29