Projects Bulletin Issue 5

PROJECTS BULLETIN

ISSUE 5

MARCH 2009

noititepmoC nitellContents uB stcejorP eht fo srenniW

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Intro

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Winners of the Projects Bulletin Competition

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IFMSA Initiatives

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IFMSA Transnational Projects

15

IFMSA Endorsed Projects

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International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

Intro Dear IFMSA members, Here we are again ... another GA ... and another issue of the IFMSA Projects Bulletin is in front of you.

The Projects Bulletin is a great opportunity to promote your projects internally and externally. The first issue of the Bulletin was published in August Meeting 2006. Up until now the best 5 projects were selected from those who applied and were given the chance to present themselves by writing a short article for the Bulletin.

The competition to publish an article in the Projects Bulletin was always and still is open to any IFMSA-related projects. The best of all project submissions also receives the Rex Crossley Award, as being the best IFMSA project of that year.

But you will notice that this issue is a bit different compared to the previous Bulletins. It consists of two parts.

The first part is the good old Bulletin that you know - with articles about projects that won the Projects Bulletin competition. A panel of experienced students in project management was established to evaluate the applications. And since we have received twice as many applications as in the last years we have decided to give more projects the opportunity to present their activities. The winner of the Rex Crossley Award will be announced during the closing ceremony at the March Meeting 2009 in Tunisia.

The second part was created in order to present and promote the Official IFMSA Projects. But at the same time it is also a valuable guide trough the rights and obligations that come with the recognition and the application process that you have to follow if you are considering to apply for it.

Within the IFMSA the term “projects” refers to activities in any field of interest of medical students, in

concordance with the IFMSA principles, aims and policy statements. This includes Projects, Events, Workshops, Surveys, Networks and Campaigns.

IFMSA has three categories for projects: • IFMSA Initiatives, • IFMSA Transnational Projects • IFMSA Endorsed Projects Projects in all three categories must comply with the Constitution and Bylaws of IFMSA. The projects and their coordinators rights include: being able to display project information on the IFMSA website and the official projects database, receiving recommendation letters form the Executive Board, being supported in grant application and fundraising and obtaining priority in their promotion within the IFMSA network and our partner organizations.

Besides all this, the IFMSA Initiatives and Transnational Projects can choose to utilize the IFMSA banking system and have up to 2 secured places for their representative’s participation at the bi-annual IFMSA General Assemblies. Endorsed Projects have 1 place secured for a project representative at each General Assembly. The coordinators of officially recognized IFMSA projects are required to submit two half-year reports by the 1st December and 1st May, to update the project information on the IFMSA projects website and official projects database and to comply with the constitution and bylaws of the federation.

I sincerely hope that all of you will benefit from this issue of the Projects Bulletin - either by getting the exposure for your project that you wanted or by getting new ideas that you can implement in you NMO. I would be also very pleased if it motivates you to apply for the next issue of the Projects Bulletin or an IFMSA official status for your project.

Vesna Jugovec Projects Support Division Director 2008-2009 IFMSA projects@ifmsa.org Projects Bulletin

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Woinners ofothe n ititepm C nitProjects elluB stcBulletin ejorP ehCompetition t fo srenniW Dying - a Human Thing „The more someone needs your support, the more you are obliged to help” J.Tischner Medical universities teach their students the mechanism of a human body. Unfortunately, in many cases it is not enough. When it comes to terminally ill people it is not pharmacology or patophysiology that really matters. We want to teach future doctors how to give support to dying people. Very often a simple talk can be more helpful than sophisticated medicine. Through workshops with specialists we would like to give answers to questions like: “How to reveal a fatal diagnose to a patient?”, “How to talk to a family of a dying patient?”, “How to support my patient?”. Sometimes the most obvious questions are the most difficult ones.

The beginning The idea of the project was born during the university course of psychology. During classes students could take part in psychodramas, “trying themselves” in some difficult situations. As long as it didn’t come to the topic of death, everyone was successful. Unfortunately a talk with terminally ill patient made them helpless, as no one knew how to behave in the presence of dying person. Because the work of the doctor doesn’t only mean prescribing drugs but also contact with a humanbeing, we decided to break the silence and taboo about the topic of death and teach medical students how to help terminally ill patients.

Workshops The best way to achieve our goals was to organize workshops in small groups. As tutors we offer specialist (doctors, psychologists, priests, volunteers) who in their every day life work with dying people. This guaranteed the atmosphere of trust and intimacy. Students opened and talked freely about their own experiences and fears. The great achievement of these workshops was that some of 3

International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

them even started thinking about voluntary work with terminally ill patients.

The idea of helping dying people was spreading easily in the whole country. Representatives from all Medical Universities in Poland decided to take part in the project. Due to their commitment and hard work, workshops were carried out in all of Poland.

There were workshops at all eleven Medical Universities in Poland. We had partners on national level and the articles or programs about the project appeared in countrywide medias. The great triumph of the project was that it gathered so many people. Some of them are well known not only in Poland but also abroad like Prof. Jacek Luczak - the creator of palliative medicine in Poland, who founded the first palliative ward and later a clinic in Poland. But there were many nameless volunteers even from technical universities, who just wanted to help. Thanks to their hard work, we trained over 500 participants.

Why were people so interested in the project “Dying - a Human Thing”? The topic of death and terminal illnesses is not only connected to medicine.

All of us will eventually stand face to face with that matter. But the duty of the doctor is to help their dying patients. The great success of “Dying - a Human Thing” is that it trained students, who are now more confident that they would be able to support a terminally ill patient.

Barbara Ryba National Coordinator of “Dying- a Human Thing” IFMSA-Poland umierac_po_ludzku@poczta.fm

GAP Exchange ANEMF, DENEM and IFMSA-Peru joined their efforts, thanks to the IFMSA network, to develop a standing Global Health project. This project is based on students bilateral exchange.

The goal of GAP (Global Action Project) Exchange is the study of a disease which represents an important public health issue in the partnership country.

Being a bilateral exchange the project has two major parts : the first part concerns the 8 French outgoings students who will go in Brazil and Peru.

ANEMF has chosen to concentrate its work on neglected tropical diseases and especially Chagas disease. Indeed, this pathology affects about 90,000 people each year in Latin America and yet the pharmaceutical industry only developed two medicines which proved to be efficient only during the precocious stages. In addition, these diseases are quite unknown to French medical students.

The first part of the project will proceed in four steps :

A conference on Neglected Tropical Diseases will be held and we will deal there with NTDs in all their aspects (medical, social, economical, political...) with the help of several speakers and workshops.

This meeting will be held on 2nd and 3rd May 2009 at the medical faculty of CrĂŠteil in France and will be open to any students interested in global health issues (medical, paramedical, but also from fields such as economy, sociology, politic...).

The next step will be a one-month research initiation training in a research laboratory (of one of countries partnering) which develops studying activities on Chagas disease.

A 2-week field mission, in an endemic area of one of the countries partnering will follow This public health mission will be performed together with the local students and should ultimately become a long-standing action.

The last step of the first part of GAP Exchange are development education actions. Returning to France, actions will be undertake by the outgoings students to raise general public awareness on the issue of neglected tropical diseases.

During the second part, ANEMF will welcome Brazilian and Peruvian medical students who will attend a research initiation training, followed by a field mission, on a French public health issue.

The mission of GAP Exchange is to offer future physicians a comprehensive introduction to global health issues. Through this program, we wish to develop in students a cultural approach of medicine and a proper formation to act against unequal access to health facilities on our planet.

Myrtille ProutĂŠ In Charge of International Projects ANEMF gapexchange@anemf.org Projects Bulletin

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IRIS Project When we talk about IRIS we have to go back to 1997, to the Medical Student’s Association of the University of Paraguay, where a group of medical students came up with the idea to unify research and social activities, along with their educational ones. They called this kind of activity “UniversityMultidisciplinary Camp of Research and Service” (CUMIS in Spanish), and their idea was presented to other Latin-American medical student associations.

When it reached Peru, some modifications were performed on the CUMIS approach, adopting a new name: “Intervención Rural de Investigación y Saneamiento” (IRIS), and so a new methodology, which was established for the first time as a medical rural project in Peru, year 1999. This project was organized merely by medical students and since then, nine editions of the IRIS Project were organized and developed in different rural communities of our country. Last year, after a 5-years break from the interventions, our group organized IRIS’ tenth edition, IRIS-X camp, introducing a new methodology and updating its structure, having the main goal of satisfying expectations and needs of the volunteers and the community, in all three cornerstones of IRIS Project: Education, Scientific Research and Health Care.

Today, IRIS Project’s main objective is to promote the social aspect among young students of medicine and other health-related professions, through interventions developed in rural areas with essential needs. These interventions are divided into three main axes: preventive education on specific health topics, development of community-based scientific research projects and medical care of5

International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

fered to the whole community. The idea is to allow students to get involved in all of these since their planning, and to put in practice the knowledge they have used only in classrooms and hospitals.

In order to fulfill our objectives, activities must be divided into three stages: the Pre-Intervention, the Intervention and the Post-Intervention. Definitely, the most exciting and valuable part of the project is the coexistence between our culture and the one of the community’s inhabitants during the intervention.

On the other hand, it is really difficult to make a significant change in lifestyles, customs or health aspects in a group of people, and a single intervention is definitely not enough to achieve this goal.

IRIS-X intervention allowed us to identify what were the problems of a specific community and to work on them with the tools that were available. However, using more precise and concrete information, such as the results from the research projects, we are able to improve our interventions and to reach a significant long-term impact on the community and, as a result of that, on ourselves too. We really hope that younger students will follow our steps and continue doing the same in other parts of our country, and why not in other parts of the world.

The experience of the IRIS Project have taught us that when one tries to generate an impact on a human being, this phenomenon will necessarily have an impact on himself. And that is what life is about.

Gabriel Arevalo Ruiz, Santiago Cabrera Cabrejos, Rosa Vallenas Campos IFMSA Peru iris.upch@gmail.com

KuMSA’s Environment Team KuMSA’s Environment Team is considered to be the first official environmental team in Kuwait University that is established by students. Several medical students felt the urge to initiate such a team within a full environmental prospective with the aim of having a better environment. The team members decided to set plans and projects that involve the whole population because together we can make a difference.

Since the environment is where we live in and breathe, it is our duty to protect it. So, what is it that we as students can do to improve our environment? We the KuMSA medical students were asking ourselves this exact question.

As a result KuMSA’s Environment team was initiated with the following objectives: 1. To increase environmental awareness among the general population 2. To reduce the waste through recycling and being a bridge between the families and recycling companies.

3. To enforce regulations under existing environmental laws in Kuwait and worldwide 4. To provide a structured, experience-based series of activates to grip the society’s interest and support.

5. To participate in all the environmental events globally and locally.

6. To link all the environmental efforts together in order to reach the next level.

7. To spread the idea to all the countries worldwide

To fulfill those objectives, the team came up with many ideas: 1. KuMSA’s Environment Team took the first step by establishing and organizing an environmental exhibition that was held on May 2008. Many environmental companies and societies were involved.

And during it KuMSA’s Environment team organized also a recycling and paper-weigh competition where we were able to collect more than 3050 Kg of unwanted paper.

2. The team placed recycling bins all over the faculty of Medicine. A recycling company has dedi cated to pick up and empty the bins twice a week.

3. A NO-Nylon-Campaign was also created. Nearly, all the supermarket bags that are used in Kuwait are made from nylon. So, the team decided to distribute environment friendly shopping bags for free to all the medical students.

4. Environmental Competition involves many different activities that are related to the environment.

Students will register as teams and each team will do various tasks (such as cleaning up the beaches, planting trees,…).

5. Awareness Campaigns in schools are also a part of our efforts.

6. Recycling cleanups consist of going to offices, university campuses, polyclinics and collecting waste papers.

7. We bring recycling to YOU: We will also distribute boxes for the students to take them home and bring all their waste to us so we can give it to the recycling companies.

Many plans and idea were set to reach the team’s goals and objectives. The idea of this project is to make our world a better place. So, let’s work together and make the dream come true.

Lujain Al-Qodmani National Public Health Officer KuMSA kumsaec@gmail.com Projects Bulletin

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Marrow Thousands of people every year are affected by leukaemia and other disease of bone marrow.

Blood stem cell transplant may be their only cure, but unfortunately, only 30% of patients find a suitable related match. Marrow is a volunteer student organisation which helps to arrange donor recruitment clinics in universities, and raises charitable funds to run these events.

Fundraising is a major part of what Marrow groups do in supporting the work of the ANT. It costs €135 to maintain a donor on the bone marrow donor register. As well as local events such as bake sales and bag packing, groups around the country have worked together to hold highly successful ‘Battle of the Band’ events, charity cycling (78 miles!) and running events (13 miles!).

Marrow’s International position is growing since it became a transnational project. Groups are currently running in UK, Netherlands, France, Finland and Germany. Several countries are also in the process of setting up Marrow groups. Marrow was the winner of the Rex Crossley ‘Best Project in the World’ award at AM07 and AM08.

Marrow began in 1998, and works in association with the UK’s largest national bone marrow register, The Anthony Nolan Trust (ANT) charity. The ANT are recognised by the UK government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) as part of the international bone marrow and stem cell register.

Donor recruitment clinics are entirely student run; clinic, from welcoming others to counselling potential donors and taking their blood.

As students are young, healthy and represent a broad cross section of ethnicity they are the perfect potential bone marrow donors and so it is Marrow’s ultimate aim to provide every student with the opportunity to join the bone marrow register.

Marrow holds annual Regional and National AGMs. These are opportunities for the whole network to meet up, along with representatives with the ANT in order to discuss current recruitment policy and share best practice. Regional AGMs allow local groups to meet up and work together on fundraising and training issues.

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International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

Marrow is responsible for approximately one-third of the 6000+ potential donors recruited onto the register in the UK each year. In the last 10years nearly 100 people who have signed up at Marrowrun clinics have gone on to donate bone marrow.

LOVE LIFE. LIVE LIFE. GIVE LIFE. Hayley Boyce International Officer, Marrow-UK Medsin-UK nationalmarrow@gmail.com

Medical Summerschool Amsterdam MEDSA, organized by the IFMSA-VUmc, taking place from 21st - 30th of August 2009 at VU medical centre of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, introduces this year ‘Psychiatry and Neurology in children and adolescents’. 40 Medical students from all over the world can join this Summerschool. The main goals are to provide a variable, interactive and high-qualitative educational program and to promote interdisciplinary thinking. And what is so unique about this Summerschool ? It is definitely our reviving theme and the teaching program. At the end of the week the students have produced a teamwork based final presentation and the best presentation will receive an award.

Our main focus will be the bridge between Psychiatry and Neurology, especially in children and adolescents. In our opinion the interdisciplinary thinking between these disciplines is not enough promoted among doctors. We notice that we are educated to a specific specialization and therefore interdisciplinary thinking is not emphasized sufficiently. Psychiatry and neurology are both specializations where the neural system plays a central role. In the beginning of the 20th century these two specializations were even joined into one discipline. Gradually it was split into two categories: Psychiatry underlining the psychology side of central nerve system diseases and neurology underlining the biology background of nerve system

diseases. However, recent scientific researches show that many psychiatry diseases have a neurobiology base and many neurology diseases have effect on the human brain network. Therefore, this overlap is very fascinating and knowledge about this is very useful to a future neurologist or psychiatrist . Sharing knowledge can be of high value.

Unite the existing knowledge of diverse specializations to optimize patient care!

This is the main motivation for the MEDSA organizing committee. We would like to provide a platform for medical students to discuss medical science and therefore create awareness. This can be very useful to your future career as doctor.

However, social interaction is also very important.

Our social program of MEDSA is supposed to also create a bond between the participants outside the academic setting. So the full-time educational program the students are also given the possibility to get to know each other and The Netherlands better during a city trip, lunch and dinner together, visits of museums and sights and a night with typical Dutch games and food.

To conclude this Summerschool is a unique opportunity to expand your knowledge pertaining to these disciplines besides your regular curriculum and a chance to meet and foster friendships with other medical students from all over the world.

It will be an honor to welcome you at our Summer school!

Look for more information at our website: www. ifmsa.nl/vumc/medsa.

Jolanda Boverhoff IFMSA - The Netherlands medsa@ifmsa.nl

Projects Bulletin

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Students for Kids International Projects SKIP is a healthcare student-run national charity based at 13 medical schools across the UK. Our vision is to work in partnership with local communities to improve the health, welfare and education of vulnerable children through long-term sustainable interventions. As a project in Sri Lanka demonstrates, this isn’t always easy; but we are introducing a democratic system to try to overcome difficulties.

and terrorist activity. It was no longer safe to send volunteers and the long-term stability of the project was under threat. As the fighting continued it was decided at a National level to withdraw from Sri Lanka. This was no easy decision but the children are not abandoned. The local partner is still hard at work and we are currently searching for another NGO to work with this community.

SKIP branches have projects working in partnership with communities across Eastern Europe, Africa, India and South East Asia, each at different stages of development. Our rapid expansion over the past 9 years has meant we have had to learn very quickly from our experiences at home and abroad.

In January we held a General Assembly where branches debated the interventions we allow.

Should we allow money to be spent on interventions which are unsustainable if students cannot return such as the situation in Sri Lanka? How do we ensure building work is properly handed over to local communities? All of these questions were discussed in detail and we were able to come to agreement on most interventions. Democracy in SKIP is spurring healthy debate and creating clearly defined codes of practice.

One example of this comes from SKIP Newcastle who, due to the rising tensions of the on-going civil war, are currently withdrawing from a project in Sri Lanka. This experience has taught us of the difficulties charities face when trying to set up sustainable interventions, especially in the face of conflict and instability.

The Newcastle project set out to work in a poor and socially deprived community in Sri Lanka. Following a research trip in 2006 it was felt that the children in this community would greatly benefit from the attention and education SKIP could bring as well as generating community involvement.

Despite a very successful pilot project in summer 2007, the following year saw increased fighting 9

International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

As the situation in Sri Lanka illustrates our projects can and do face a number of problems. SKIP has decided to introduce a code of practice for branches to follow. This covers everything from suitable interventions and project withdrawal procedures to banking regulations. Branches and the National Committee come to General Assemblies to vote changes to these laws. By introducing democracy to SKIP it is easier for talented students at all branches to participate in our organisation and influence National policy.

The next stage of our work is to pass the agreed policies by experts and those with experience in development, project organisation or student volunteering. If you have any suggestions as we make this difficult transition, or know suitable people for us to consult, please email skipnational@googlemail.com.

Anushka Mehrotra, Danny Hutley, John King Medsin-UK skipnational@googlemail.com

The Kenya Project Illness and diseases are not limited by boundaries.

The Kenya Project gives you the opportunity to make a difference. Do you want to give a doctor a hand on a vaccination day in Nairobi?

The Kenya Project gives students the opportunity to volunteer at Provide International’s clinics in Nairobi. Volunteers will gain knowledge about global health issues and also contribute in the daily work. There is a lack of knowledge about global health issues amongst medical students. To face the world’s challenging health problems it is important to create awareness about them.

Almost two million people live in the slums of Nairobi and access to medical facilities is very poor.

Provide International was founded in 1986. Their vision is to empower communities to enable people to live fulfilling lives. During a year about 100,000 patients attend the clinics. The slum dwellers pay a small amount of money for medicines and necessary services. Patients without any possibility to pay for themselves receive the necessary treatment anyway. Provide International offers health care such as doctor consultations, attended births and vaccinations.

We contribute directly by financing medical equipment, e.g. microscopes and basic clinical apparatus and we have helped financing one of a very few ambulances in Nairobi. Our goal is to improve access to health care for people by supporting Provide International’s work in the slums.

The Kenya Project is a cooperation between NMSA (Norwegian Medical Students’ Association) and Provide International, a non-governmental organization which runs five health clinics and different social programs in the slums of Nairobi.

Research results show that access to health care and development is closely related. Access to health care often depends on socio-economic status. By ensuring health facilities to people it could be possible to promote development and give people an opportunity to succeed.

As a volunteer you will be able to observe all the different activities. Concerning practice you can participate in the same way as you are authorized to do in your home country.

Our homepages www.kenya-project.org will give you more information about The Kenya Project, Provide International and how you can contribute. You will also find the application form on the site. When applying first come, first served is the principle we follow. Students studying health care subjects will be prioritized if the number of applications is high. You can apply and travel all year round.

There is no participation fee, but you will have to organize and pay the trip, stay, food etc. yourself.

We also urge you as a volunteer to give a small contribution to Provide International for organizing your stay at the clinics.

Become a Kenya Project volunteer!

Kristine Husøy Onarheim NMSA (Norway) kenyaproject@kenya-project.org Projects Bulletin

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Tobacco Control Peer Education Training Our project is focusing on “Tobacco Dependence” - a problem which threatens the youth not only in Turkey but also in the whole world because of tobacco being more common and easier obtained than other drugs. The aim of our project is to inform the participants and raise their awareness on tobacco and its damages with seminars and workshops. The 5th Tobacco Control Peer Education Training (ToCoPET) took place in Ankara in Turkey between 17th-19th May 2008 and 17 medics from 7 different medicine faculties in Turkey were involved in our training. The training lasted 3 days and included instructive seminars from professions, small group discussions, brain storming, practices on improving projects and oral presentations. At the end of training, the participants obtained the skills about how to perform “Anti-Tobacco Advocacy” and they created 3 research presentations and 3 project schemas.

Tobacco is one of the main risk factors for a number of chronic diseases including cancer, lung diseases, and cardiovascular diseases. Despite this, it is commonly used throughout the world and in Turkey.

Currently, almost 1.3 billion (29%) people smoke cigarettes worldwide: about 1.1 billion (47%) men and 230 million (10%) women. The statistics for Turkey are not much different - 22 million people (%34) smoke. This being such an important public health problem, we decided to sensitize the youth by our training.

The goals of our project were: •to obtain well-informed medics about tobacco dependence and harms of tobacco that are also skilled in anti-tobacco advocacy, •to train medical students so that they would be 11 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

able to give local peer education trainings and organize anti-tobacco activities, •to contribute to the creation of more tobacco related projects and activities since this issue is one of the most important public health problems we are dealing with in TurkMSIC and in IFMSA. During the training by seminars and workshops, we educated the participants about tobacco-dependence and the damage it causes, informed them about the tobacco consumption in the world and in Turkey, emphasized the role of medics in tobacco control and creating solutions for this problem.

We also gave them trainings on project management, persuasion and motivating, planned the “31 May No Tobacco Day” activities together and brain stormed on tobacco related project ideas. The participants also had fun during a “Smoke- Free Party” which took place after the scientific program.

At the end of the training, the participants had enough skills to perform “Anti-Tobacco Advocacy” and they created 3 research presentations and 3 project schemes. It was decided that these are going to be applied to organizations related with tobacco and public health. One of these projects was applied to TurkMSIC. Activity reports were collected from participants after training and closely followed by the coordinator. We also constituted a mailing list for communicating and to inform each other about the activities we undertook after the training.

Ayfer Aslan National Public Health Officier TurkMSIC turkmsic_scoph@yahoogroups.com

4 Life Project 4 Life offers goal-oriented education for the laic population in the field of first aid and promotion of first aid as an ethical, moral and legal responsibility of every individual. The project encourages laics to act promptly and efficiently in car-rying out appropriate life-saving measures.

According to recent Slovenian studies, only one out of ten individuals will approach and help a wounded person in an accident of any kind. The reason behind this unrespon-siveness is fear, and fear points to lack of knowledge. In all EU Member States, a certifi-cate in first aid course is mandatory for those applying for driving licenses, but in order to maintain a satisfactory level of knowledge and skills in first aid procedures and tech-niques, these must be regularly reviewed and renewed. This is why project 4 Life was born.

Currently there are about 120 medical students from Medical Faculty Maribor and Medical Faculty Ljubljana involved in the project, which operates within the framework of SloMSIC. We organize approximately 30 charge-free first aid courses in one student year. Each course is divided into a theoretical and practical part, together lasting three hours.

The theoretical part is carried out by a qualified physician, specialized in pre-hospital medical care.

The practical part – the first aid workshops – represents the major-ity of the course, where participants are divided into small groups to ensure every single participant takes an active part in the learning process.

The participants are divided into 3 basic groups, which complete the following workshops: (1) CPR with the usage of auto-mated external defibrillator (AED), (2) a variety of different grips, positions of the in-jured, and (3) immobilization and caretaking of larger wounds. At least 2 instructors op-erate in each group, demonstrating proper first aid procedures and encouraging partici-pants to try the techniques for themselves under the guidance of the instructors.

Predominantly participants become acquainted with the function and handling with AEDs in the course of our first aid workshops. Due to the function of the AED as a po-tentially life-saving piece of equipment, it is imperative that these units are immediately available and ready for use at all times.

In the last two years or so many Slovenian or-ganizations and companies have acquired one or even more AEDs, but in the process failed to notify the local EMS office about it. The result is a widespread network of pub-licly accessible AEDs without any existing register of their locations. This year a team within the project is also focusing on creating a complete list of all publicly accessible and maintained AEDs in Slovenia, which will then be published on our official website (www.zazivljenje. org/en) and distributed to all emergency medical services across the country.

Immediate first aid is surely a vital initial stage in provision of prompt and effective intervention and with regular refresher first aid courses offered by 4 Life project every-one has the potential to save a life.

Lidija Jovic, Jani Breznik SloMSIC zazivljenje@gmail.com Projects Bulletin

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noititepmoC nIFMSA itelluBInitiatives stcejorP eht fo srenniW IFMSA Initiatives are projects or series of projects centrally co-coordinated under the responsibility of the IFMSA Executive Board. They are proposed by a National Member Organization to the Executive Board or by the Executive Board itself.

The candidature must be sent in electronic format or by fax to the General Secretariat (gs@ifmsa.org) and the Projects Support Division Director (projects@ifmsa.org) at the latest on 1st December concerning the March Meeting and at the latest on 1st May to be considered for obtaining the official status during the August Meeting.

IFMSA Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign is a tool for IFMSA to coordinate numerous initiatives that already exist on TB and promote the organization of new ones within its National Members Organizations.

The Executive Board will review the project, require advice from the Project Support Division Director, Projects Proposal Review Committee and other relevant officials, and will go on to advice the General Assembly after which the General Assembly must decide upon recognition by absolute majority.

Think Global aims for all future healthcare professionals to have an understanding of global health.

If and when the project is recognized as IFMSA Initiative, the Executive Board appoints a coordinator.

E-mail: stoptb@ifmsa.org

Think Global

Think Global works with students involved in the IFMSA and provides them with opportunities to learn about global health in the context of their clinical and extracurricular activities.

The initiative project status will be up to review 2 years after being recognized by the General Assembly.

The IFMSA Initiatives are:

IFMSA Anti TB Campaign The aim of IFMSA Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign is to raise awareness on tuberculosis and establish an international strategy among the medical students worldwide to respond to the return of the disease and to motivate the IFMSA members to become involved in the global initiative adopted against Tuberculosis. Through gathering information on all anti-TB projects, providing assistance, forming a database and promoting anti TB activities, the 13 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

These opportunities include global health workshops and theme events at IFMSA General Assembly and regional meetings. Students attending this training are encouraged to organise global health events in their own countries.

Think Global aims to include global health education in medical curricula. The project empowers students to act as advocates for global health through training them in global health issues and advocacy. It also aims at building a network of students interested in global health.

E-mail: thinkglobal@ifmsa.org

Tobacco Initiative Project According to the World Health Organization, tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world.

It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people that smoke today - that are about 650 million people - will eventually be killed by tobacco.

costs of treating tobacco-caused diseases, tobacco kills people at the height of their productivity, depriving families of breadwinners and nations of a healthy workforce.

Considering all these facts, Tobacco Initiative Project was created with the aim of uniting medical students worldwide against the tobacco menace, aiding and strengthening efforts to raise awareness and fight against tobacco’s social and health effects, and conduct of the tobacco industry itself.

The activities during on May 31st at the World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) are the biggest event throughout the year in Tobacco Control. The NMOs develop their own campaign according to the needs and opportunities of their country E-mail: tip@ifmsa.org

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing the health of smokers and passive smokers in general. The list of diseases caused by smoking is getting constantly longer.

The economic costs of tobacco use are equally devastating. In addition to the high public health Projects Bulletin

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noititepIFMSA moC niTransnational telluB stcejorPProjects eht fo srenniW IFMSA Transnational Projects are organized by more than one National Member Organization or in collaboration between at least one NMO and another organization.

The candidature must be sent to the General Secretariat (gs@ifmsa.org) and the Projects Support Division Director (projects@ifmsa.org) at the latest on 1st December concerning the March Meeting and at the latest on 1st May concerning the August Meeting, in electronic format or by fax. The date of email or fax will be used as indication of the date.

The candidature must contain a scanned and completed candidature form signed and stamped by the National Member Organization(s) president(s) and a written project proposal. The candidature form must specify the name of the project leader, names of the project coordinators, permanent address of the project, names and addresses of the involved organizations. The project proposal should include information about all items listed in the Chapter 10 of the IFMSA bylaws.

The Executive Board will review the project, require advice from the Project Support Division Director, Projects Proposal Review Committee and other relevant officials, and once again will provide advice to the General Assembly after which the General Assembly must decide upon recognition by absolute majority.

When a project is accepted as an official IFMSA project, the Executive Board is obliged to issue the letter of official recognition, preferably by the end of the meeting but no later than one month from the recognition.

ACTION Project All over the world, especially in Asia, people are suffering because of disasters, therefore we the medical students have to take action. We organize 15 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

a one week training, every year in another Asian country. During this training we have a lectures, small working groups, case studies and field trip.

The aim of ACTION (Asian Collaborative Training on Infectious Disease, Outbreaks, Natural Disaster and Refugee Management) Project is to: •To increase and develop healthcare students’ awareness of infectious diseases and role of healthcare professions in Infectious Diseases Relief.

•To build human resources – trained and motivated doctors, who can work to relieve people who are influenced by infectious diseases.

•To motivate trained healthcare student’s to spread their knowledge on infectious diseases in their own country.

•To cultivate medical field workers which have international perspective in dealing with infectious diseases.

E-mail: action.projact@gmail.com Website: www.action-project.org

ASPIS Awareness Strategies for Pollution from IndustrieS (ASPIS-ΑΣΠΙΣ = Ancient Greek word for “shield”) has started as a European Project and it has realized clusters of actions (ASPIS I and ASPIS II) with

the aim to inform and raise awareness of decision makers on environmental issues (civil servants, engineers, medical doctors, lawyers and journalists).

ASPIS has developed to a ‘tool of decision making’.

It is based at the TRans European Environmental Educational Health Network (TREEE Health Net).

With the participation of medical students of different countries in all the stages of the project, ASPIS has aimed to inform the young health professionals about current health-related environmental issues , bring up fruitful and productive thinking through seminars, round tables and discussions about the future of the implication of human activity on health and activate medical students not only towards the prevention of environmental induced disease, but also towards environmental pollution itself.

E-mail: aspis@ath.forthnet.gr Website: www.arehna.di.uoa.gr

Calcutta Village Project CVP works in order to fundraise and to widespread knowledge about IIMC, the Indian NGO working in the Calcutta south rural areas we’re supporting.

The project has different branches.

The first one is the medical program, that basically consist of primary health care (vaccination, prevention, medical education), a nutritional program, health education and women awareness.

The second branch is the educational program, with more than 2000 children going to school thanks to a sponsorship from western parents and 22 new schools built where no infrastructures were available.

The third one is the micro-credit program, involving now about 5000 women.

The CVP works to fundraise, manage the rotation of the medical students going to Calcutta and widespread the knowledge of the project and the idea of the international cooperation.

IFMSA volunteers can collaborate going to Calcutta, where they can attend nursing work, follow the medical examinations with the local doctors, and first of all, see how a cooperation and developmental project really works and they can also collaborate from their countries by fundraising.

E-mail: internationalcvp@gmail.com Website: www.projectforpeople.org

Curriculum Database The Curriculum Database is an IFMSA transnational project, started in 1999, by students working within the Standing Committee on Medical Education of IFMSA. Its aim is to help medical students easily find information about the different ways of studying and teaching medicine in faculties and countries around the world.

It is an answer to the increasing need for information about different medical universities without the hassle of using multiple servers in different countries. Moreover it is an opportunity for National Officers to get a comparison of different curricula within and outside of their countries; thus using this data to help improve their curricula. One benefit of this project is that the information being provided includes both an official and students’ point of view.

E-mail: cdb@fasmr.ro Website: http://curriculumdatabase.ifmsa.ro/ Projects Bulletin

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Daisy Project - Margarita

GHEI

Daisy Project – Margarita is a pilot educational community based project . It is comprised by a central activity which is attended by all participants and 4 peripheral activities which are optional according to the students’ preference.

The Ghana Health and Education Initiative aims to build the capacity of local communities to improve their own level of health and education through sustainable and participatory programs.

Programs are divided into health and education sectors.

“Training in communication skills” is the project’s core. The peripheral activities include: “Health Education Intervention in Secondary Schools”, “Nurse Aid”, “Medicine in Community”, “Research in Social Medicine”

The expected outcome includes: •The exposure of medical students to the real working conditions in the field of community-based medicine and the application of theoretical knowledge in order to deal with public health problems •The increase of awareness and the development of skills concerning the communication with the patients and their relatives and the approach of the patient as psychosocial entity by medical students •The recognition of the doctor’s role as health professional towards the direction of disease prevention and the promotion of health, as science researcher and as active citizen with social responsibility •The development of critical scientific spirit within the framework of inter-professional cooperation E-mail: helmsic@med.auth.gr Website: www.margarita.uni.cc

17 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

GHEI’s health program constitutes a range of educational and preventative activities aimed at the youth and community at large. GHEI peer educators organize community outreach events and engage established local groups to tackle some of the most challenging health issues facing the community. From an initial focus on reproductive and sexual health, GHEI has broadened its range of health programs to include interventions relating to malaria and parasitic worm prevention, education on health topics from nutrition to hypertension, as well as the facilitation of research on the efficacy of village-based malaria interventions.

We work with local radio stations, health clinics, schools, the district health administration and directly with the community to address the community’s health needs.

GHEI’s education programs respond to the needs and desires of the local community. We run supplementary courses for bright young students and have constructed facilities that the whole community can access to improve their knowledge and skills.

E-mail: rickard@ghei.org Website: www.ghei.org

Healthy Diet Project

HAC

Since eating behaviors during childhood track into adulthood and thus contribute to long term risks of health problems and chronic diseases, the project will be targeting mainly the primary school children. By changing many of the wrong habits the school children may have, we hope we will be able to play an active role in limiting the alarming rate of spread of many of the chronic diseases in our region!

Hepatitis Awareness Campaign project acts at multiple stages, facing both HCV and HAV. The project aims to increase awareness about hepatitis. It is divided into two parts: •the first part deals with HAV and the target population are school students •the second part deals with HBV & HCV and the target population are nursing schools and faculty students.

It acts on these groups through awareness campaigns that will increase their awareness about this issue and hopefully will have an impact on their hygienic and behavioral attitudes.

We use pre-and post questionnaires to assess the impact of the health education on the target group.

E-mail: dr_professional2010@yahoo.com

The project aims to: •Increase the awareness among the medical students in the Eastern Mediterranean Region of the nutritional problems we face in our region and to increase their contribution towards the prevention of the development of chronic disease and other bad effects on health by: - Collecting data about Children’s Diet, the hazards of the unhealthy diet…

- Trainings that will be given to the medical students who will act as health educators •Increase the awareness of the School Children about healthy food and diet habits, as a way to prevent chronic diseases by - visiting at least 50 schools targeting an average of 200-300 pupils per school during one year in the whole region.

- increasing the knowledge of the target group (who will receive the intervention) by at least 60%.

•Motivate the SCOPHians of the EMR to work together in addressing this issue affecting their region, thus strengthening the collaboration between them.

ISSH The aim of the Influence of Studying on Students’ Health Project is to determine the level and causes of deterioration of health among medical and nonmedical students (in the further phases) as a result of stress-related factors, to develop programs to reduce or even prevent it; making target people more professional in facing stress.

Activities are divided into four phases: •Questionnaire •Statistically analyzing the results of this survey and making comparison between the countries involved •Finding suitable solutions for these bad effects of studying •Applying these solutions for as much students as possible to make the education process more comfortable and useful E-mail: m.s.shalaby@hotmail.com

E-mail: dr_professional2010@yahoo.com Projects Bulletin

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ICOM The IFMSA Campaign on Malaria (ICOM) aims to raise awareness and visibility on Malaria and its numerous threats worldwide, and hopes to establish an international strategy among medical students to respond to its many challenges and motivate them to be involved in global initiatives adopted against Malaria. Through cutting edge strategies – gathering information, providing assistance, promoting anti-Malaria activities, organising fundraising activities, providing manpower, establishing research initiatives and ultimately sharing success stories and challenges, the IFMSA Campaign on Malaria hopes to be an excellent tool and resource to coordinate the efforts of medical students worldwide in helping to reduce the burden of Malaria.

E-mail: projects@ifmsa.org, scophd@ifmsa.org

ISNAH ISNAH is like an umbrella that is concerned with the elders, trying to raise awareness among medical students, doctors and the general population.

The two main pillars of ISNAH are: 1.Information dissemination: This focuses on promoting awareness among health care professionals (including medical students) and all the people on global population ageing and older people’s special needs, rights, sexuality and HIV by a website, surveys and formative sessions.

It also aims to compile the information about activities and projects of IFMSA NMOs concerning the ageing population and also to involve medical students in investigations related to the elderly and to be able to offer professional and research exchanges to the students worldwide.

2. Curriculum Development: A demographic fact of the XX century is the ageing of population. However, a basic geriatric training 19 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

does not exist in all the medical faculties around the world. Thus we need to demonstrate this deficiency and furthermore to participate in the development of the needed curricula change.

E-mail: isnah@ifmsa-spain.org Website: www.mediaweb-site.com/isnah

IAPAHD IFMSA EB was approached by the end of 2001 by WHO-EMRO with a draft of a project on adolescent health. The contract was signed between the two organizations and the project Innovative Approaches Promoting Adolescent Health and Development started.

The project activity was conducted in Egypt, Lebanon and Kuwait. WHO-EMRO provided technical assistance and financial support. This project is one of the largest in IFMSA history in terms of funding and the first official collaboration between IFMSA and WHO-EMRO. The project aims to quantify risk taking behaviors among medical students in the EMR and to develop approaches for improving adolescent health.

The project started with a survey that involved many universities in the countries involved.

This was analyzed over serial workshops held in coordination with WHO-EMRO, and an official WHO publication was issued with the conclusion of the study.

E-mail: a_ibrahim_a@hotmail.com

Kenya Village Project The aim is to fight HIV/AIDS, provide primary school education, encourage microenterprise development for women and provide healthcare for the people of Western Kenya without regard to religion, politics, ethnicity or nationality The Kenya Village Project is implemented by members of AMSA-USA and members of a Kenyan community based organization (CBO) in Western Kenya called ICODEI. We operate the following community development programs: AIDS Education, Health Clinic, Microenterprise Development for Women, Pre & Primary School, Public Library and a Teacher’s Program. Volunteers are able to travel to Kenya at any time of the year. All of our international coordination, fundraising, and marketing is done through a staff of unpaid volunteers from the US and Canada.

Our on-the-ground operations are all run by local Kenyans who are trained in development, education, HIV/AIDS counseling and home-based care.

We’ve had over 500 volunteers from 21 different countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Iraq, India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, UK and the USA. We now have 46 local workers and six international coordinators.

E-mail: hankselke@volunteerkenya.org Website: www.volunteerkenya.org

Kumba Village Project

The Kumba Village Project was created by SISMItaly in 2003, in a small town of the south-western province of Cameroon, called Kumba town. It is a program that aims to contribute in the resolution of problems related to health and education in the city of Kumba and its rural territory. According to the interventional context of the program, two projects we developed: •A Clinical Activity Project in the urban area called Kumba town.

•A Health Education Project in the rural area around Kumba in a small village called Lobangè which belongs to the district of Konye.

1. The Clinical Activity Project objectives are: •The increasing of the Nr. of patients consulting the collaborating sanitary provisions, St Francis Polyclinic and Ejed Clinic.

•The increasing of the Nr. of patients that CONCLUDE their Diagnostic-Therapeutic course in the collaborating sanitary provisions, St Francis Polyclinic and Ejed Clinic.

•Improvement of the students’ practical skills in Medical subject, measured through the number of cases attended and in which actively participated in the diagnostic/therapeutic procedure and the number of techniques learned and exercised in.

2. The Health Education Project objectives are: •Improvement of the target population’s knowledge (Lobange-Mbongé Village, Konye district, Cameroon) in sanitary-hygienic matters.

•Reduction of malaria prevalence in Lobange’s children population (0-12 years).

•Reduction of infective gastrointestinal diseases incidence in Lobange’s general population.

E-mail: sism@kumbaprojet.org Website: www.kumbaproject.org Projects Bulletin

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Malaika Project

fect potential bone marrow donors and so it is Marrow’s ultimate aim to provide every student with the opportunity to join the bone marrow register. In 2005 alone Marrow recruited 2354 potential donors onto the register in addition to raising over £40,000 for the ANT. In the last 9 years 86 people who have signed up at one of our clinics have gone on to donate bone marrow.

E-mail: nationalmarrow@yahoo.co.uk Website: www.marrowcentral.co.uk

Mr and Ms Breastestis Malaika Project is a Village Concept Project formed in collaboration with a local non-profit in Nyamuswa Tanzania to improve the quality of life in this rural village. We are improving health, education, and the local economy. As a grassroots organization, all projects are collaborations between IFMSA student volunteers and local organizations with priorities identified by the community. Nyamuswa is a rural farming village of 6,000 people in the western part of Tanzania where other aid organizations are not working.

E-mail: nyamuswa.malaikproject@gmail.com Website: www.malaikaproject.org

Marrow Marrow is a volunteer student organization based in 32 medical schools across the United Kingdom (UK), as well as in Netherlands, Finland and Germany. Marrow works in association with the UK’s largest national bone marrow register, The Anthony Nolan Trust (ANT) charity.

Marrow helps to take back lives from leukemia by organizing donor recruitment clinics in universities across the UK and by raising the charitable funds needed for these lifesaving activities. Students run the entire clinic, from welcoming others to counseling potential donors and taking their blood.

As students are young, healthy and represent a broad cross section of ethnicity they are the per21 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

Mr and Ms Breastestis is a reproductive neoplasm prevention project that aims to: •Assess medical students’ knowledge on Reproductive Neoplasms •Educate medical students on Reproductive Neoplasms •Assess public knowledge on Reproductive Neoplasms •Foster interdisciplinary and multi-sector approach to prevention / health promotion, in order to develop a coherent response to current global cancer burden E-mail: deepsea02_2000@yahoo.com

Native Health Initiative

medical students by organizing a conference once a year.

In order to fulfill this aim a yearly conference is held in one of the participating countries, lasting four days. Every country is asked to send 5 participants, non-member countries are invited so send two persons as observers.

NHI is a student project created to raise awareness of the health issues and inequalities of Native American Indians. It also aims to create a general awareness of the health challenges facing indigenous peoples of the world. The planning started in 2004 with the first pilot project running summer 2005. Since then the project has grown each year in number of tribes and students – both US and International.

The project running in the USA has the following 4 goals: •educating health professions students about health equity, about health inequities in American Indian communities and in U.S. society, and doing so within an interdisciplinary, holistic model of health •creating tribe-directed sustainable health projects, •fostering cultural exchange and sincere, loving interactions between all involved in the “NHI Family” •youth empowerment toward healthy living, becoming health leaders in their communities, and toward health careers.

E-mail: nativehealth@gmail.com Website: www.unc.edu/~flega

NECSE The aim of the Northern European Co-operation of Sex Education Projects is to improve the exchange of knowledge and co-operation between countries running sex education projects organized by

Although there are many countries in world being involved in sex education projects, the representatives of the national Standing Committees on Reproductive Health incl. AIDS (SCORA) decided to just include 12 Northern European countries. The reasons are the common problems the countries face due to the similarities in their culture. When the co-operation is working fruitfully, it is planed to affiliate more countries.

E-mail: necse2009@gmail.com Website: www.necse.de

Organ Donation One of the major goals of this project is to educate medical students about the process of organ donation and organ transplantation.

Medical students which receive certain education about this issue are more likely to have a positive approach to the organ donation process, and will be capable of providing their parents, friends and communities with all the information needed while deciding to become organ donors.

The main goals of this project are: •Education and professional training of medical students.

•Involvement of as many NMO as possible, so that this type of education on organ donation is accessible to all medical students interested in this area.

•Cooperation with other governmental and nongovernmental agencies in improving our national donor registers and networks.

E-mail: markojovic10@yahoo.com

Projects Bulletin

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OIR The target group of the Orphanage Initiative in Romania project are children from 3 to 18 years, living in state institutions. The project’s activity splits in two main periods: during the university school year and during the summer holiday.

Unfortunately, due to the security conditions, the project was brought to hold in the last 2 years.

E-mail: melhimaa@gmail.com Website: lebrefugeeproject.tripod.com

During the school year, Romanian medical students try to have weekly activities with the children in one or two institutions in their city. The activities are chosen by the local coordinator and try to meet the children’s specific needs. Generally, there are activities that stimulate the creativity of the children trough games or workshops with specific themes, but alternated with educational discussions about hygiene, alcohol or drugs.

During the summer holiday students from all over the world apply to join the project. They help the Romanian students and play with the children, participate in workshops and trips and other activities. The foreign student bring more stimulation to the children, due to the new culture they meet and also due to the language barriers they will have to overcome.

With all these activities we want to help the orphan children to develop properly, botht physically and psychologically to become more social adopted teenagers and grown-ups.

E-mail: oir@ifmsa.ro Website: www.ssmb.ro/oir

Palestinian Refugee Project The Palestinian Refugee Project in Lebanon was designed for foreign medical students to spend a month (July or August) of work in one of the refugee camps in Lebanon. The primary aim of the project is to expose the participating students directly to the refugees and to their problems by providing medical and social assistance in a camp hospital and NGO. Every summer, about 8 to 12 students participate in the project.

23 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

Peace Test Peace Test is a human rights and peace education project. It is based on an internationally conducted survey that uses a questionnaire that qualitatively measures youths’ attitudes towards human rights, violence, war and multiculturalism.

The theory behind the questionnaire is called “the theory of moral disengagement”, which helps to understand how and why people commit violent acts. There are several methods by which people can even unintentionally separate their actions from inborn and learned moral regulations. Medical students conduct the survey, combine it with human rights and peace education, and publish the results.

The main goal is to raise awareness about these issues among students and, through that, be one method of preventing violence and promoting tolerance and equality. We aim at opening discussion both among the youth and the general public about the topics mentioned above. We try to reduce the level of support both to individual and collective violence and to promote peaceful alternatives.

The idea is also to form an international network of involved students and to use their results for international comparison.

E-mail: emic_51@hotmail.com Website: www.peacetest.net

vincing, tenacious, and most importantly, the most far-reaching project of the IFMSA at that time. A very detailed pattern of evaluation is used to select the best projects.

E-mail: aesira_a@yahoo.com

Residency Database

Rwanda VCP

The whole idea is about the construction and the renewal of a Residency Database (R.D.b), where every medical student and young doctor will be able to find information about the residency system and financial state of many countries, and the application procedure for a residency position in these countries.

Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP) is a nongovernmental, non-political, voluntary organization. It is linked to other Village Concept Projects worldwide through the International Students Association of Village Concept Projects. The overall goal of RVCP is to provide sustainable improvement in the health and living standards of underprivileged communities at Village level and to develop the skills and knowledge of participating students.

The importance of this project lies to the fact that a continuous growing number of medical scientists from all over the world desire to specialize or sub-specialize in a medical field outside his/her own country and they face a lot of difficulties in finding the proper source of information. The Residency Database project will facilitate these people to have an easy and quick access to the relevant information and furthermore it will provide to the RD site’s visitors with the chance to see and judge the advantages and the disadvantages of the residency systems of many different countries.

E-mail: rdb@helmsic.gr, rdb.spain@gmail.com Website: www.residency-database.helmsic.gr/

All Activities of RVCP are done within five Microprojects and 2 initiatives: Micro projects •Malaria prevention •HIV/AIDS Awareness, Reproductive health and family planning •Hygiene, Water and sanitation •Women/Girls empowerment and HIV/AIDS Awareness (Pyramid project) •Income generation(Rabbit rearing, coffee growing, Rice growing, tomatoes growing, bee keeping and Cassava projects)

Rex Crossley Award The Rex Crossley Award is an IFMSA project meant to recognize and bring to attention the work and the achievements of the best projects of IFMSA. The most interesting thing about RCA is that it is a project itself, a project which comes to fill a great gap in IFMSA, that of giving impulse and momentum to the most interesting and far-reaching international initiatives of the medical students.

The RCA will be awarded twice a year, during the General Assembly of the IFMSA, to the most conProjects Bulletin

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Initiatives: • Huye Health center capacity development • Let the Little children come to me HIV/AIDS orphans center support initiative

homes and bringing together different cultures through time spent intensively together.

E-mail: tina.sojat@amsa.at

All the work in R-VCP is done by students and other “non-professionals”, who are still in their education.

We are organized in two groups: The National Coordinating Group (NCG) and the International Coordinating Group (ICG), who work close together with active participation of the community in all stage of the projects. Beside the R-VCP-members there are international people (Usually students) who come to Rwanda to assist the local group.

E-mail: rvcp_coordinator@yahoo.com Website: www.rwanda-vcp.org

SOD

SCORA-Xchange

Scientific Opportunities Database’s main aim is to keep informed all the medical students from all over the world about the opportunities of studying around the world.

We are collecting information about congresses, conferences, trainings, workshops, seminaries, summer schools, scientific meetings.

Our exchange aims to provide medical students with both theoretical knowledge and practical work concerning HIV/AIDS. This will be achieved through lectures and direct contact with HIV infected children and with people living with AIDS. 3 weeks of clinical work in contact with the infected children and every day seminaries about the HIV infection presentation and discussion with the exchange students about the situation in their home countries and evaluation of the exchange.

E-mail: sod@umft.ro Website: www.ssmt.ro/sod

SCORA Twinning The project is cooperation of SCORA teams involved in peer education from 2-3 different NMOs through training and twinning during 3-4 days.

Training offers experience and methods exchange, gain of facilitating skills and group discussions in order to develop own strategies in handling delicate teenage issues.

Twinning means making new friends and future collaborators through familiar environment in small groups, hosting guest participants in their 25 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

E-mail: scoraexchange@umft.ro

Smile X Project Smile X is a clown therapy project run by medical students all over the world. Originally born from a collaboration between Italy SISM and Brazil IFMLS, now our project is spreading all over the world: at the moment you can find us in Peru, Ecuador, Spain-Catalonia, and of course in Italy and Brazil.

Our aim is to create a less stressed atmosphere in-

side our hospitals, between patients and medical stuff in order to improve all the treatment processes and to face the well know whit coat fear.

More over we try to offer medical students more tools and techniques to approach our patients in a more relaxed way, finally again at the centre of the medical process.

E-mail: Project.smile@yahoo.com

to complete involvement of doctors in fighting smoking are: •the lack of knowledge and skills about smoking and tobacco control •the continued smoking behavior among doctors.

The smoking-ologist project aims to abolish those 2 barriers.

E-mail: ahmedmagdy1@yahoo.com

Sudan VCP The project aims to create a perfect village in which everything is available and in the best way with all the facilities and infrastructure and medical support.

E-mail: abo_ali14_7@yahoo.com

Smoking-ologist Smoking-ologist is a project that is integrating the concept of Role-play Simulation in its activities and interventions. The participants will reflect on the role profile of a doctor who is a smoker (Smokinologist) in an artificial social setting where smoking is a medical specialty (Smoking-ology), implying that the smoker doctor promotes smoking. Such concept will expose the participants to firs-person experience of personalities, motivations and backgrounds of doctors who are smokers.

Teddy Bear Hospital Teddy Bear Hospital aims to help young children between ages of 3-6 to lose their fears of doctors and hospital environments in a friendly and playful way.

Smoking among doctors is an important issue as they are not only responsible for primary health care and education for smoking related issues such as cessation and exposure to passive smoking, but are also role models in the community.

Doctors are expected to be role models for the rest of the population and that includes their behavior in health-related matters such as diet and exercise, and particularly regarding smoking.

Evidence shows that two of the main barriers Projects Bulletin

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We achieve this by setting up a hospital for teddy bears with a waiting room, doctor’s office, operation room, x-ray machine and pharmacy. Children are invited to attend our hospital with their teddy bear and together with a teddy doctor (medical student) they try to heal their ill friend. At the same time the project provides an opportunity for medical students to learn more about pediatrics and gives them a chance to work with children.

E-mail: tina.kurent@gmail.com Website: www.dsms.net/teddybear

Touch a Life

eyesight), orphan support, and clean water.

We are working on a year-round basis currently with Ugandan partners to support specific projects in these areas, with the help of our team of officers plus long-term and short-term volunteers.

Long term volunteers are also referred to as ‘interns’ and they are responsible for the most important aspects of our work in Uganda - maintaining the quality of the programs on a continuous basis, and ensuring that we adhere to our values and mission statements in the execution of our projects. The work of the interns is supplemented by teams of summer volunteers, and supported by the officers of the organization.

E-mail: info@ugandavillageproject.org Website: www.ugandavillageproject.org

This project’s aim is to help children tolerate their hospital stay, and limit the effects of the hospital on the psychological well being of the children. we achieve that by organizing different activities for the children.

Workshop in Peer Education

E-mail: melhimaa@gmail.com

Uganda Village Project The Uganda Village Project is an international public health organization working to promote and advocate for long term community health and development solutions based on grassroots needs in the Iganga District of Uganda.

Our main areas of focus are healthcare (with special attention to malaria, obstetric fistula, and

Peer Education is not a sustainable project in LeMSIC-SCORA. Peer Educators are few and graduate quickly with no handover or training of new recruits. This is compounded by the security and political situation.

Therefore the project Workshop in Peer Education for Medical Students in Lebanon was started so that IFMSA-Poland SCORA members would give a yearly workshop in peer education to the LeMSIC-SCORA members. IFMSA-Poland members also bring in new training techniques learned from YPEER and other sources unavailable to LeMSICSCORA. This workshop may take place in Lebanon or Poland, with the ultimate aim of a sustainable Peer Education program in LeMSIC-SCORA. E-mail: yorgazzi@yahoo.fr

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IFMSA Endorsed Projects IFMSA Endorsed Projects are organized by a single National Member Organization (NMO) or partner organization and have lighter candidature requirements and reporting system. This type doesn’t apply for networks. The candidature may be sent to the Executive Board (eb@igmsa.org) and the Projects Support Division Director (projects@ifmsa. org) at any time of the year. The candidature must include a scanned and completed candidature form signed and stamped by the National Member Organization(s) president(s) and a project proposal which includes information on the responsible organization(s), the name of the coordinator, executive summary, project objectives and methods. The candidature form can be obtained form the Projects Support Division Director, as well as advice in its preparation.

The Executive Board will review the project and in the process of the review will require advice from the Project Support Division Director, Projects Proposal Review Committee and other relevant officials.It is then the job of the Executive Board to advisethe General Assembly who must decide upon recognition by absolute majority.

The project gaining the title of “endorsement” will receive a letter of recommendation from the Executive Board and can use the text “endorsed by IFMSA” in its project material. This letter will be issued within a month after the recognition, by the Executive Board.

Child Abuse Prevention The aim of the Child Abuse Prevention Project is to expose and sensitize future medical professionals to the issue of Child Sexual Abuse and work for the advocacy and alleviation of the issue on a national or even an international level.

The project involves training a group of medical

students from Khyber Medical College, Peshawar and King Edwards College, Lahore with regards to Child Sexual Abuse Prevention. This will be carried out with the help of an NGO working actively in this regard, i.e. Rozan, Sahil and some health professionals.

As a follow-up of the training, the medical students will proceed to organize activities for children at local schools regarding child abuse, keeping within our social and cultural norms. These follow-up activities are expected to promote awareness, educate children and adults regarding child abuse recognition and protection.

E-mail: loonykhan@gmail.com

Maternal and Child Health The aim of the project is: •to aid the Pakistan Health system in its goal of reducing the Maternal Mortality rate in Pakistan by one third by 2010 by ensuring access to skilled birth attendants and institutional deliveries •nutrition interventions and management of malProjects Bulletin

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nutrition •strengthening existing EPI services •to train medical students in basic Maternal and Child Health Problems including their diagnosis and treatment.

•to inculcate a spirit of counseling patients amongst the health community of Pakistan.

•care in pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period for mother and newborn infant •home care, family, community and workplace support for the woman during pregnancy, childbirth and for the newborn infant •care for the woman before and between pregnancies

statistics and data.

E-mail: psquared@psquared-project.com Website: www.psquared-project.com

E-mail: mehreenzamir@gmail.com

RHEPAS

P2 Project IFMSA and International Pharmaceutical Students’ Federation (IPSF) conduct P2 (Physician x Pharmacist) Collaborative Project, which aims to promote collaboration and partnership between future physician and future pharmacist all over the world through global health-related joint activities.

The project empowers every country member of IFMSA and IPSF worldwide to establish and maintain collaborative project which involves both medical students and pharmaceutical students.

They will be provided supporting tools (handbook, guidelines, etc) which also contains research-based survey results about current healthcare students’ 29 International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations

In Nepal, strategies on reproductive health of adolescents are implemented solely through the health sector and do not encompass the education sector. One reason for this is that the education system suffers from lack of trained manpower on reproductive health issues, with many teachers themselves having many misconceptions.

To address this gap, Nepal Medical Students’ Society (NMSS) has come up with the Reproductive Health Education Project for Adolescents in school (RHEPAS) where medical students will disseminate reproductive health information to adolescents in schools.

The major goals of the project are to obtain a baseline data on the existing knowledge, attitude and practice of adolescents in schools on reproductive health issues, improve this knowledge to an acceptable standard and then create mechanisms for sustaining the project at the project sites locally so that local teachers are able to conduct school health education on their own in future.

To achieve these goals, NMSS will conduct the

project in two years in the Bagmati zone of Nepal.

At the end of the first year, about three hundred schools will have had school health education programs in them and around 10,000 adolescents will benefit directly from the project, not to count the ripple effect they will create in the community.

E-mail: nmssnepal@gmail.com Website: www.nmss.org.np

IFMSA contact IFMSA General Secretariat

IFMSA Operational Office

IFMSA General Secretariat

IFMSA International Office Amsterdam

c/o World Medical AssociationBP 63, 012 12 Ferney-Voltaire Cedex France, Europe

c/o Academic MedicalCenter J0-105 Meibergdreef 15 1105 AZ Amsterdam The Netherlands, Europe

Phone: +33 (450) 04 47 59 Fax: + 33 (450) 40 59 37

Phone: +31 20 56 68 470

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