Changing the Future Together at the Third Annual Health and Human Rights Dialogue
April 6, 2018
“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
African Proverb
Dear Colleagues and Students:
The call to action for National Public Health Week, observed April 2-8, is Changing the Future Together. With that in mind, NYU GPH hosted its Third Annual Health and Human Rights Dialogue last week in partnership with HealthRight International and colleagues at La Pietra/NYU Florence. The focus was the worldwide refugee and migration crisis, which is enormously complicated.
The impetus for this Dialogue began with the establishment of GPH in 2015. Our first meeting focused on Health and Immigration, and experts from around the world took part to focus on a better understanding of the current issues and how they might inform the creation of a curriculum in a public health program.
Inspired by the ongoing migration crisis in Europe, we conducted the second dialogue last year with a focus on that region. We gathered practitioners, advocates, leadership from nongovernmental organizations, and researchers to report on the crisis.
With HealthRight, we have now established and implemented a Health and Human Rights (HHR) curriculum with Drs. Joanna Pozen, Peter Navario, Bernadette Boden-Albala and Chris Dickey, who have been instrumental in creating our HHR online certificate program. At NYU Florence, Dr. Nate Bertelsen is working with our Cross-Continental MPH and study-away students on an HHR focus on campus there.
For our third annual dialogue last week, our planning committee identified topics that demand further exploration within the realm of migration, health and human rights. Very importantly, next steps from this dialogue involve the formation of a formal Society on Health and Human Rights, which would meet annually.
Special thanks to all who were involved in the planning of this important event, and to our speakers who joined us from around the world.
In closing, as we observe the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King this week, I’m reminded of his quote, which still rings so true five decades later:
“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable…
every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice,
suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”
Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH
Dean