AFRO-NETS> University College, London - Request for collaboration on 9/10 March

[Nicholas Wright <zcharl1@ucl.ac.uk>]

University College, London - Request for collaboration on 9/10 March
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I am part of a group associated with the International Health and 
Medical Education Centre at University College, London. I know that 
it is very short notice, but we are attempting to test a new and sim-
ple method of interactively webcasting conferences which we hope 
could make academic and other conferences from UCL and other UK uni-
versities available freely to audiences, especially in sub-Saharan 
Africa. 

It requires no more to receive than a basic computer that can connect 
to the internet and Realaudio, which can be downloaded free from the 
internet (it is a small file). It should take no more than a few min-
utes to set up.

We are webcasting a conference on human rights and health with top 
academics from the London School of Economics, UCL and the London 
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as the heads of five 
international NGOs. The lecture format is shown below. It will be 
over this weekend (9/10th March) and can be easily listened to live 
in audio.

We hope that you might wish to listen to part of the conference and 
pose questions to our speakers via e-mail. These questions will be 
put to the speakers, who will then reply to the conference hall (and 
you can hear it over in audio form live from the lecture theatre).

We are very excited about both the conference and the method we are 
using. In future academics and others who cannot afford to regularly 
fly to the UK to attend a conference will be able to attend using 
this method at no cost. We hope it could make the vital information 
often delivered at academic conferences available at no cost (apart 
from the cost of the time connected to the internet at the standard 
rates in that country). It will also make conference held in the UK 
more relevant to the needs of audiences in low income countries.

We hope that you can listen to at least part of the conference over 
the weekend (e.g. a couple of hours) and then give us some brief 
feedback via e-mail it would be enormously helpful in then applying 
this method to medical, legal, anthropological, sociological and all 
other conferences held in the UK. We are also hoping to publish this 
method with eHealth International, an NGO and make its use wide-
spread. To do that, we need to prove that it works. The conference 
that we ourselves are also holding will also, we hope, be of direct 
relevance to many currently working in these fields in Africa.

If you wish to take part, then please e-mail me at any time up until 
Sunday morning, or preferably as soon as possible.

Thank you very much for your help,

Nicholas Wright
UCL
mailto:Zcharl1@ucl.ac.uk

You can't understand human rights without understanding the world to-
day you can't understand the world today without understanding human 
rights.


--
If you are interested in how human rights can or should be applied in 
our diverse and globalising world then we invite you to our confer-
ence:

Different Worlds, Different Healthcare? Human rights and health in a 
global context

We have assembled top academics (UCL, LSE, LSHTM etc.) and the heads 
of five international NGOs to examine these issues from a broad range 
of perspectives. Medicine, law, anthropology, sociology, interna-
tional relations, development, policy and global health issues.

In association with the International health and Medical Education 
Centre, UCL the conference is taking place on 9th/10th March at UCL. 
(Lecture Theatre 1, Cruciform Building, Gower Street, WC1)

For any further information, please contact us:
mailto:conference@actionresource.org


'Different Worlds, Different Healthcare? Human Rights and Health in a 
Global Context'

Saturday 9th March

09:00 Registration
09:50 Welcome and Introduction

Area 1 Health, Human Rights and the Right to Health

10:00-10:25 What are human rights? What is the right to health?
Bernie Hamilton, Senior Advisor, Physicians For Human Rights (UK), 
Honorary Senior Lecturer, UCL

10:25-10:50 What determines health and how is ill health tackled by 
healthcare systems around the world?
Professor Graham Scambler, Director, Centre for Medical Sociology, 
Social Theory and Health, UCL

10:50-11:15 Genetically modified food: green revolution no. 2 or 
threat to food security and health?
Dr Eric Brunner, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, International Cen-
tre For Health And Society, Department Of Epidemiology & Public 
Health, UCL

11:15-11:45 BREAK

11:45-12:10 Health and human rights in war zones, an NGO perspective
Geoff Prescott, CEO, Merlin

12:10-12:35 eHealth as a tool for health equality
Dr Harry McConnell, CEO, eHealth International

12:35-1:05 OPEN DISCUSSION

1:05-2:15 LUNCH

Area 2 Human rights and the right to health in context

2:15-2:40 Are there universal human values and what do they encom-
pass?
Dr Katerina Dalacoura, lecturer in International Relations, LSE

2:40-3:05 Are children of the diverse societies of the world subject 
to the same human rights?
Dr Ruth Mace, Reader, Dept. Of Anthropology, UCL

3:05-3:35 BREAK

3:35-4:00 Human rights and human responsibilities- how global change 
provides the clues
Dr Carolyn Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Environment and Health Pol-
icy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

4:00-4:55 OPEN DISCUSSION

4:55-5:00 THANKS AND CONCLUSION


Sunday 10th March
09:00 Registration

09:50 Welcome and introduction

Area 3 A right to health? Practical and policy implication

10:00-10:25 The big picture: globalisation and the right to health
Mike Rowson, Director, MEDACT

10:25-10:50 What are states doing to guarantee the right to health 
and how do the UN and NGOs ensure that this is adequate?
Dr Peter Hall, chair, Physicians for Human Rights (UK)

10:50-11:15 Public Health Infrastructures (title yet to be finalised)
Professor Klim McPherson, Department of Social Medicine, University 
of Bristol

11:15-11:45 BREAK

11:45-12:10 (lecture title yet to be agreed)
Mrs Julia Hausermann, President, Rights and Humanity

12:10-12:35 What are NGOs and civil society doing to promote the 
right to health and what should/could they be doing?
Dr John Batten, CEO, African Medical and Research Foundation, Nai-
robi, Kenya (former CEO, ActionAid)

12:35-1:05 OPEN DISCUSSION

1:05-2:05 LUNCH

Area 4 Small group seminars and feedback

What might we as students or professionals in the health, legal or 
other fields do to address the issues raised by these discussions?

2:05-2:50 Small group seminars

2:50-3:05 BREAK

3:05-3:50 Small group seminars

3:50-4:10 BREAK

4:10-4:40 Seminar feedback

4:40-4:50 Concluding remarks

Seminar leaders will include human rights lawyers, doctors working in 
the field and other related experts.

--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org