Impressions International Post Graduate Certificate Course on Health and Human Rights

Saturday, 18 February 2012 13:46

CEHAT, IFHHRO's Indian member, organises a ten-day residential  course on health and human rights each January. The latest edition took place from 23 January to 1 February in Mumbai, India.

The International Post Graduate Certificate Course on Health and Human Rights is an intensive course exploring linkages between health and human rights and building skills in rights-based monitoring and use of international and national instruments, designed for health and human rights activists. The course is organised by CEHAT (Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes) in association with the Department of Civics and Politics, of the University of Mumbai. A total of 18 people from India, Malaysia, Nepal and Canada participated. One of them, Dr. Srijana Pandey from Nepal, shared the following impressions.

During the course, participants have had the opportunity to view two documentary movies: Health matters on universal access and equity and Another world is possible. The course also organized a field visit to K.B. Bhaba Municipal Hospital to give practical hands on ideas/experiences about the hospital-based Dilaasa Crisis Centre which provides counseling to women facing domestic violence and ensures immediate psychological and social support to women to enable them to effectively cope with and manage crisis.

The second session of the last day was set aside for shared evaluation, in which all of the participants had the opportunity to fill the evaluation forms and reflect their view about the program/course. The participants were also requested to share their reflections - what they find good in the program/course and what they want to cover more in the future?

Overall, the course was interactive and full of practical exercises, which gave participants an opportunity to interact each other sharing their country experiences and exchange of information and opinion. The course also facilitated a common platform to adopt possible common strategies to overcome problems in health and human rights.

This course has been one of the most significant opportunities and was a very exhilarating and motivating module and very excellent in terms of networking and discovering new sources of information and expanding my knowledge and understanding on health and human rights. It was a wonderful learning experience. This experience boosts me with new insights, understanding and skills that I can utilize it in my academic career and pass on to the students whom I facilitate in their studies. The various interactive methods facilitated by eminent resource persons were a mind opener. Significant ground was covered with a good balance between lecture/presentations and practical work out. To bring out different issues of health and human right, apart from lecture, the innovative techniques ranging from case studies, group discussions, power-walk exercise, the use of film, field trips were applied which revealed to me that there is more to effective methods than technical presentations. The transnational portrayal of participants from different areas and interests share ideas experiences and explore various discussions which are informative, innovative, exciting, influencing and motivating, thus widening and strengthening my existing knowledge.

I intend to continue reading on different issues of health and human right and use my learning in my own future research and investigation into this area. More formally, I would integrate my own learning by introducing and sharing this new educational intervention with my students and colleague in my home institution.

I wish to thank CEHAT for publicizing this course and all resource persons for revealing us regarding the theme. I am indebted to IFHHRO for providing much needed financial support to participate in the International Post Graduate Certificate Course on Health and Human Rights.

Dr. Srijana Pandey, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Medicine, KIST Medical College Teaching Hospital (KISTMCTH), Nepal