Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

As the right to health and health equity continue to be threatened across the globe, activists share and learn from each other’s experiences and struggles - through social media, international gatherings, global networks, and personal stories. These connections give activists the tools they need to strengthen movements against oppression and austerity and to sustain the passion that feeds life-ways of activism. This workshop will bring together activists to share experiences in our continued struggle for health equity. Through a series of facilitated, world-cafe-style discussions, participants will learn about the International People’s Health University, an innovative approach to harnessing local activism through a political economy of health lens. Participants will share organizing experiences, learn new strategies, and reflect on ways to maintain the energy and balance needed to sustain a life-way of activism. Through those conversations, workshop participants will develop new strategies for activism and movement-building for health equity and leave with their own health bolstered and energy renewed through their personal and political connections with each other. Workshop facilitators are long-term activists involved in movements for health and social justice across the Americas and Europe. All are current and past representatives of the People’s Health Movement (PHM) - a global grassroots organization with a revolutionary mandate: Health For All Now! Experiences from global and local struggles will be shared with workshop participants with the goal of building solidarity and momentum for change. The workshop will end by introducing participants to PHM’s handbook Building a Movement for Health.