High Points of PHA2000

By many measures the PHA event was a roaring success. Nearly 1,500 people from 93 countries gathered at Gonashasthaya Kendra (GK), in Bangladesh, to form a worldwide coalition of organizations and movements committed to work towards a healthier, more equitable, more sustainable world. The venue was well chosen. GK is one of the most revolutionary and inspiring community-based health programs in the world. The physical and social ambiance was fabulous! No five-star hotel for this huge forum; Instead, a spacious auditorium was built behind the tranquil lakes and fields where the GK workers grow food for the community program. Building the auditorium was no easy task. Due to heavy rains and tardy funding, two days before the event the vast structure still had no roof. But miraculously it was completed at daybreak the morning the Assembly began--thanks to the valiant efforts day and night of over 1,000 workers!

But how did the GK team manage to feed 1,500 people in this rural setting? Rather than busing folks to restaurants or trucking in costly catered cuisine, they built a covey of small bamboo sheds and invited women from neighboring villages to come prepare traditional food. The chance to perch out-of-doors on handcrafted bamboo stools, eating chapatis and dhal while trying to communicate with the gracious village women, was one of the high points of the Assembly. It somehow symbolized what we were collectively seeking to achieve: an innovative yet ancient way of transcending the commercial, hierarchical barriers that separate people from one another and their dreams. It brought us down-to-earth through the common understanding of each and everyone's most fundamental right, above all else: to have enough to eat.

It was during these communal meals, with six or eight of us activists and progressives from different parts of the world clustered around a table comparing our insights, that some of the most meaningful and potentially transformative interactions of the PHA took place. After attending countless international conferences and forums over many years, this was a marvelous opportunity to chew the fat with so many old friends and fellow warriors for social justice.

The energy and enthusiasm generated by the PHA was enormous! For all the diversity, the people present had in common a passioned commitment to change. Many were spokespersons for disadvantaged groups valiantly struggling to improve their situations--or at least to survive with dignity--in circumstances that in recent years have become more and more difficult and oppressive. Needless to say, an enormous amount of pain, anger, and frustration was vented. But most important, a great sense of international solidarity emerged.

"TO GIVE THE VOICELESS A VOICE" was a foremost goal of the People's Health Assembly. And indeed, the PHA had strong representation from a wide spectrum of marginalized and underprivileged groups, many of whom had never before had a chance to speak at a local council, much less at an international forum. Speakers from all corners of the earth represented everyone from community health workers to traditional birth attendants, from mothers' clubs to a collective of unemployed alcoholics (from Scotland), from tribals to racial minorities, from migrant workers to refugees, and from commercial sex workers to activists with AIDS. A wide spectrum of NGOs ranged from grass-roots movements to the Rockefeller Foundation.

Unfortunately, current leaders of the World Health Organization and UNICEF were conspicuous by their absence. However, a big boost to the legitimacy of the PHA and its depth of discussion was provided by Halfdan Mahler (former General Director of WHO). Mahler was the guru behind the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978, which set the worldwide goal of "Health for All"--still our dream! The PHA was a marvelous forum for sharing experiences and exchanging ideas. Events were enlivened by role plays, music, dancing, and poster sessions. Dramatic "testimonials" of personal hardships--many of which brought tears to the eyes--portrayed the setbacks that people were suffering due to social injustice, unfair laws, and globalization. To give more people a chance to speak out, literally hundreds of relatively small concurrent sessions were held, ranging from women's rights to genetic engineering and everything else under the sun.

A boy with a fishing net at Gonoshasthaya Kendra. The local villagers supplied the food for the international event.

One of the major achievements of the People's Health Assembly was the debate and collective approval of a "People's Charter for Health." The Charter declares social and legislative changes that are needed to put the basic needs of people before the profit interests of giant corporations. It calls for policies which promote the equity and balance essential to creating a healthy and sustainable world. It is hoped the Charter will help form the agenda for a broad-based people's movement that can pressure those in power--governments, the United Nations, WHO, and the international financial institutions (World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization)--to work toward a paradigm of people-centered economic and social development that is conducive to Health for All.

The importance of the pre-Assembly activities--especially in India

In speaking of achievements of the People's Health Assembly, it is important to emphasize the many local and national pre-Assembly activities that prepared the way for the international event in Bangladesh. In many parts of the world, activists and NGOs held seminars, collected testimonials, gathered information, and prepared materials to involve and enlighten people about the underlying structural causes of ill health, their roots in the top-heavy global economy, and the need for a massive uprising to demand healthier, fairer, more sustainable alternatives.

Last September David Werner had the fortune to participate in a "National Forum for Health of the People" in Ecuador. (This is described in the Newsletter from the Sierra Madre #43). Similar forums took place in Central America, Europe, Palestine, South Africa, the Philippines, and Bangladesh.

But the largest, most incredible, pre-Assembly activity took place in India. In the weeks before the PHA event in Bangladesh, over a thousand Indian NGOs took part in a huge National People's Health Assembly in Calcutta. To mobilize mass participation and inform the citizenry of the issues involved, the organizers published a series of provocative, comic-book-like pamphlets. Written in the common languages of the people, these colorfully portrayed the root causes of poor health and their links to the global economy.

To transport the thousands of participants to Calcutta, facilitators organized three "Health Trains," which traveled across the country from different corners of India. At stops along the way, they held demonstrations, performed skits, and passed out flyers. In spite of all the careful planning, however, certain difficulties arose. Although carriages on the trains had been reserved weeks in advance, when participants gathered to board one of the trains, their reserved carriages were already full of passengers. "Too bad!" said the Station Master. "No room left for your group!" As the train began to pull out of the station without them, the activists lay down on the tracks in Gandhian-style resistance, preventing the train from departing. They refused to budge until the officials added more carriages and the Health Assembly activists could board!

The National People's Health Assembly in Calcutta was, as it turned out, much bigger than the international PHA event in Bangladesh. Over 10,000 people took part in the Calcutta event, and the "People's Health March" through the city had over 20,000 people! In terms of widely communicating the core issues at stake--including how the global economy afflicts the health of people and the environment--in some ways India's pre-Assembly event surpassed the international Assembly in Bangladesh.