Health is not the absence of disease but it is a comprehensive quality of life that is the right of anyone. How can this be realized in a society that suffers from repression and exploitation?
Dr. Ahmed Maslamani, Director and Co-founder of the Health Work Committees
The Alliance for People’s Health, with the support and active participation of the Organizing Centre for Social and Economic Justice, is convening the Maslamani Brigade: a People’s Health & Medical Delegation to Palestine for January 2011.
The Maslamani Brigade will send a team of progressive health workers and supportive allies to Gaza and the West Bank to provide hands on medical relief work, training, and the provision of medicines and supplies. The Delegation will be tasked with human rights documentation to expose the nature of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and shed light on the continued occupation of the Palestinian peoples. In addition to medical and health services, the Delegation will provide popular Palestinian organizations with public international documentation of international law and humanitarian violations and documentation support for publication in the international press.
A Long Term Vision of Solidarity
Through health work and popular health education, the Brigade will engage in meaningful and substantive people-to-people solidarity with selected progressive mass organizations and NGOs in Palestine. People-to-people solidarity is a form of international volunteer work that connects social movements through the formation of lasting human relationships, both personal and organizational, towards a shared vision of social and economic justice.
Ultimately, the Alliance for People’s Health and the Organizing Centre aim to establish ongoing relations of solidarity with Palestinian medical workers and progressive health NGOS, as well as Women’s organizations active in the Palestinian occupied territories.
Long-term solidarity means that when the Brigade returns to Canada after our time in Palestine, our work is just beginning! The Brigade is a launching pad for a life-time of mutual support and international cooperation.
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