Before deadline and exam season starts, come to #HealthJustice 2020 to enhance your campaign knowledge and research skills, whist also discovering the fabulous city of Birmingham.
1. Build your Campaigning Knowledge
You’ll get campaign training that will hone your knowledge, confidence and skills; enabling you to become an effective activist.
2. Develop your Research Skills
Effective research skills are a vital underpinning of successful campaigning and advocacy work. The research stream offers you training in making effective Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and the opportunity to get involved in shaping our new Medact Research Network – a great place to start your academic publishing career.
3. Meet Other Like Minded People in the Health Community
You’ll get the opportunity to network and connect with other students, health workers, academics, and campaigners – often people who span across these roles – from across the country.
4. You can Submit a Poster to Display at the Conference
We will have a poster exhibition space at the conference, and invite you to apply to display your poster. Posters will be chosen on a first come first served basis. If you would like to apply for a poster space, email [email protected] with either a copy of your poster or a proposal for what it would contain.
5. Take Part in Sessions about the Climate Crisis
Get involved in sessions including:
A systems change approach to climate justice – how the health community can join the fight (Talk)
Speaker – Asad Rehman, War on Want
Building an economic system that serves human and planetary health (Workshop)
Speaker – Guppi Kaur Bola
6. Participate in Protecting Universal Access to Healthcare
In the last 5 years we have witnessed an unprecedented erosion of the human right to healthcare, with increased restrictions on access to the NHS and other health systems across Europe. Our Access to Healthcare stream will explore the role for the health community in fighting for universal healthcare.
Get involved in sessions including:
Patients Not Passports – Join the campaign against NHS Charging (Workshop)
Speakers: Irial Eno from Docs Not Cops Birmingham, Akram Salhab from Migrants Organise, Members of Medact Bristol
The International Struggle for Universal Healthcare (Panel)
Speakers: Kathryn Medien from Cambridge Post Doc, Daniel Button from New Economics Foundation, Henry Ascher from ‘Right to Health’ Initiative (Rätt till vård–Initiativet) Sweden, Irene Rodríguez Newey from Yo Sí Sanidad Universal
7. Learn about the Role of Health Workers at the Frontline of War and State Violence
The Peace and Security stream will give an insight into the ways in which health workers around the world and in the UK can come together to work toward peace, and ask attendees the question: what does security mean to you, and what is the role of the health community in achieving it?
Get involved in sessions including:
Health workers at the frontline: The role of health workers in global struggles for peace and justice (Panel)
Speakers: Rita Dayoub (Health Workers at the Frontline) and Dr. Thusiyan Nandakumar
False Positives: The impacts of the Prevent counter-extremism policy in the NHS (Panel)
Speakers: Tarek Younis Psychologist & Lecturer at Middlesex University, Dr Adnan Siddiqui Director of CAGE and Hilary Aked, Medact’s Research Manager
8. Explore Ideas around Economic Inequality and its Health Impacts
In our Economic Justice stream, we will be joined by experts in health, economics and frontline workers.
Get involved in sessions including:
Playing for change: Understanding systems through game play. Exploring precracity, social care and collective struggles through games and roleplay (Workshop)
Speaker: Hwa Young Joon
Economic Justice Campaign planning. Identifying key issues and co-creating an action plan (Workshop)
9. Student Discount and Bursaries are Available
Students get a discount on tickets, whilst travel and childcare bursaries are also available.
10. Discover Birmingham
#HealthJustice 2020 is taking place at Conference Aston in Birmingham. It’s a vibrant and exciting city to spend a weekend in, with plenty to see and do! With over 313 miles of canal, the Birmingham and Fazel Canal links the hustle and bustle of the city centre to the tranquil peace of the countryside.
Fancy some retail therapy? Birmingham is home to several vintage arcades, with an established independent shop community. Meanwhile, in Digbeth, the city’s Creative Quarter, you can wander the streets and be treated to some of the UK’s most iconic street art by promising young creatives.
Conference finished and wanting to sample the nightlife? With your new friends you’ve made at #HealthJustice 2020, head first into the Bullring and then the Theatreland district, sampling delightful cocktails (or mocktails!) before dancing the night away in clubs famed for their friendly Birmingham welcome.