Last year, thanks to the dedication of our wonderful PHR intern Margeaux Fischer, a donation of 441 medical textbooks was shipped to the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR), with whom we helped organize a health and human rights training for medical students in 2008.
One of the ways we were able to help satisfy the needs of the students we met was through the donation of these medical texts. Our friends at ZADHR wrote about it in their recent eNewsletter:
ZADHR in conjunction with Physicians for Human Rights (USA) has donated books worth more than US$ 50,000 to the College of Health Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe. The total number of books donated is 441 and of these books 37 have already been selected for the reserve section as they are deemed very important and needs close surveillance on their usage.
ZADHR continues working with Physicians for Human rights in trying to improve access to medical books to medical students in Zimbabwe.
ZADHR would like to continue with such a positive relationships with the College of Health Sciences and they are looking for more ways they can improve access to information and other necessary resources at the College of Health Sciences.
The ZADHR student leadership PHR trained two years ago have just conducted their own training for 37 students. Norman Matara, one of the leaders, writes:
We have just held a health and human rights where we have trained 37 students in HHR. What was really exciting was that we were the ones who made the presentations, sharing what you have taught us with our young brothers. We still fight for health rights.
PHR is proud to support these students and others around the world. We are in discussions with other US student chapters to see if another book donation drive can be put together. Let us know if you're interested or can help!