Sikander Sabeer: Day 04 - WHO World Health Assembly

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Day 04 - WHO World Health Assembly

IFMSA Delegation

Attended a side event on DREAM:achieving results in HIV -positive patients in sub-saharan Africa, organized by the the delegation on Italy. DG of department of HIV/AIDS of a WHO, said that ART treatment is boosting, ART price reduction, declining of HIV infected people are some of the significant points. Down wards trend on new infection on HIV infection on children (0-14) is sharply visible.
Community approach, provider-initiated testing, self testing some of the new approaches on advancing testing and delivery models. Combine and consolidate an integrated approach of Clinical, programmatic, operational framework will be key focus on upcoming World AIDS conference. DReAM is a project, Model to care and strategy to reinforce retention, launched in 10 African countries.

Exhibition Area

Side Event "DREAM"

Exhibition Stalls

IFMSA Side Event

Day 4th of the 66th World Health Assembly, May 23rd, 2013 is a historical day for IFMSA presence at WHO meetings.. The IFMSA delegation has hosted in the afternoon the first youth organized and youth-led side event at the World Health Assembly.
Health of the World’s girls – The missing link in the global development agenda?
Hollie Kluczewski, IFMSA and Medsin UK, was the chairman of the meeting. She addressed from the beginning the importance of the issue:
“Often within global health we take adolescent girls for granted, but we need to acknowledge that beyond being children and before they are mothers, they are girls, with their own specific health and social needs. They deserve our undivided attention.

Currently we have a global health community assuming they are addressing girls needs with maternal health programs and we have a development community thinking they are acting for girls development without fully considering their health. We need to bring these two paradigms together, and truly embrace health as a tool for enabling girls to reach their development potential.

The dynamic panellists were: Helga Fogtad of the Norwegian Agency for Development, Luc de Bernis of UNFPA, Warugura Wanjau of the MILEAD fellows program, Jane Ferguson of WHO and Roopa Dhatt – IFMSA President.
Roopa made a strong statement on how IFMSA achieves meaningful participation for girls. “Comprehensive sexuality education is essential for educating and empowering both girls and boys about their sexual and reproductive health. It’s views sexuality holistically and goes far beyond a biomedical approach. The IFMSA recognises the IPPF seven key elements of a comprehensive sexuality education program, which are:
1- Sexual and reproductive health incl. STIs & HIV
2- Relationships
3- Pleasure
4- Gender
5- Violence
6- Diversity
7- Sexual rights and citizenship

This broad and encompassing approach recognizes that gender roles are at the core of a girl’s relationships, sexual experiences and ultimately her health. This approach has the additional benefit of educating boys about gender norms, which is essential because gender equality will never exist until girls and boys work together to address damaging gender norms.

IFMSA works towards a world in which every young person receives a truly comprehensive sexuality education, we do this on three levels: locally, nationally and internationally (…)”.

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About Me

Sikander Sabeer is a product of Isipathana College and holding a first class with distinction Bachelors of Science (BSc) degree on Biotechnology, Biochemistry and Microbiology from Spectrum Institute of Science and Technology (Sri Lanka), an outreach campus of University of Mysore (India). Presently reading for his Masters of Science (MSc) on Business Management at National School of Business Management (Sri Lanka), an outreach post-graduate institute of University of Dublin (Ireland).

Sikanders’ development work can be categorized into three avenues, namely community service and community development; youth empowerment and professional development; climate change and sustainable development. Meanwhile his development work is two phased, firstly action oriented, secondly strategic and advocacy. In the action oriented phase, he gets in to the field and implements his ideas. He works very closely with multi-stakeholders such as children, school students, youth, corporates & business firms, UN agencies, non-governmental and government organizations on diversified projects at different levels and on different capacities. With his strong grass-root level initiatives and experience, he invests equal time on advocacy, mentorship and youth policy framework, which is a unique, and a strategic bottom up approach.

Sikanders’ voluntary action oriented initiatives and his strategic thinking has given him numerous opportunities to be a guest speaker and youth facilitator; to share his experiences, best practices to motivate and inspire youth at number of National and International youth conferences. He has represented his country and fellow youth (1/4th of Sri Lankan population) at high profile youth conferences and high level UN summits/conferences, at some of the UN meetings I have served as an ‘Official Youth Delegate’ of the National Delegation team headed by HE president. Half of the world’s population is made up of young people and as a youth representative and a major stakeholder he had made several interventions on behalf of Global Youth and Sri Lankan youth at some of the UN conferences.

He has held several key positions in organizing several national and international events/programmes and he is one of the co-creators of the YOUTH is the word –Guinness World Record, where 1500 Sri Lankan youth stood to gather to form the largest human mosaic in the world.

His local, national and international initiatives on youth led community development, Climate Change; youth empowerment and youth advocacy led him to earn the most prestigious “Commonwealth Youth Awards (CYA)” for Excellence in Development Work (2012), The CYA’s celebrate and recognize extraordinary young people among one billion audiences from 54 member states of Commonwealth who are making a positive difference to the lives of others through development initiatives ranging from poverty alleviation to education and protection of the environment. This is awarded by Commonwealth Secretariat (CYP) headed by HM Queen Elizabeth II. He earned the "Global Changemaker" title of British Council Youth Empowerment Programme on 2010 for outstanding contribution for Voluntary Activities. He serves as a Youth Ambassadorial role for climate change and serves as a Youth Facilitator for climate sustainability under British Council International Climate Champion program. Apart from these major recognitions his team earned U.S. Department of States Federal Assistant Award Grant for “Green the Home” project and Global Changemakers Community Action Project (CAP) and Regional Action Project (RAP) grants for Youth Empowerment Initiatives.

Presently Sikander is serving as an Assistant Manager for Business Development and Project Officer for recycling solutions for Neptune Recyclers (Neptune Papers [Pvt.] Ltd) in Sri Lanka, a member of multinational corporate Expolanka Holdings PLC. He works very closely with multi- stakeholders, especially with school students, Industries and Corporates on recycling solutions which create an additional income from the trash while minimizing the environmental pollution.

"Do as much as voluntary activities, because volunteers Inspire in Action, they make a real change in their community, they talk less and work a lot, but never expect any personal benefits from their action, Indeed one day they will earn the rewards, that’s confirmed; Install this in your mind “I will do the best I can”

-Sikander Sabeer-