Tufts GlobeMed to participate in Rally for the Right to Health on Sunday

GlobeMed at Tuftswill partner with other Boston community organizations for the Rally for the Right to Health on the Boston Common on Sunday. The rally supports a single-payer health care system in Massachusetts and better access to primary care across the world. 

The rally will also help raise awareness for the global health crisis and help make universal health coverage a top priority in the United Nations' Post-2015 Development Agenda, according to sophomore Marian Woznica, who helped organize the rally.

This event and others will help to launch local and national campaigns to take place around the world. Woznica explained that an additional goal of the rally is to empower individuals to launch their own campaigns in support of the mission.

“We want to educate people and empower them to become activists themselves,” she said.

According to junior Greg Zhang, this is a particularly relevant matter given that neither of the 2014 Massachusetts gubernatorial candidates -- Democrat Martha Coakley or Republican Charlie Baker -- have publicly supported a single-payer health care system. Zhang serves as one of the co-coordinators for Global Health University and is in charge of educating GlobeMed at Tufts about global health issues.

“We want to get this onto both candidates' agendas," he said. "We are hoping to get political commitment to this in the next term and bring it to the forefront as something they have to address. The actual petitions people will be signing state this as a call for action.”

Woznica said she believes that the rally is also especially timely in light of the current Ebola crisis.

Zhang added that the rally will be held in collaboration with other organizations including Health Leads, Partners in Health Engage, Mass-Care, Public Health at Tufts and GlobeMed. Students of other local universities, including Northeastern University, Boston University, Boston College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, are also spreading awareness for this cause.

Zhang and Woznica will be posting flyers for the rally and hope that more than 150 Tufts students come to the rally.

Deepti Venkatraman, a senior at Boston University studying public health, helped to coordinate the event along with Woznica and Zhang.

“This is a two-tiered approach," she said. "We want to raise awareness and draw attention to the fact that we need to prepare for future threats to global health.”

Venkatraman cited rallying support for the $20 billion Global Health Emergency Fund to fight the Ebola epidemic as an example.

Woznica added that the rally is part of Article 25's Global Day of Action initiative to remind people that health inequality is a prevalent issue that needs people-powered change.

Article 25 is a global movement of people around the world who believe health is a human right, according to Zhang and Woznica. The Global Day of Action is coordinated by Article 25 Education Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group that works with more than 50 partners to build a movement centered around the right to health.

Zhang and Woznica said they are interested in primarily using the day to serve as a forum for education. They will be organizing activities, urging people to sign petitions and bringing in four speakers for the rally.

According to Article 25 Campaign Director Amee Amin, the day of action will kick off a movement for the right to health.

“It’s the beginning of people coming together to take action, whether it be by holding marches, organizing vigils or placing pressure on politicians to take action and change policies," he said.

Amin noted that this day is about looking towards the future and creating a community for everyone who is committed to taking long-term action.

Correction: Oct. 27, 2014

An earlier version of this article did not stress that GlobeMed was not the sole actor in this rally. In fact, without collaboration with groups like Public Health at Tufts and Partners in Health Engage at Tufts, the rally participation would not have been possible.