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Unforgettable event in March Meeting 2005 (part 1)

IFMSA-Palestine got its candidate membership

The IFMSA General Assembly in Turkey was one of the unforgettable events in my life, in which the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations-Palestine got its candidate membership in the 54th meeting of IFMSA.

IFMSA Palestine started as a dream, a dream that seemed very difficult to achieve and surrounded by many reasons to fail; a country that is completely occupied with unstable situations, checkpoints that make our communication impossible and people who lack many things that prevent them from leading a normal life.

The idea of IFMSA Palestine started in January 2004 by a number of students; students who wanted an organization to represent them in IFMSA and to open the opportunity for them to share ideas and experience, and to establish a framework nationally that could join them together.

We started contacting IFMSA through our regional coordinator and the President, trying to figure out, through the IFMSA web site, what needed to be done to establish a member organization that would be sustainable and represent us in the IFMSA. However, this mission appeared so complicated! With constitutions and bylaws that are very difficult to understand, abbreviations that are very a challenge to remember, committees with different names and objectives, and everything else that looks strange for a newcomer to the IFMSA.

In Macedonia, I attended my first General Assembly of IFMSA, after we realized that the best way to understand the IFMSA is to be involved closely. I attended SCORP sessions which I found very impressive! With all these students from all over the world who came together for a one reason joining them together; working for a healthier tomorrow. We had already started working in a Refugees & Human rights committee and had done our first project; the refugee camp project in Bethlehem in partnership with IPPNW.

Everything was new to me in Macedonia, but it was not difficult to get to know IFMSA in couple of days and I learnt how to establish an NMO. In fact, it was my first time understanding what the abbreviation stands for!

I had several discussions with the President of IFMSA and with other NMOs in our region during the GA, which facilitated my understanding of it. And it was during that GA that, for the first time, I had the feeling that establishing IFMSA Palestine wass achievable. I left the GA with a lot of friends, a lot of people I admired and with enough motivation to continue our work in setting up IFMSA Palestine.

After returning from Macedonia, getting the students motivated was one of the difficult things we faced, especially when they have a lot of things to worry about; the separation wall that separated their school form their training hospitals, their unstable irregular classes schedule due to closures and how to bypass checkpoints to reach their hospitals and classes. But fortunately, many enthusiastic students were still interested in establishing an organization to benefit their needy society, their first and sole Palestinian medical Faculty, and to represent the Palestinian medical students in such a prestigious international forum.

Our aim was not to establish IFMSA Palestine only, but it was to establish an organization that lasts, and an organization will live that will live and survive all the difficulties it may face.

Part 2 »