UAEM 2011 Conference Updates

Hello All! This is Rebeccah reporting from the 2011 UAEM National Conference. Universities around the world are represented at this conference, including ones from Brazil, Germany, United Kingdom, and many more, and we are all united under one common mission: equal access to medicines. We have just completed our first set of sessions, which have been extremely informative. This morning, the group was broken into two different tracks- introductory and advanced. The introductory track focused on the history of UAEM including mission, values, and reasons to become actively involved in the fight for equal access to medicines. The advanced track presented ways to actively pursue advocacy and policy changes on individual campuses. Our chapter at Central Michigan University has already learned a lot from these first sessions, such as how and who to approach within the administration to further our goal of adopting global access licensing agreements. We have also gained more support and logic for adopting these agreements- Harvard has global access licensing in 75% of agreements, and have seen a subsequent increase in revenue! We learn a lot from the efforts and successes of other universities. Collaboration is key. We are excited for the remainder of the conference, including Stephen Lewis, co-founder of AIDS Free World, as the keynote speaker. We will keep you updated regarding what we learn from this great conference. -Rebeccah