10 Things We Know To Be True
Ten years ago, GlobeMed was founded by students who saw a need to change the status quo. Unsatisfied with the existing power systems and structures in global health, these students built a new model for student engagement in global health. A model that relied on grassroots partnerships that would spark a movement to ultimately change the way that change happens.
Though we’ve evolved in scope and approach over the past ten years, the core parts of our organizational DNA have remain rooted. As we continue growing, our 10 Things We Know To Be True will help guide our strategy, work, and relationships as we work together to find solutions to the world’s most complex global health challenges.
GlobeMed HQ staff visits Arizona State University (2018).
1. Every human life has equal worth. Health is a human right and a matter of social justice.
2. Together, poverty and disease form a vicious cycle: People become sick because they are poor and poor because they are sick.
3. The more power and privilege a person has, the more likely they are to be healthy. Across the world, power and privilege are distributed by systems created by people, which elevate certain groups of people while oppressing others.
4. Because these systems are created by people, they can be changed by the actions of people. Humanity can choose how we share the resources of our finite planet.
5. Poverty of means is not poverty of ability. Intelligence, talent, and leadership capacity are equally distributed around the world. Opportunities and resources are not.
6. There are local changemakers in every corner of the world who see the potential of their own communities and are already working to unleash it.
7. The best way to achieve lasting change is to shift power and resources to local changemakers so that they can lead the transformation of their own communities.
8. There are young people everywhere who refuse to accept the world’s massive disparities in health and feel a powerful responsibility to act.
9. Throughout history, transformational change has happened when people from all walks of life have united in partnership and solidarity to fight for equity and justice.
10. We can realize health for all, if we work together.