DGH Announcements
Updated DGH Mission Statement and Principles of Action. The DGH Board of Directors held a special strategic planning meeting in New York City this past May. The goal was to ensure that as the organization continues to grow, it stays true to its original mission and principles. An important part of the process was to re-evaluate the DGH Mission Statement and Principles of Action, which had not been done since the organization was founded in 1995. The Board was pleased that all members were still in agreement with the goals expressed in those documents. However, they felt the language should be clarified and shortened to make it easier for newcomers to DGH to understand what the organization does and why. The new statement agreed upon at the meeting states: DGH's mission is to improve health and foster other human rights with those most in need by accompanying communities, while educating and inspiring others to action. Read the updated Principles of Action in their entirety.
New Opportunity for Legal Volunteers in Nicaragua. The women's cooperative in Mulukukú, one of DGH's partner organizations, welcomes attorneys and law students to accompany its Program for the Defense Against Violence Towards Women and Children. Established in 1998, this program has 16 workers, including two attorneys and 10 legal promoters, and three offices in Mulukukú, Santa Rita and Siuna. Volunteers will accompany attorneys and victims in all areas of family law practice, including intimate partner violence and child abuse prosecutions, property rights, family support and food assistance. Volunteers will have the opportunity to assist in obtaining restraining orders, accompany victims to forensic examinations, observe mediations, participate in community workshops on women's rights, and work with men to end violence. Law students or lawyers interested in this opportunity should have a high dominion of spoken and written Spanish, and some legal or social services background in domestic violence or sexual abuse, such as shelter work, clinical, legal or pro bono experience. Learn more about becoming a DGH volunteer.
DGH 2003 General Assembly. Dr. Victor Sidel, Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, was the Keynote Speaker at this year's annual DGH General Assembly (GA), held the last week of July in Berkeley, CA. His theme, Promoting Peace in a Time of Preemptive War, was delivered with his inimitable style and met by a standing ovation. Other highlights of the meeting, whose theme was Promoting Peace Through Liberation Medicine, included Social Justice Speaker Dorothy Granada, founder of the Women's Center of Mulukukœ in Nicaragua. She spoke on Empowering Women Through Health, focusing on women's rights and the current situation in Nicaragua. The D'Amphibians played a benefit concert the evening before the GA began. Throughout the meeting there were breakout sessions focusing on: Volunteer opportunities and DGH projects national and international; the current Health and Human Rights status of immigrants in the US; and the People's Health Movement (including the upcoming meeting in Mumbai, India, on January 14-15, 2004 just prior to the World Social Forum). More than 130 persons, from as far away as Australia, participated in this year's GA.
Save the Date. The next DGH General Assembly will be held in Atlanta, Georgia from July 30 to August 1, 2004.
Los Chavalitos Closes. Friends of Los Chavalitos, the NGO that has worked in solidarity with the farm school over the past eight years, has informed us that as of this past summer Los Chavalitos is no longer functioning as an orphanage. We report this with much sadness as the farm school had been the last refuge for numerous Nicaraguan children over the past several years. Any funds recently donated to DGH for Los Chavalitos will be used for the still functioning Los Chavalitos Alumni Fund, administered by Friends of Los Chavalitos, which helps graduates of the farm school pursue further education.
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