Global Struggle

What is Child Survival? SCCS Broadens the Answer

On December 2nd, twelve Student Campaign for Child Survival (SCCS) and UNICEF students stepped over interlocked hands, and stretched into uncomfortable positions, as they struggled to solve their first icebreaker; transforming a human knot into a circle during their leadership retreat. Exchanging words of humor, determination and frustration SCCSers shouted possible solutions, and after a series of small success and failures, the SCCS/UNICEF circle was formed. This physical challenge was indeed a metaphor for the work that would occur as SCCSers maneuvered through strategies and timelines, and constructed a set of coherent goals for the next semester.

Two months later, SCCS students, activists, alumni, Coordinating Committee chapters and perspective members from around the country arrived for the first annual Global Justice Joint Conference. Having solved some of the "organizational knots" of the previous semester, the Joint Conference would provide a new opportunity to address child survival, grassroots organizing, outreach, and the identity and mission of the Student Campaign for Child Survival.

Holistic Approach to Child Survival

Bryan Yunis, junior at St. Scholastic and website coordinator on the Coordinating Committee said, "You need to take a holistic approach to fully address child survival, and this involves examining issues such as HIV/AIDS, trade, and women's issues. The Joint Conference provided us with the unique opportunity to see the interconnection among issues that are of primary concern in international social justice." This "holistic approach" was mirrored in a workshop envisioned by Pam Bonsu, senior at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health that was entitled "Child Survival Misunderstood?: Using Student Voices to Change Misconceptions". SCCSers, SCCS alumni, and students from other campaigns discussed how women's health, HIV/AIDS, gender equality, healthcare workers and debt cancellation were crucial factors in addressing child survival, and compared this multifaceted understanding to images that conveyed a simplistic and limited depiction of child survival.

Co-facilitator Nidhi Bouri, SCCS intern and sophomore at The University of Maryland(UMD), said, "We took a critical look at images of children in the media that were presented by international organizations and campaigns, to better understand how different ways of media and messaging impact our understanding of what child survival is and what the child survival movement encompasses." A perspective Coordinating Committee member for next semester, Nidhi, is dedicated to continuing this conversation as SCCS constructs campaign strategies and communicates about its future pursuits.

Expanded Goals

Continuingly confronted with the question "What is child survival?" at the Joint Conference, High School Coordinator Rob George responded by facilitating a dialogue in which SCCSers could discuss the limitations of the current title of the campaign, and brainstorm about how to develop a new mission, vision and name for SCCS. Rob said, "At our conference Dr. Paul Zeitz (of Global AIDS Alliance) and Stephen Lewis (Former UN AIDS Envoy) made a strong case for new movement to be created, a movement that will work to protect children. We have a chance to expand, not abandon, the goals of our campaign and to be at the forefront of this new movement". SCCS plans to schedule conference calls in which alumni, stakeholders and chapter members can contribute to the discussion of how to carry out this change. Maternal health, treatment access, orphans and vulnerable children, gender equality, women's health and debt cancellation are being considered as issues that SCCS should intentionally integrate into its mission statement.

Workshops and Actions

During workshop session five of the Joint Conference, members of the Coordinating Committee debriefed chapter members about how the CC organized a call-in week, in which over 100 calls were made to Speaker Pelosi's office in early January about full funding for FY 2007, and the 250 signed letters that were delivered to Pelosi's office in coalition with Americans for Informed Democracy. SCCSers and perspective SCCSers drafted plans for regional calls, strategies for the malaria campaign for the rest of the year, talked about recruiting students for the Coordinating Committee elections in March.

For Valentine's Day, students at Georgetown, St. Scholastica, and UMD launched "Kiss Malaria Good-bye", and made a large heart-shaped cards that were addressed to Congressman Obey stating "Americans spend approximately 13 billion dollars annually on Valentines Day. As 1/3 of the world's wealth, the United States should contribute 1 billion dollars to help fund comprehensive malaria intervention." Over four hundred signatures were collected from this action and more than eighteen countries were represented on the cards. UMD turned "Kiss Malaria Good-bye" into a double entendre and set up a kissing booth and passed out Hershey kisses for every signature that they received on the card.

Illustrating the shared wellbeing of women and children, SCCS developed a series of informational flyers for International Women's Day on March, 8th. Through creative messaging and personal stories, these flyers will explain how a women's education, susceptibility to HIV/AIDS, working conditions and ability to make decisions about family planning impacts the state of her children. The University of Maryland plans to supplement this national action with skits from the vagina monologues and theatrical demonstrations that convey the importance of gender equality to child survival.

In the Future

Taking an interdisciplinary and anti-oppression approach to child survival and student organizing, regional conferences designed to provide students with the tools, connections and strategies to build and strengthen chapters and leaders are being planned in Massachusetts, D.C. and Wisconsin. These conferences will also address the unique concerns of particular schools and regions, while integrating chapters into a coherent and renewed mission for SCCS. Four committees composed of at least two CC members and three members from the schools in the region have been developed to determine the school that will host the conference, recruit attendees, logistics, speakers and train facilitators. The conferences are scheduled to take place on different Saturdays in April.

Reflections

The Joint Conference provided an atmosphere for SCCSers to recognize and demonstrate their strengths and identify and address their weakness. Although the concept of a regional conference differs from the concept of a joint conference in size and spectrum, they both look at the uniqueness and interconnectivity of issues within a larger movement and organization. As SCCSers host the regional conferences and communicate about their outcome, it's likely that they will see that the concerns and traditions that are unique to a particular chapter or region, inevitably fit in a complex but connected mission of SCCS.