Communiques

July 6 2005

We have an urgent request to all the participants of the Second People's Health Assembly in Cuenca. We need each one of you to register the accommodation form available at Accomodation

This form helps to indicate food preferences, travel details, accommodation preferences, and passport details. We have had until now only 100 accommodation forms filled in and all the applicants have been notified by email. Those of you who have already registered for accommodation need not reapply.

We insist that the focal persons for registration of participants from various regions/countries of the world take lead and have these forms filled in without fail. Our travel agent is overwhelmed with queries and telephone calls, and in order to avoid confusion and uncertainty, we have concluded that this form is absolutely essential.

When these details are filled in, we would be able to have your travel from Guayaquil/Quito to Cuenca arranged in addition to accommodation in these places if overnight stay is required. We have adequate number of hotels and lodges booked in Cuenca and with the help of these forms we would then be able to allocate appropriately the required boarding and provide appropriate food.

For those of the participants who do not have access to the internet, we suggest that the delegation coordinator have these forms filled in.

July 5

We are happy to announce that despite several technical glitches we have now delegates registered from 82 countries for the Second People's Health Assembly! And more are expected. See list below. If we have inadvertantly left anyone out, our apologies and do contact us.

Second Announcement for PHA 2

Voices from around the world are calling! Together, let us build a healthy world

Friends

On behalf of the Organizing Committee of the People's Health Assembly 2 which will take place in Cuenca on July 18-23, 2005, we are pleased to announce the following:'

We are working very hard to make the Second Assembly a process that will encourage all people to participate in the fight for health.

We are working on programming, logistics, and pre-assembly events. The various themes must be addressed fully without losing sight of their interconnectedness on a global level. At the same time, we will try to build progressively on the efforts that have been made at a local level in different places in the world.

We will not neglect to look at the themes at the heart of our vision:

Experts will provide objective analyses, using displays and visual aids as much as possible to provide access to all whatever their mother tongue.

Community representatives, health activists, local leaders will tell the story of the fight for health through stories and testimonials. They will tell of the problems surrounding health issues, how the program came into being, its successes, its lessons, and its significance both locally and globally.

Photographic exhibitions, drawings, pictures, crafts, posters, sessions, rituals, music, drama, documents, books, videos etc. will also examine the themes.

The themes will form part of the agenda in the plenary sessions of the PHA 2. They will also be addressed in workshops, forums, and seminars. Given their importance and depending on the level of interest, some themes could become topics in their own right within the framework of the Assembly. Without exception, each session will be planned with specific objectives in mind to allow for follow-up, decision-making, and inclusion in the final strategic plan. At all times, we will strive to reach conclusions that will have a lasting impact.

We are calling on all organizations and all peoples to unite as one in this worldwide movement to construct a viable world, a world where the health of all is an expression of solidarity, liberty, and human development.

Yours in solidarity
Arturo Quizhpe
Coordinator, People's Health Assembly 2

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Cuenca, May 2, 2005

Greetings,

Our communication team invites you to send possible films and videos on the different themes of the assembly. They need to be in the MINI DV or DV CAM NTSC format and sent to us in advance so that it can be tested for technical soundness.

A second option is as follows:
If you are attending the World Health Assembly on 16-25 May 2005 or know someone who is, you could actually bring the films to Geneva, Switzerland and the PHM team from Cuenca could take it back to Ecuador.

In solidarity,
Arturo Quizphe Peralta
Coordinator of the PHA2

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Hope, happiness, and dreams, the enthusiasm to share, debate and unite our efforts for a healthy world has burst out in our city of Cuenca and in our country of Ecuador.In each province of Ecuador assemblies are taking place to elect the delegates, to prepare their participation, and to organize a huge national assembly which will be held in Guayaquil.

The national crisis, product of the contradictions of different factions of the oligarchy, is an attempt to control the Supreme Court of Justice and different organs of the State, with the single and exclusive objective of protecting their interests and to insure the impunity of corrupt leaders of the traditional parties. At the same time, there is the intent to distract attention of the people from the central problems of the country, to impose the ratification of the Free Trade Agreements with the United States, to create new US military bases, and the pass a law that will hand over the oil fields to large US petroleum companies.

Therefore, the PHA2 surely constitutes a transcendental event full of hope, happiness and optimism. We call upon all of you to continue to work with enthusiasm and decision, to use all your energies to make this huge planetary meeting an opportunity to celebrate the diversity, the solidarity, and the energy of the peoples of the world.

The Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Cuenca, the municipality of Cuenca, and Ecuador await you with open arms and a heart bursting with hope.

The voices from around the world are calling us, to unite day by day, from the most isolated corner of the planet, to build the pathway to a healthy world.

In solidarity,
Arturo Quizphe Peralta
Coordinator of the PHA2