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 The Standing Committee on human Rights and Peace (SCORP) is one of the six Standing Committees of the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations. It was founded in the year of 1983, as the global plight of refugees came into the limelight.
Mission Statement
The Standing Committee on human Rights and Peace is committed to promoting Human Rights and Peace. As future health care professionals we work towards empowering and improving the health of refugees and other vulnerable people.
Aims and Objectives
With focus on the health issues, SCORP has the following aims:
· To learn about the problems that refugees, internally displaced people and other vulnerable populations face by participation in local and international work
· To cooperate with NGOs in establishing projects for medical students to work in international refugee camps
· To educate medical students and professionals about the health of refugees, internally displaced people and other vulnerable populations
· To spread awareness and educate health care professionals in human rights and violations hereof
· To speak and act for peaceable conflict solutions
· To discuss and learn about conflict prevention
· To establish and develop multidisciplinary co-operation in matters of refugees, peace-culture building, conflict prevention and human rights.
Our Focus
Refugees
In today's world there are about 11 million refugees, who face tremendous hardships like (political) persecution, human rights violations, torture, war and armed conflicts. Medical students can, as future doctors, improve the mental, social and physical well being of refugees by raising awareness of the fate and by improving their living standards in refugee camps or centres. This is why medical students can and should play a role in the global refugee effort. Unfortunately, the current medical curriculum has a minimum of teaching about refugees. Therefore, SCORP also aims at the implementation of teaching on refugees in the medical education.
Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. Unfortunately, to this day a lot of people in the world still face human rights violations. These violations can range from being denied the right to education, to assemble or to shelter to the horrible violations of being tortured, given an unfair trial or sentenced to death. As future doctors, we need to know what human rights are, how to protect them and how not to violate them. This is why SCORP organises workshops on human rights and why we aim at the implementation of human rights education in the medical curriculum.
Conflict Prevention
War and armed conflicts have an enormous impact on mental and physical health. From the medical preventive perspective it is indeed very important to try to limit not only the consequences of war and armed conflict but also to try to prevent it from happening. For instance: physicians are needed to treat the people who got injured by a landmine, is it then not only logical that physicians also promote disarmament to prevent future victims?
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