Health Rights=Healthy Women Platform Endorsement Guide

Goal: Ask prominent members of the University community to endorse the Health Rights=Healthy Women platform. The list of endorsers will be shown to members of Congress during in-district meetings to show community support for stopping the feminization of AIDS.

How to:

1. Create a list of people to contact about endorsing the platform:
   1. Think about people you know: professors, advisors, your department head, deans, associate deans, community organizations you are involved with.
   2. Think about people you might not know: heads of departments different then yours, faculty of the public health, nursing or undergraduate schools.
   3. Ask for suggestions: Each time someone endorses the platform, ask them to recommend other people.
   4. Contact 3rd and 4th year students who are involved with your chapter and ask them to recommend people they worked with during their clinical rotations.
2. Determine the best strategy to approach each person you have identified:
   1. In some cases this may be as simple as talking to your professor in a meeting before or after class.
   2. You may want to send an email asking them (see sample email).
   3. You may need to be strategic in who you approach when: You may want to start small before going for the big cheese. Is the head of the Infectious Disease department going to sign on after they see many of their colleagues doing so? Is the Dean going to sign on after he/she sees many of their department heads signing on?
3. Use the materials:
   1. When you are asking someone to sign the platform, be sure give them a copy of the Platform and Factsheet.
   2. You can also point to the list of prominent Health Professionals who have already signed.
4. Pick up the phone and call: After you send an email, call the next day to make sure they received it. You may jog their memory and get their endorsement right there.
5. Remember to follow up: Whenever you talk to someone over phone or email, be sure to set a timeline for when they will get back to you with an answer. If that date has passed and you have not heard anything, call and email them again.
6. To endorse the platform:
   1. the easiest way is to have someone sign the online version.
   2. Alternatively, you can ask them to confirm their titles and affiliations, and send an email with that information and their contact information to Pete Witzler, pwitzler@phrusa.org
7. Thank-you Cards: After someone signs onto the platform send a thank you note. This will help build your relationship with these people and make future organizing that much easier.

Sample email:

Dear Dean/Dr/ [name]

As you may know, [name] School of Medicine/Public Health has a Physicians for Human Rights student chapter which educates and mobilizes students around some of the most crucial health and human rights problems of our time. The global AIDS pandemic is one of those issues. I am writing to ask if you'd consider signing onto the attached platform, Health Rights=Healthy Women: A Commitment to Halt the Feminization of AIDS.

Physicians for Human Rights has developed this platform to address the structural inequalities that leave women vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and to provide solutions to the problem. The platform calls for building a rights-based health system, providing comprehensive prevention programs, and developing an educated and empowered health workforce, all of which can support women to reach their health rights.

You can view the platform online, including a list some of the prominent HIV/AIDS experts who have have already endorsed the platform.

With the powerful voices of health professionals behind us we can halt the feminization of AIDS.

To endorse the platform, you can fill out the online form, or send an email to Pete Witzler at PHR (pwitzler[at] phrusa [dot] org) verifying your titles, affiliations, city, and contact information.

Thanks so much. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best Regards,

[Your name]