Partners in Health Gather for Symposium

artners in Health gathered local residents and worldwide PIH workers on Saturday for the 16th Annual Thomas J. White Symposium to “celebrate the year’s achievements and strategize for the future,” according to Ophelia Dahl, PIH Executive Director. PIH—a Harvard-affiliated nonprofit organization with partners in Latin America, Africa, and Russia—was founded in 1987 by Paul Farmer, Thomas J. White, and Todd McCormack. They were later joined by Dahl and Jim Y. Kim, who recently left Harvard to become the President of Dartmouth University.The symposium brought together PIH doctors, volunteers, and project leaders who work for social justice and health care to highlight this year’s theme of “Solidarity in Action,” shown in the power of accompaniment.The event opened with a somber tone as three speakers gave a tribute to Dr. Josue Augustin, the director of surgery for PIH’s partner organization in Haiti, whose murder on August 31st, 2009 remains unsolved.Mourning the loss of Augustin, Dr. Joia Mukherjee, Chief Medical Officer for PIH described him as “a gifted surgeon and an exceptional human being...the only surgeon in Haiti who would treat anyone, from anywhere, at anytime, regardless of their ability to pay.” Mukherjee said PIH hopes to continue his dream of making surgery accessible to all Haitians.The afternoon’s featured speaker was Nicholas D. Kristof ’82, a two-time Pulitzer Price winner columnist for the New York Times who was also a Crimson news editor.“My only hesitation coming here was that I remember Sanders Theater from taking Ec 10 in this room,” Kristof said, drawing laughter from audience members.Kristof, whose research regarding the social injustice women face in East Asian countries is chronicled in his new book “Half the Sky.” He urged audience members to partake in “a cause larger than ourselves.”“Helping people is harder than it looks,” Kristof said. “At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that many projects have been completely successful and transformative.”The symposium concluded on an uplifting note with a photo slide show of past projects, played to the song “I Shall Believe” by Sheryl Crow.Audience members, many of whom traveled from countries including Haiti, Rwanda, Peru, and Russia, said they felt inspired by the speakers and the stories.“I was so involved with numbers and Excel that I had little time to do home visits,” said Odile Nzirabatinya, the Chief Financial Officer for the PIH sister organization in Rwanda. “Now, I feel more energized to be more involved with field work.”Several Harvard students who managed to snag tickets to the sold-out event expressed similar sentiment.“Social justice has always been a burden on my heart,” said Desta S. Lissanu ’13. “I’m Ethiopian...I really feel an obligation to help my people, and I’m trying to find a way to fulfill that.”—Staff writer Helen X. Yang can be reached at hxyang@fas.harvard.