After eighteen months of non-stop work to forge some new tools and organising a dozen initiatives to engage them, the IMAXI Cooperative is taking a needed break. Unplugged and disconnected. As we are driven only by patients who volunteer, and without any funding or resources other than whats in our own pockets, the Cooperative is now having a well deserved 'retreat' for the next few weeks to recharge our energies and plan the coming year. During this time, it will not be possible to sign-up new accounts on our website, www.imaxi.org as our moderators are all off-line. Our twitter platforms and facebook will also be on 'hold'. We'll be back in the new year, recharged and wired up to move forward in 2012. We wish all our members, friends and supporters a warm, healthy and happy holiday season.

There are many little steps to take along the road of learning how social media, merged with sms-texting, can be effectively used to raise awareness and mobilize communities on health issues. The IMAXI Cooperative has been on this road for some 18 months, and learning while doing all the way. After a number of 24hr 'marathons' linked to UN High Level Meetings, we decided to set up a special 'space' where anyone could come discuss health issues on a regular weekly basis, at anytime of a specific day.
Since early November, we have been forging a new tool, #MeetUpMondays - offering non-stop discussions from 0h-24hGMT every Monday on diverse health issues chosen by dozens of guest moderators (hosts). We're developing different 'corners' of this space, including among others #R2Hchat, #NCDchat, #SDOHchat, #HIV_chat that allow these conversations to be ongoing from week to week.
MeetUpMondays is becoming an amplifier for a fast-growing number of people from around the world. We are all learning together - our cooperative, the 'Hosts', and each of the different chat participants. Now, we will take a few weeks to consolidate the lessons learned, while continuing to push forward with exploring how to use MeetUpMondays effectively in different formats.
Over the next few Mondays during the end-of-year holiday period, we will use an 'open-mic' system for MeetUpMondays. Anyone can bring up the issue of their choice, with a view to sparking a discussion with others. Health topics that others will probably like to discuss are best, including aspects of: cancer, women and children, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, accountability, lung and heart diseases, participation, public health funding, inequities and other social determinants of health. Raise your issue - and mobilize others to follow you forward to more people involved. So MeetUp on Monday from 0hGMT to 24hGMT, share your question, and use the hashtag #MeetUpMondays so we can help pump up the volume to spread the word.

To mark Human Rights Day 2011, three special 'MeetUp SpeakUp' sessions will be held on the Right to Health (R2H) on 10 December via twitter. While the UN's Human Rights Day is a day to celebrate Human Rights in general, these chats will focus on issues related to health.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health, and wellbeing of himself and his family..." Signed, sealed but not yet delivered. Although the Right to Health has been 'signed-on' to by all Governments, it is far from being realised in most countries. Clearly, health advocates and activists should join together to advance efforts to raise awareness of the R2H, and towards this, come together to share ideas and experiences.

HIV, TB, Cancer, Diabetes, Palliative Care... Where are the health advocates?

With the 'economic crisis', most governments will be spending much less per person on health than needed, and many people struggling with life-threatening diseases have little hope of finding the quality of care they need from the public health system. Decisions that will affect the lives of millions are being taken by these Governments without the input of the public. To encourage and support the greater involvement of people in this health debate, a new social media tool has been created by the IMAXI Cooperative, driven by volunteers living with HIV and chronic diseases.

Over the last month, the IMAXI Cooperative has been running #MeetUpMondays, a series of 24 hour nonstop "Fresh & Friendly" meetings on Twitter and SMS. The aim is to bring people together to discuss health issues and what can be done to advance the rights of millions to a healthier future. Simply signing-up for a free Twitter account, and registering your mobile number if you want to participate only by texting, can open the door to meeting and sharing with hundreds of other concerned citizens: PLHIV, PWD, patients, caregivers, health pros and advocates exchanging views and finding common ground. Dozens of Guest Hosts from around the world moderate these 30 minute chats on diverse issues, including HIV/AIDS, TB, Cancer, Diabetes, Palliative Care, Right to Health, Social Determinants, Mental Health, Women and Children and more.

The next #MeetUpMondays event is on Monday, 5 December, just days before Human Rights Day. Come MeetUp ShareUp SpeakUp - the Right to Health must be advanced, powered by our voices in common cause. Just search #MeetUpMondays on Twitter for session details, or SMS to +91 8129094433 with your name. Meet Up next Monday — "Fresh & Friendly" and Healthy!

Update: "#GlobalFund: No Future! What's the #AIDS 'Community' doing about it?" Join #MeetUpMondays Host @AIDSindia Mon.11h30 IST/ 6hGMT at #HIV_chat
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- Sarah Boseley writes: "In what must be seen as a serious setback in the progress made against the major infectious diseases in poor countries, a Board meeting of the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria in Accra, Ghana, has effectively cancelled its next round of grant-making.

The Fund has been staring at a financial black hole ever since its big replenishment meeting in New York a year ago failed to deliver the sums it hoped for. It wanted $20 billion. It got $11.7 billion. That was in spite of exhortations to donors to pledge money from UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who warned that the stakes were high and that lives would be lost if pressure on the big killer diseases was not maintained. If we lose the ground we have gained, we will be back to square one ? all that effort and investment, lost. The decisions you make here today will determine the outcome. It once seemed unthinkable that the money would not continue to stream into programmes to treat people with Aids, TB and malaria and to prevent others becoming infected. But that is what is happening. There is no doubt that people who could have been spared will instead fall ill and die as a result of the drying up of funds. There is also a Damoclean sword hanging over the heads of people who are alive and well thanks to drug treatment for their HIV infection. The Global Fund - together with Pepfar (the President's emergency plan for Aids relief) has been the main source of money to pay for drugs. Those who start the combination treatments to prevent HIV causing Aids must stay on the drugs for life. If they stop, there is a danger the virus will become resistant to the drugs they are on.

UPDATE: The 3rd #MeetUpMondays was great - each week more people are participating, and coming back every week. Join us, nonstop Mondays.
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How to Host a #MeetUpMondays Chat
The IMAXI Cooperative is bringing together some good people to build a new tool for global or local health. Every Monday, we are organising multiple non-stop 24hour discussions (chats) on topics chosen by dozens of guest hosts (moderators) via Twitter and SMS text. This allows people living with diseases, advocates, activists, experts and health professionals to choose a topic, and encourage diverse people to share on this issue. It provides a platform for all to express themselves in a friendly environment at a convenient time from anywhere in the world. The IMAXI Coop has done a dozen or so of these Online/SMS events as trials over the last year to learn how they can work best. Some were linked to High-Level UN Meetings (WHA, HIV, NCDs, SDOH) and others, like these, under a more general theme. Now, we're applying some lessons learned, while continuing to learn while doing,

Have a Health issue to raise? Bring it to #MeetUpMondays
The first series of MeetUpMondays are under the banner of Human Rights, in the build up to Human Rights Day on 10 December. Afterwards, we will continue this initiative, and grow the participation of these weekly Monday Meet-Ups. In the new year, we hope to offer other languages as well. We see this as a way to collectively build an open system that will lead to the greater involvement of many more people from diverse communities, and offer a tool for accountability for the previously voiceless. Meanwhile, we've some more learning and constructing to do over the next months, and we're looking for a few good brains to lend a hand. (read more...)

Don't Moan, Organize! Don't Groan, Mobilize!
Harder times for those who already have tough times are arriving. Poor people living with diseases such as Cancer, HIV, Diabetes, CVD, COPD, Hepatitis or TB are now feeling the effects of cruel cut backs in global funding, and decreasing solidarity. Our suffering grows, and families and caregivers are being burdened more every day. Austerity has driven dark clouds over the landscape with governments around the world abandoning their earlier commitments to increase affordable access to care for hundreds of millions in need. Health services are being cut-back, essential medicines stocked-out and our hopes for survival beat down. The human right to health is under attack from powerful people who do not worry about affording anything. Unaccountable and top-down health systems, infected by corruption and vested interests, are not going to lead on finding solutions. It's no surprise that this state of global health is depressing and demoralizing people living with life threatening diseases and advocates everywhere. It's making us sick!

From the Bronx to Brazzaville, Durban to Delhi, it's now critical to mobilize to fight for the rights that all the UN Member States (Our Governments!) have agreed to fulfill. "How can we help this to happen?" That's one of the key questions that we want and need your views on. Come to #MeetUpMondays on twitter and SMS — Share-Up Speak-Up! It's time to Rise-Up for our collective health. Don't Moan, Organize! Don't Groan, Mobilize!

By Nate Osit Nov.8,2011
For one to be a revolutionary doctor or to be a revolutionary at all, there must first be a revolution. Isolated individual endeavour, for all its purity of ideals, is of no use, and the desire to sacrifice an entire lifetime to the noblest of ideals serves no purpose if one works alone, solitarily, in some corner of America, fighting against adverse governments and social conditions which prevent progress.
When we talk about fixing healthcare, it is common to focus on the healthcare system in America. Whether it’s because it is natural to try to solve the problems that are right in front of us, or because the inequalities of the American healthcare system are so great, we tend to think our problems are isolated from the issues facing the rest of the world.
They’re not. To fix the American healthcare system, we have to work together to create a healthcare system that works for all of us. We can’t talk about creating a healthcare system that works for everyone while wars are raging often impacting hospitals, the IMF prevents public health funding, and our drug companies profit from selling expensive drugs while contributing little to prevention efforts. These aren’t characteristics of a country that is ready for a better healthcare system, particularly if it comes at the cost of less wealthy nations.

When we’re ready to take on the problem of creating a better healthcare system for all of us, we face a daunting task. It’s not simply a matter of everyone having access to the necessary medical care and drugs. It is vital that we take into account the social determinants of health, which take include the social aspects of health which are not controlled by an individual. At the recent WHO conference on Social Determinants of Health, a group of public health advocates rejected the proposed statement in favor of a more comprehensive one which addresses the root causes of health inequality. From their response: “Protecting the Right to Health through action on the Social Determinants of Health: A Declaration by Public Interest Civil Society Organisations and Social Movements” (PDF attached):

UPDATE: Growing bigger and better each week, the 4th #MeetUpMondays is getting ready. Come join the next 'marathon'. Monday 5 Dec. 0h-24h GMT.

Every year, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) marks International Human Rights Day on the 10th of December. Usually, this means a gathering of a few high level people that declare the importance of human rights, with a different annual theme. Few people in the world are aware of Human Rights Day, and even less see the event as a platform to speak-up for the Right to Health, recognized by almost all UN Member States as a universal right. Yet although agreed on paper at the UN, its practice on the ground has not been universal at all.

In this time of "hard times" for almost everyone, social movements are growing around the world to raise awareness of inequities, and to create a dialogue between diverse 'indignants'. 'The People', as Dr. Margaret Chan, DG of WHO, called the bottom billions, are beginning to mobilize, with free and open discussion of the problems so many face. This 'conversation' helps move health forward, including the right to health.

This year the IMAXI Cooperative is organizing a series of social media events to bring people together to discuss the state of the world's health and what can be done to advance the rights of billions to a healthier future. Building on our experiences of 'marathon' non-stop 24-hour 'chats' that span the time-zones for greater participation, a weekly 'maxi-meet-up' is coming soon.

Every Monday, from the 14th of November until Human Rights Day a month later, IMAXI is hosting six simultaneous fresh and friendly chats on Twitter, linked with Facebook and SMS text. The Meet-Up Mondays will offer an online space to share, learn and dialogue with people around the World on dozens of different topics.
Meet-Up, Share-Up and Speak-Up. Just go onto Twitter and follow one or more of these hashtags:
#NCDchat #SDOHchat #R2Hchat #HIV_chat #PAGchat #PALLIchat