Paul Farmer, Ph.D., M.D., Co-founder of Partners in Health, and Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School will be giving a lecture entitled “Health and Human Rights: Lessons from Haiti and Rwanda.”  Anyone concerned about civil and legal rights will want to reflect on Haiti, the only republic to arise from a successful slave revolt, and on Rwanda, twenty years ago the site of a vast genocide. But the two countries’ histories also give them prominence, though for divergent reasons, in the realm of social and economic rights including the right to healthcare. The experiences of Partners In Health suggest some of the challenges facing those who would promote such rights, as well as means of addressing the challenges.

Dr. Paul Farmer and his colleagues in the U.S. and abroad have pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings in the U.S. and other countries.  Dr. Farmer also has written extensively on health and human rights, global health, and the role of social inequalities in the distribution and outcome of infectious diseases.

Free and open to the public. The lecture will be followed by a reception.

Presented by the Global Voices Lecture Series at International House. This annual lecture series honors the life and work of Robert H. Kirschner, M.D., noted forensic pathologist and a founder of the University of Chicago Human Rights Program.