Global ARCH sponsors 37 member organizations from 23 countries – World Congress in Washington, DC
For 5 busy, action-packed days 37 Global ARCH member organizations from 23 countries met in Washington, DC at the 8th World Congress for Pediatric Cardiology & Cardiac Surgery. On Sunday, we held our Global Summit at the American College of Cardiology, using break-out sessions to learn more about each group, and to discuss the challenges we all face. We reviewed the Declaration of Rights, and why it is such an important part of Global ARCH’s messaging, and what we should be asking our governments to do to help us achieve our goals. We also discussed the tools we can use for collective action. On Thursday, we met back at the convention center to report back on what we’d learned and to discuss next steps.
Each Global ARCH attendee received a free registration to attend the Congress and all of its sessions, and was invited to submit a poster of their organization for display in the exhibition area. The Global Village, a new concept for this more globally-themed Congress, provided a table for each group to display information about their organization. The Global Village consisted of our member organizations as well as 40 non-governmental organizations from 18 countries. The Global ARCH Summit, Global Village, and World Congress sessions were, according to the enthusiastic comments we received from our members, a great success!