Hassan and their classmates youth councilors advise and actively involve with the CEO of the WHO and the senior leadership of the agency, designing and expanding the agency's programs and strategies.
In an interview with the UN news before the World Health Assembly of 2025, the highest UN forum for global health, Mr. Hassan, who was born and grew in Texas, USA radically attention to vulnerable attention.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Rehman Hassan: 10 years ago, my grandfather died of heart disease. I saw how it was treated differently due to the way it was presented, as an immigrant and a color person. He was very well informed, but he had limited literacy, and he was not necessarily told what all his options were. I felt that doctors tried to hurry him for surgery and that forced him to be anesthetized because they believed he was moving too much, when he was actually sore and uncomfortable.
I am convinced that he did not receive the attention he deserved and that he really resonated with me, because I wanted to make sure that no one else felt like that. I saw that, as a young man, my role could involve working at the community level, mobilizing other young people to promote things such as a good diet or exercise, and advocate for those who need help.
This is how Icure began, and it has become an international movement. We have organized a youth scholarship program with around 65 young people from around the world, from Vietnam to Qatar and Puerto Rico, discussing the health problems they are seeing and how to address them, as reliable members of their communities, to close the types of information gaps that are very common in many marginalized communities, especially among low -income and immigrants.
UN news: Tell me about your personal experience during Covid-19 pandemic?
Rehman Hassan: Pandemia was, for many people around the world, a deeply difficult, scary and intense process. I lived with my grandparents that were immunocompromised, and I knew they had a significant risk. Although we had many vaccines in the US and erroneous information; Present it as something that had a low mortality rate and that we could ignore.
In addition, we had a great winter storm in Texas that froze the state for almost two weeks. We did not have access to electricity, gas or water. Our house was flooded and was finally destroyed. This combination of the climatic crisis and the pandemic meant that many people, especially in my community, were left behind and did not receive the resources they needed.
Children in Mexico received food baskets during the COVID-19 pandemic (Archive, 2022)
UN news: WHO says that the Pandemic preparation treaty, if adopted, will be a great advance for health equity and make a true difference in the field. Do you agree?
Rehman Hassan: I definitely think it is a game change. I got involved with the treaty process through the WHO Youth Council, where I represent an organization [ACT4FOOD, a global youth-led movement to transform food systems] That focuses mainly on access to food, social determinants of health and how we can promote change at the community level.
The text of the treaty explains the efforts that must be made at the community level, and each Member State has the obligation to ensure that the most vulnerable have access to support or attention, as part of their pandemic response plans.
There is a commitment to early detection: if we can detect early pandemics, then we can ensure that we all have access to the attention and resources they need.
UN news: there is likely to be another pandemic in our lives. Will we handle it better than the previous one?
Rehman Hassan: We are definitely seeing an acceleration of pandemics and extreme events that finally undermine equity.
I believe that the World Health Assembly and the Intergovernmental Negotiation Agency for the Pandemic Treaty have done incredible job by understanding what went wrong during the Pandemics COVID-19, and the previous pandemics, and then observing how we can elaborate an instrument that addresses those inequities or prevent them from occurring in the first place.
If the Member States deliver a significant treatise, I think it would improve and significantly facilitate a pandemic response much better than we saw during the last time.
