Dont saycantaround Jeff Freeman.

The ambitious 20-something college student and three college friends have turned what started as a small dream of helping others into a national network of students, faculty and community leaders building awareness and easing the plight of people in poverty and those suffering from HIV and AIDS .

And it all started at West Virginia University.

Freeman, who attended Denbigh High School in Newport News, Va., likes to describe the mission of the Institute for Human Dignity, or IHD , asgiving a voice to the voiceless.

That voicenow 250,000 people strongis made up of chapters at the College of William and Mary, Duke, Harvard, Georgetown, Pennsylvania State and Columbus State universities; and the universities of Central Florida and Virginia. WVU has about 100 active members.

IHD is involved in three major activities: Emergency, a nongovernmental organization that provides free of charge medical and surgical care in war-torn areas; Project SEE , or Seek Educate and Eradicate, an initiative to help treat endemic trachoma, a leading cause of preventable blindness in sub-Saharan Africa; and educational outreach.

We train student speakers to address the issues of poverty, disease and violent conflict,he said.They go in and contact other students and classes. The primary goal is education and awareness.

We strive to increase awareness of the global community and to enhance service and humanitarian efforts worldwide,added Freeman, who has temporarily put his WVU studies on hold while he works at the Emergency USA office in New York.

Emergency is an international humanitarian organization established to provide health care to civilian victims of war and land mines. All Emergency facilities are built and managed by specialized international staff committed to training local medical personnel.

The groups founder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, surgeon Gino Strada, was so impressed by Freemans leadership and enthusiasm when he visited the WVU campus last year, he invited him and other WVU students to participate in an international Emergency conference held in September in Orvieto, a city south of Rome.

Strada later tapped Freeman to help acquire funds for a new 300-employee cardiac center set to open in March just south of Khartoum, Sudan.

The facilityits absolutely jaw dropping,Freeman said.

The Salam Heart Surgery Centercomplete with space for visitors and meal preparationwill be linked to satellite clinics in all of Sudans nine bordering countries. These satellite clinics will provide basic health care to children and help to assess those who need cardiac surgery. Some 55 international professionals will train local and national staff.

The idea behind Emergency is the right to be treatedits a basic human right,Freeman said.What theyre trying to do is deliver high standards to build up

infrastructure in the region and a commitment to long-term health care.

As unstable as Sudan is, its amazing to think of what theyre accomplishing there,he said.We want to change expectations and provide key access to health.

Freeman is currently leading a group charged with the task of creating a strategic planincluding everything from fund-raising to media relationsto get an Emergency USA New York office operational in the next three years.

In January, Freeman will begin a year-long term as operations officer, working with a staff of 20-25 employees, interns and advisers in Manhattan, where the office will be based.

For more information about Emergency USA , including how to donate money or time, go to: http://www.emergencyusa.org/

IHD on the Net: http://www.truthrising.org/