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Welcome to the opening of the Harvard School of Public Health Centennial Celebration.
What you see here, explains in part, the fact that the greatest progress on the Millennium
Development Bill has been made in health.
You come from all walks of life, and all parts of our planet. We are here now because we
are dissatisfied with the world we live in and we believe that it's within our power
to create real and lasting change.
It's impossible to count the number of lives saved and lengthened, made more livable because
of the extraordinary work of the Harvard School of Public Health. Thank you.
Happy 100th birthday, Harvard School of Public Health. This is Elton John, commending you
on all that you do.
Now, I feel very confident that these issues: women, poverty, environment, climate, all
of them linked with health, are going to be focused and taken care of in the best possible
way.
How many of you are wearing a blue bracelet? Congratulations you're pregnant! Even the
men, yes even the men.
We're here tonight for the faculty and alumni at Harvard School of Public Health. Who have
stopped killer pandemics before and with your help, we will continue that important work.
This is why our foundation supports Harvard School of Public Health. Because we believe
they have the people and ideas to make the world safer and healthier, for all of us.
I am pleased to announce the goal of this campaign is $450 million dollars. These problems
demand solutions that cross boundaries, break some rules, and go beyond the conventional.
But even more important, is how audacious the school is in its ambitions.
This is why we undertake this campaign, and cease the responsibilities and the possibilities
for this remarkable school for the work it is doing and is poised to do.
We are tackling pandemics: harmful, physical, social environments, poverty, humanitarian
crises' and failing health systems. I am proud to be one of hundreds of students, from dozens
of countries, from nearly every state in the nation, committed to leading the world toward
a future of greater healthy, happiness and hope.
Today you have recognized through us what the Harvard School of Public Health is all
about. If in every other area of our common lives, we can look at the facts and see the
humanity behind it and establish networks of cooperation, all the worlds' problems are
easily within our reach.
I hope that all of us will always engage younger voices. Listen to young people, listen to
their dissatisfaction, and help them shape the future.
On this occasion, I just want to leave the students with one word. Please do yourself
the favor of tackling, at some point in your life, and the sooner the better, the most
difficult, seemingly intractable, problem you can find. You have a chance here at this
institution to combine science, with a deep sense of moral responsibility with an even
deeper sense of justice, especially to study under someone like Julio Frenk. Make the most
of it.
The people at Harvard School of Public Health can and will improve the physical and social
environments of our neighborhoods, our country and the world. They've done it before, and
with your help, they can do it again.
Each generation has one overriding responsibility, to safeguard the legacy it has received from
of previous generations and hand it enriched, to the next one. This is the chain of choice,
that brings you here now, and this is the chain of choice that will improve healthy
for everyone, everywhere. Thank you very much.