Happy Monday! We know this is going to be an amazing week for you' all!
For all of those who wish to do their Capstone Workshop this following spring, applications are due this Thursday 10/31, for more info email/call/look for the capstone office and search all the information here.
A message from OCS: Remeber, if you schedule an appointment and you can't make it, you can always let the Office of Career Services know. Please cancel your appointments on time and leave the spot open for other fellow students.
Remember we have ICRC Policy Director Hugo Slim coming to SIPA on November 6th.
Save the date! Our Fall Humanitarian Conference is around the corner on November 22nd.
Sharing her 25-year journey as a United Nations humanitarian worker around the globe, Ms Carmen Van Heese will unfold some of the leading topics on the humanitarian action agenda in the past decade and how they shaped humanitarian work today. She will deep dive on themes such as Linking Humanitarian and Development programming (Nexus), Youth in Emergency and Accountability to Affected Population. She considers these are among core themes if to address humanitarian challenges in Asia where she has been working for UNICEF most recently.
South Asia is highly prone to human-caused and natural disasters, including droughts, storms, floods. Many of those have a repetitive and somewhat predictable nature and puts more than 750 million people in South Asia at risk of multiple emergencies. Moreover, studies have proven that those most affected are often the ones who are already vulnerable before disasters strike. To break the cycle from poverty, fragility and reactive disaster response,- alignment between humanitarian action and ongoing development efforts is a necessity. A call is made to ensure a joint two track approach of humanitarian and development interventions to optimize support that mitigate impact of disasters and allow children and their caretakers to reach their full potential.
Special attention needs to further be given to Youth. With some 340 million adolescents in South Asia – almost 30 per cent of the total adolescents in the world. Youth are therefore not only an important group among the population that may be affected by disasters and need tailored support- Youth groups also presents an important ally in emergency programming before, during emergency and to help in defining a future outlook.
Placing people, including children and youth, and their communities at the center of humanitarian action will improve the quality and effectiveness of humanitarian response. This links to strengthening Accountability to Affected Population (AAP). Not only do government and beneficiaries increasingly hold organizations to account,- accountability is at the heart of Core Humanitarian Standards which promotes an active commitment of humanitarian organizations to act responsibly, effectively and efficiently.
In the last few years, podcasting as a medium and an industry has grown at an unprecedented rate. As the types of podcasts that are being released continue to diversify, we're seeing more people take the initiative to use podcasting as a means to discuss issues that aren't being addressed elsewhere. When it comes to human rights issues, particularly those that have not been picked up by mainstream media sources, podcasting becomes an important tool for amplifying human rights issues to wide audiences. This is something that Saadia Khan, the host of the podcast Immigrantly, knows very well. Saadia did her Masters in Human Rights Studies from GSAS. She started Immigrantly in the fall of 2018 to showcase the idiosyncrasies of every immigrant story. Saadia's experiences in the world of human rights directly inform her podcasting.
This event is hosted by the SIPA Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy Concentration as well as the Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
The Geneva Conventions have always aimed to find a balance between war and humanity. How is this possible today, 70 years on, in a world shaped by urbanization, new technology, climate change, multipolar politics, a proliferation of armed groups and great power competition?
Dr Hugo Slim, Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva will discuss how the ICRC sees the prospects for humanity in 21st century conflicts.
Professor Elazar Barkan, Director of the Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy Concentration at SIPA, Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights
