Professors Thalia Dragonas and Nelly Askouni are presenting “Humanitarian Action, Forced Displacements and Climatic Change: A collaborative project between Greek and African Universities”, at the Conference “Sub-Saharan Africa in University Research and Teaching: A Review 2023”, organized by the French School in Athens, Centre de Recherche Moyen Orient-Méditarranée, University of the Aegean and Harokopio University.

See program attached (in Greek)

The HumAct project participated in the  XV Luso-Afro-Brazilian Congress, IV CONAILPcsh on the 26th to 29th of September, in the city of Praia in Cape Verde, promoting working group 1. Humanitarian Action in times of climate crisis and threat to democracy: challenges to the construction of participatory and plural responses, which included two presentation sessions. Researchers from Cape Verde, Mozambique and Portugal presented their work as part of their research and training activities. The sessions were well attended with around 18 people in the room and 6 remotely.

The goal of this workshop is to help participants learn more about the different stages of the publishing process and offer some guidelines on how to plan writing and publishing methods. 

An overview of the peer review process will be presented, covering some of its main challenges and pitfalls.

By the end of the workshop participants’ (a) knowledge on the process of publishing scientific articles, and (b) their academic writing skills, will have been improved.

This will be a unique opportunity dedicated exclusively to academic writing and publishing and, most importantly, a moment to share with colleagues. Despite the apparent complexity of the academic writing and publishing process, by better understanding its objectives and stages and developing some practical skills, it becomes easier to prepare an article for submission to a scientific journal. 

The 2nd Summer School of the “HumAct: Climate Change and Displacement” project is taking place from May 29 to June 10, in Cape Verde

This Summer School has the theme “Humanitarian Action, Disaster Prevention and Innovative and Sustainable Technological Solutions” and aims to promote interdisciplinary debates on Humanitarian Action in the context of climate change, its impact and the potential of innovative technologies, as an instrument for mitigation and adaptation to build resilience for developing countries. It comprises workshops, lectures, demonstrations, debates and study visits, mediated by the use of active methodologies that provide critical literacy on the topics addressed.

This is a joint organization of the University of Cape Verde and the University of Santiago, with partner universities in Mozambique, Pedagogical University of Maputo, University of Rovuma and University of Pùngué, Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa and Kapodistrian University of Athens . The Summer School is facilitated by professors from partner universities and professionals with recognized experience in the area.

The HumAct project is financed by the Erasmus+ Program - Capacity Building for Higher Education and, through it, Humanitarian Action contents are being taught for the first time in Cape Verde and Mozambique.

On the 20th of April, Iscte organized the 3rd international conference cycle on Humanitarian Action, integrating the thematic webinars of HumAct project, on the topic “Human Trafficking”

The University of Pungue, Mozambique, is holding on March 24 the 5th webinar of the HumAct project on topical issue of “Integration of Displaced People in the Context of Climate Crises and Conflicts: Experiences from Mozambique, Cape Verde and Greece”.

On the 06th of march, between 16h30 – 18h00 (Lisbon GMT), Iscte will organize the 3rd international conference cycle on Humanitarian Action, integrating the thematic webinars of HumAct project, on the topic “Can Humanitarian Action address forced migration causes and effects?”

The webinar will count with guest speaker Professor Gloria Seruwagi, from Makerere University, Uganda.

 The conference will be hybrid.

Assist through the link:  https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/99894201409

Within the scope of the HumAct project, the University of Santiago held a Conference on the “Role of Nutrition in Humanitarian Action”, given by Nutritionist Dr. Edith Pereira, from the WHO - World Health Organization, on February 3rd.

The conference was part of the adaptation of the curricular unit Nutrition for the Nursing course and aimed to show the importance of nutrition in humanitarian action.

The event took place in a hybrid way

CONTEXTUALIZATION

In recent years, several regions of the world have been devastated by natural disasters, economic and social crises, armed conflicts and other types of catastrophe and epidemics, which mainly affect the most vulnerable population groups and territories. These situations generate a growing need for humanitarian action in the world.

Humanitarian Action must adopt strategies to promote training and awareness programs in all social spheres that can help reduce the population's vulnerability and minimize the impact of these situations. Therefore, it is essential to have a global understanding of situations and master different areas of knowledge.

The Summer School in Humanitarian Action is organized in the context of the Humanitarian Action project by the Pedagogical University of Maputo in partnership with the Mozambican Universities (Rovuma and Pùngué), Cape Verde Universities (Santiago and Cape Verde), ISCTE and the University of Athens.

GOAL

Equip participants with basic knowledge about the ways of acting in situations of humanitarian crisis, especially in the development of critical capacity, reflection and identification of appropriate strategies and methods to each situation.

METHODOLOGY

The summer school will be facilitated by professors from partner Universities, guest speakers, national and international researchers with renowned experience in the themes they will address. Facilitation will be carried out through lectures, round tables, group discussion, theater, songs, dance and field trips as methods of modern teaching that can provide an active involvement of the participants, either in the discussion of topics in class or in the approach of situations practices.

TARGET GROUP

Teachers, researchers, partners of the Pedagogical University of Maputo, students, non-teaching staff, representatives of civil society and non-governmental organizations with an interest in humanitarian causes.

 We are in second day of HumAct project Summer School, that takes place from 06th to 19th of November in Maputo, Mozambique. The summer school is coordinated by Pedagógica University, with the support from the project partners.

During the first day, the participants were welcomed and the work began. A welcome session took place, there were cultural moments and the campus was visited. It was also made the project contextualization, the revision of the programme and its contents. It was an especially important day for the participants to get to know each other, create and strengthen ties and share goals and expectations.

 Follow through the project's  Facebook where some live sessions will be broadcast throughout the Summer School

Yesterday was the beginning of our second Curriculum Development and Educator Capacity Workshop in Athens, Greece.

The workshop is being hosted by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and is uniting professors from Iscte- University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal), University of Cape Verde (Cape Verde), University of Santiago (Cape Verde), Rovuma University (Mozambique), Púnguè University (Mozambique), and Pedagógica University (Mozambique).

The objective of this workshop is to work on the second batch of new and adapted Humanitarian Action modules, as well as to support the Educators’ capacity building to deliver and teach these modules, supporting the necessary adaptations.

The workshop will last until May 6.

Our webinar on the subject, “Humanitarian Action and Child Protection”, took place on the 15th of march and was part of the project HumAct- Humanitarian Action activities. The webinar, which was promoted by Universidade Pedagógica de Maputo, in Mozambique, held three presentations by Dr Vladimir N. Adriano, Dr Lefteris Papagiannakis, and Dr Paula S. da Silva. 

Our first speaker, Dr Vladimir N. Adriano of the Department of the Child in Difficult Situations of Mozambique- Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Action, spoke about the current situation of Humanitarian Action and Child protection in his country and what it is currently being done to ensure this basic human right. Our second speaker, Dr Lefteris Papagiannakis, Director of the Greek Council of Refugees, discussed the current problems that Greece and much of the EU countries are facing in regards to the protection and integration of migrant children. Our final speaker was Dr Paula S. da Silva, Project Analyst of the Program Platforms for local Development and Decentralization Fund- UNDP for the Fogo, Brava and Maio regions of Cape Verde. During her presentation she discussed the challenges that occurred when providing humanitarian assistance to children and adolescents during the aftermath of two major volcanic eruptions on Ilha do Fogo, north of Cape Verde, in 1995 and 2014. 

The recording of the webinar is available in the section “Communiation – Webinars/Lectures”

Thank you all for your attendance, involvement and participation in this webinar!

Today we held the online preparation workshop for the Educator and Curriculum Development Workshop that will take place in Athens from April 26th to May 6th.

 In today’s workshop there were present the representants from all project partners, as well as the teachers that participated in the first workshop that took place in Lisbon, in October and the teachers that will participle in the next workshop in Athens. 

The objective of this workshop was to make a joint reflection on the lessons learned with the adaptation of the modules in the first phase, as well as to prepare for the adaptation of the modules of the second phase. The main needs felt by teachers in teaching and preparing the modules were also listed. In the second part of the session, some topics and needs were gathered to be worked on at the workshop in Athens. 

Thank you all for your involvement and participation!