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The Lisbon Declaration for the Development of Social Work and Humanitarian Action in the 21st Century was signed on November 16, 2023, in Lisbon, at Iscte. An important milestone that aims to encourage the strengthening of humanitarian aid, the improvement of social workers' competencies and skills, the design of new training programmes, and the need to focus on participation and co-design as strategies to improve social inclusion.
«The social emergency in times of state of emergency takes on two dimensions of Social Emergency Intervention: Emergency situations in exceptional scenarios and Emergency situations for people and families in situations of social vulnerability. To raise awareness of the need to implement innovative advanced training plans proposing new approaches and methodologies for teaching, learning and research, based on evidence from interdisciplinary and interprofessional practice. Increase funding lines for applied social research. Inclusion of Social Work and Humanitarian Action in the European Agenda as a training and research priority.»
Jorge Ferreira | Professor at Iscte, Subdirector of the Political Science and Public Policy Department, Director of the Undergraduate degree in Social Work and researcher at CIES-Iscte
This initiative took place as part of the Iscte Winter School in Humanitarian Action, the result of the INOVHUMRE project, coordinated by Iscte and developed in partnership with various institutions in Turkey (Hacettepe Universitesi, Sened Derneği and Sosyal Hizmet Uzmanları Derneği Ankara Şubesi), Spain (Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia - UNED and Magtel Foundation), Portugal (Instituto Marques de Valle Flor), Colombia (Icesi University) and Brazil (Fundacao Getulio Vargas).
« The Humanitarian Action Winter School aimed to bring two Erasmus+ projects coordinated by Iscte to an end at the same time. They were two experiences of multi-continental cooperation, exchanging knowledge between Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. It was also an opportunity to bring humanitarian action thinking closer to the contexts in which major interventions are taking place and there are major concerns. Our work focused on two themes. We tried to strengthen the teaching of humanitarian action in an intense partnership between Iscte and five universities in Cape Verde and Mozambique. We brought the issue of programme evaluation to the center of the debate. And, of course, it was an opportunity for students, teachers and professionals from eight different countries to think about the future from this experience, finally together and live, after the years of the pandemic that made it a challenge to conduct these projects and lead the partnership.»
Paulo Pedroso | Professor at Iscte, researcher at CIES-Iscte, coordinator of INOVHumRe Innovation in Humanitarian Response project.
The declaration can be consulted here.
Source: https://icsw.org/