By Ingvill Constanze Ødegaard
Last week, I had the honor to give a key note address at the international conference “BRIDGING ACADEMIA AND HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE TO SUPPORT CHILDREN AND VULNERABLE POPULATION” in Bratislava, Slovakia, organised within the framework of the partnership between UNICEF and Comenius University Bratislava in the project “Supporting social work interventions with the refugee population and strengthening the overall social service workforce capacity within the refugee response in Slovakia”.
Thank you Professor Pavol Kopinec for this wonderful opportunity! A country strongly affected by the Russian aggression war against Ukraine, more than one million Ukrainian and third-country nationals (TCNs) in need of international protection have crossed the borders into Slovakia, 78 per cent of whom are women and children according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. My key note was on “Children affected by war in Ukraine” with special focus on the historical and comparative perspective of the group of children born of war. I must admit, I learned a lot I did not know! Thanks to the students with their poster presentations, the participants of the research symposia “International research on humanitarian work” and “Field work and case management – reflections from the field” which
I had the pleasure to lead as well as the participants of the panel discussions on “Child protection emergency response in Crises Situations – The case of Slovakia” and “Emergency Response and Children Affected by war”, both co-lead with the excellent professor and consultant Kathleen M. Deery. It was a powerful and emotional experience which left me once again with the impression that – If we want to be efficient in emergency response, we need to bridge at the operative level – There is so much data, research, and practical competence available which is not efficiently used and bridged between academia, civil society, and policy.
This requires international, interdisciplinary, and inter-sectoral research data/knowledge infrastructures and hub. And we need proper funding to do so! #children #war #UNICEF #ComeniusUniversity #cbow #childrenbornofwar #childrenbornofwarproject #ResearchDataAlliance #RDA #CODATA #Ukraine #refugees #socialwork