Hop on the HIP!
GSD’s Humanitarian Initiative Programme (HIP), active since 2016. The programme has officially supported projects all over the world, from Lesbos, Greece – bringing warm clothes and basics to migrants; to Zanzibar, Tanzania – sponsoring a water well for a community of a minimum of 500 people and making sure deaf children can go to school.
The programme aims to provide our students with the opportunity to take part in real projects for real people all over the world and to provide students with a skill set for their future. No school of diplomacy is complete without a humanitarian heart and this heart is one we wish to keep beating for years to come.
The programme operates on several levels:
1) The Academic, which offers courses of a humanitarian nature, and which includes field work and hands-on assignments. Under this umbrella also falls our scholarship programmes, such as the ‘Florian & Wolfgang Ischinger’ scholarship, which offers a refugee full scholarship to either complete or start a degree programme with us. Please click here to read the story of Melash Zeleke, who has been awarded with the Florian & Wolfgang Ischinger Scholarship’ in 2018. We also offer our students the opportunity to fulfill their internships being a volunteer. Please read the experience of one of our BA students, Ms. Viktoriia Savitska, who spent her summer helping out the Zanzibar Outreach Programme (ZOP).
2) Fundraising events, which are organised with the help of our student ambassadors and are fully funded by donations from the student body and/or outside sponsors and are a lot of fun too!
3) Services, which aim to bring immediate hands-on help to local bodies and provide material help on a punctual basis, depending on the need.
So dear people, help us keep the HIP heart beating and get involved!
The funds to support the causes are raised through individual contributions, student initiatives and events. In 2017 and 2018 GSD and the student representatives organised the GSD’s Got Talent event. All the proceedings were donated to the Zanzibar Outreach Program (ZOP). This is an annual event that will continually support one of ZOP’s projects in Zanzibar, Tanzania. (No not always ZOP. We had Shanti Bhavan and hope to raise funds for other parts of the world).
The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (or SDG’s), is used as a road-map to guide us in our humanitarian endeavors. The Geneva School of Diplomacy (GSD) is working devotedly to address each and every one of these goals through awareness and/or fundraising events. Adopted by 193 countries and with 17 Global Goals and 12 years (10 years now) left to “end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all”, our work is cut out and the clock is ticking loudly!