Humanitarian Commitment

GSD was founded in 2003 by President Dr. Colum de Sales Murphy. Dr. Murphy specializes in the study of the roots of war and conflict and has served the cause of peace for more than 32 years with the United Nations. His wartime experience and his contribution to peace negotiations in several wars inspired him to create a platform to prepare future world leaders for their roles on the world stage to advance peace and human rights. And so he founded the Geneva School of Diplomacy.

Based on its core values (Academic & Vocational Excellence, Integrity and Professionalism), GSD provides high quality and praxis-oriented education combined with a commitment to student support and promotes a philosophy rooted in the School’s motto: ‘serviendo guberno – to govern is to serve’. GSD believes it is very important to not only teach through books, but through support and actual hands-on experience in the real-world.

Because of our beliefs, we have created the GSD Humanitarian Initiative Program (HIP); real work for real people.

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 Zanzibar Outreach Program [ZOP] was founded in Zanzibar in 2006 with the objective of reaching the community in Zanzibar. Today ZOP is one of the most respected Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) on the islands due to its ongoing and lasting commitment to that cause. ZOP, which relies on private local donations and collaborations with other NGO’s both in Tanzania and overseas, is dedicated to improving the community’s access to health care, clean water and education. ZOP runs 11 major projects, of which GSD currently supports the ‘ZOP Community Water Supply Program’.

Many parts of Zanzibar do not have access to clear water and without access to safe and reliable water, these outreached communities’ drink water from precarious sources such as unprotected surface boreholes and/or rivers. ZOP Community Water Supply program is focused to develop community water units to protect the communities from water contaminated diseases such as Cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid fever and Bilharzia

The mission of Green Cross International is to respond to the combined challenges of security, poverty and environmental degradation to ensure a sustainable and secure future. Green Cross works to prevent and resolve conflicts arising from environmental degradation and the growing demand for increasingly scarce natural resources with a focus on addressing the global water and energy challenges. The Smart Water for Green Schools (SWGS) project, which Green Cross started in 2010 to provide access to water and sanitation for communities in need around the world, contributes to international efforts to secure safe drinking water and sanitation for every human being. SWGS addresses children’s needs first, as they are more vulnerable to waterborne diseases, but does target entire communities.

SWGS methods include building infrastructure and empowering communities to maintain their own water supplies, reducing the risk of deadly waterborne diseases, promoting the sustainable use of water resources, and increasing school attendance, girls’ education and gender equality.

Smart Water for Green Schools has brought safe drinking water to 147,000 people in some 170 communities in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Senegal, Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, China, Ukraine and Brazil.

Please visit their website for more detailed information about their projects.

All of us are shocked by the brutal invasion of the Ukraine. War in Europe on a scale not seen for many years is a real source of concern for the Geneva School of Diplomacy (GSD) Humanitarian Initiative Programme (HIP).

The HIP programme was launched by our students to allow for concrete action to help the most vulnerable. GSD, through the HIP programme, has engaged in other projects in the past, such as bringing water to villages in Africa; organizing medical camps; assisting with supporting schools for girls; help to refugees in Lesbos, Greece etc. GSD students are embarking now on what they are simply calling ‘Project Ukraine’.

The project collaborates with the Polish Humanitarian Action (PAH). PAH is a Polish non-governmental organisation operating since 1992. Their immediate humanitarian response to a crisis is the main priority, but equally important is seeking long-term solutions and preventing further catastrophes.

After the first mission in April 2022 in collaboration with PAH, HIP will assess how GSD can continue to provide support to the most vulnerable in the weeks and months to come.

Mission 1:

• Dates: 7 April – 10 April 2022
• Location : Hrebenne, Poland (Ukraine-Poland border crossing)
• Aims:
• Providing transport – including but not limited to, providing a shuttle service from Hrebenne to Krakow for incoming Ukrainian refugees
• Procuring and delivering essential humanitarian goods – these goods change on a daily basis, and PAH will identify items in most need the morning of purchase
• Supporting PAH on the ground – volunteers will be delegated to various tasks on a needs-basis to support the PAH team
• Focus group – the most vulnerable persons include: children, women and elderly
• Target – funds raising – Minimum 4000 CHF by 5 April 2022