International Conference : “Refugees and migrants in a globalized world – Responsibility and responses of Universities”
The International Federation of Catholic Universities has been working for several months on “Migrants and Refugees” issues. Next November, IFCU with the Pontificia Università Gregoriana, the Center for Interreligious Understanding and Being the Blessing Foundation, will organize an International Conference on the “Responsibility and responses of Universities toward migration issues”. With the International Conference, the participants will lay the founding stone of a large mobilization which will be concretized in the creation of a Research – Action network. The idea is for Catholic Universities to share experiences and collaborate on joint projects, but also to develop joint courses and publications with professionals working on migration issues.
This project, by bringing support to migrants and refugees, reflects the social responsibility of Catholic Universities through its ethical, relational and social dimensions. The idea is to reconsider the role and social responsibilities of catholic universities, and to take concrete action to reach migrants and refugees where they are, in order :
- to foster their integration if necessary,
- to promote knowledge and know-how as vectors for development,
- to improve the building of young people that evolve in a difficult life course,
- to allow, if possible, the return to the country and its reconstruction.
In the long term, we hope to improve access to higher education for refugees/migrants and to deepen the state of knowledge on the realities of the crisis.
For more information, please visit the Conference’s website.
© Image: Inès Pons-Teixeira
