SHARING RYVU INSIGHTS DURING THE 2024 RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT STATUTORY MEETINGS
From 23 to 31 October, Dr Bianca Fadel and Prof Matt Baillie Smith shared the RYVU project's experiences with practitioners, volunteers and policymakers from around the world as part of the 2024 Red Cross and Red Crescent Statutory Meetings.
At a time of unprecedented need to harness the power of humanity, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Statutory Meetings took place in Geneva, Switzerland, from 23 to 31 October 2024. It brought together more than 2,000 representatives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, States, international organisations and other key stakeholders to advance humanitarian action by promoting International Humanitarian Law and discussing how to strengthen community resilience, trust and integrity, local efforts to address global challenges and the centrality of volunteering.
For the third time, Northumbria’s Centre for Global Development supported the meetings as part of the Centre’s ongoing collaboration with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Swedish Red Cross. Throughout this year's IFRC General Assembly and International Conference, Dr Bianca Fadel and Prof Matt Baillie Smith were present in the ‘Humanitarian Village’ exhibition space to share information and useful resources, including RYVU resources as key evidence and tools for volunteering in response to displacement.
During this time, delegates engaged with the RYVU games and tools, learned more about different ways to explore volunteers' experiences and understandings of volunteering, and shared ideas and insights for improving the policies and practices that shape refugee engagement in volunteering in Uganda and beyond. Delegates appreciated the accessibility of the tools in different languages and highlighted the importance of promoting outputs that can connect research on volunteering with practitioners in different contexts.
RCRC Volunteers supporting the Statutory Meetings engaged with the RYVU Volunteering Journey Board Game (available to download here).