Read for Action

Our flagship project under this theme was the launch and implementation of Read For Action: The Humanitarian Book Club. The project was developed to do real-time engaged research on merging humanities and public policy engagement to find new ways of doing humanitarian advocacy. The project brings together readers with authors, researchers, and humanitarian policymakers to: create a global community of readers interested in humanitarian crises; host online policy and humanities discussions of the novels where authors, researchers, and policymakers connect the books to specific contemporary challenges and global crises; and provide a range of pro-climate and pro-human actions that readers can take collectively to create action at scale. The project was officially launched by UVA and the UN at the 2022 United Nations Climate Summit (COP27) in Egypt. It currently includes more than 1,200 members from around the world (the target was 200 people) and has secured three additional grants from ERI, Brown College, and the UN.

Read for Action: The Humanitarian Book Club

Beyond Aid

We launched a partnership with the Washington, DC-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies to develop a project called Beyond Aid. The project uses qualitative research to gather insights and uncover evidence on where humanitarian aid is making progress. Findings will be turned into public commentary and a podcast that will feature policymakers, scholars, community members, and local and international responders. With the rise of empathy fatigue and continued failures in the global aid system, the hope is that Beyond Aid will provide a new lens for confronting crises and will find ways to help practitioners and the public alike move from hopelessness and despair to compassion, collaboration, and more effective action.
CSIS: Beyond Aid

Feminist Humanitarian Response

The HC team worked with Practitioner Partner, Jeanne Ward, a leading global expert on violence against women globally and especially in humanitarian contexts, to explore how feminist approaches could improve humanitarian response.

UN Sabbatical Global Fellows

Under the Humanitarian Advocacy and Operational Effectiveness theme, the HC launched a new Global Fellows Program in collaboration with the UN. This year, two Fellows contributed to meaningful research on humanitarian policy. Four students (from Arts and Sciences, Batten, and Data Science) were involved in this project.

Ruth Mukwana, from Uganda, collaborated with the HC and UVA Environmental Humanities to complete research and design a pilot on how fiction can be used as an advocacy tool to drive change in humanitarian public policy. As a result of this project, the UN asked UVA to pilot a global book club focusing on the impacts of climate displacement, which will launch at the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference in Egypt in October 2022. 

Greg Puley, from Canada, examined the impact of heat waves as a leading cause of death in humanitarian crises. This project brought together UVA faculty, scholars from Tufts University, and practitioners from the International Federation for the Red Cross to develop a policy report. The draft report has been completed and will be championed by the UN Assistant Secretary General and formally launched in 2022, well-positioned to influence the next policy framework for humanitarian response and climate change.

Highlights

Compassion in Global Action, April 2024

Humanitarian Collaborative Fellowship at World Food Program-USA, March 2024

How Much Good Can $100 Million Do? Sesame Street and IRC Put a Big Bet to the Test, October 2023

Research Roundtable Event for Effectiveness in Humanitarian Advocacy Research Group, February 2020