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Institute
At the time of the outbreak of the so-called refugee crisis, only the non-governmental sector in Serbia responded to the situation by providing assistance to any people in need. The respective activities that were carried out consisted mostly of humanitarian aid, medical assistance, and providing both psycho-social and legal-informative support. Starting in 2015, the attention grew and shifted to providing better care of asylum-seeking minors. However, it was only in late 2016 that the Republic of Serbia started a project related to inclusion of Asylum-Seeking Minors (ASMs)into its education system. The project’s results in 2017 were still modest, since only approx. 60 asylum seeking minors out of 3031 were included in Serbia’s education system. In the school year 2018/2019, in particular until February 2019, 98,22 percent of preschool-aged or elementary school-aged ASMs who were placed in reception centers were included in the education system.
This PhD research project represents the study of how the basic human right, the right to education,is granted in a country perceived as a transit country by both, ASMs and domestic authorities. It represents a human rights-based approach to education and integration, which should contribute to empowerment of the right-holder, i.e. asylum-seeking minors, and accountability of the duty-bearer.
In order to assess the government’s success in granting the right to education, it’s obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights, was linked with the human rights framework for education.
Furthermore, the way the country’s political determination to join the EU, existing social, cultural, and political factors in the country as well as the insufficient asylum system affect the right to education of ASMs were examined.
Apart from the empowerment of the right-holder and identification of the potential improvements on the governments side, one of the aims of the research was to identify examples/elements of good practice in Serbian aspect. This is used as an argument for (un)successful implementation of the right to education, since schools are the ones directly implementing adopted legislation, strategies and policies, and therefore reveal potential lack of political willingness to implement them or the false intentions of the state on the way it presents itself before the international community.
Therefore, elements of good practice were identified and one of the central findings with respect to providing the right to education for ASMs, is that Serbia, and, more specifically, its dedicated educators and NGO staff, have done an applaudable job. Though room for improvement remains, the efforts of the state, school personnel, family members of ASMs and caring NGO workers have made the right to education a reality for ASMs who seek it.
Community-based health promotion approaches have proven to be very appealing and effective in rural and under-resourced countries such as Afghanistan. Surprisingly, however, empirical evidence and practical recommendations are lacking for Afghanistan, a country with some of the worst health indicators worldwide (e.g., maternal mortality rate). The purpose of this mixed-method exploratory case study was to identify community-based approaches to health promotion in Afghanistan and the factors that lead organizations and activities to succeed and sustain despite challenging circumstances. The author conducted extensive secondary research, a scoping review, 28 semi-structured oral qual- itative interviews with people working in health projects in Afghanistan, and obtained 22 written responses to a qualitative questionnaire sent to NGOs working in the health sector in Afghanistan as well. After transcribing and analyzing the content, she was able to exhaustively explore the topic by integrating and triangulating multiple perspectives.
First, she presented the findings regarding the prerequisites for and determinants of health in Afghanistan by contrasting qualitative and quantitative data. This comprehensive overview illustrated not only the poor conditions and numerous challenges but also the diversity within the country. Second, she described the findings on the Afghan health system, structured along the components of the WHO Health System Framework. This allows for comprehending the well-planned strategies and comparing them to the actual situation. Third, she identified most (NGO-supported) healthcare providers and conducted a gap analysis of existing activities in 13 areas of health. Fourth, the qualitative findings provided insights into the concept of health, common health practices, community-based healthcare approaches, and success factors for working in Afghanistan. Overall, there are various health activities and approaches to health promotion in Afghanistan. The most successful approaches were those that work in the community, with trained female health workers who are trustworthy, committed, and paid, and who provide curative as well as preventive and promotive services. For working successfully in the Afghan setting, trust, collaboration with leaders, community participation, and training are highly recommended. Nonetheless, all activities took place in a context characterized by insecurity, corruption, poverty, low level of education, and cultural constraints.
The author proposed the concept of “health care plus and beyond” as an approach applicable to all providers. This concept includes taking care of the immediate health need of the person and, at the same time, empowering them to improve their health. In conclusion, there is a great need for health promotion and health education in Afghanistan, which is worth exploring further. This study could not provide a complete picture, but it does pro- vide a very good first-hand understanding of the numerous influencing factors and facets of community-based health promotion, thus providing numerous starting points for further research and practice.