President's report

Dear Colleagues, Although there is an improvement in pandemic conditions in some countries, COVID19 continues to circulate and claim a large number of victims in some parts of the world. As long as there is no mass vaccination at global level, there will be no escape from this situation. That is why our Association has joined the petition of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate for Peace (2006), to governments and business leaders to Make COVID 19 vaccines a common good.

"We call on you to urgently ensure access to lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and equipment for everyone in the world. Patents should be lifted, technological knowledge shared freely and openly, and no profiteering allowed during this pandemic. Governments, scientists and pharmaceutical companies must cooperate and combine resources to ensure no one is left behind. The pandemic will not be over, until it’s over everywhere."

We are also continuing to collect information on different initiatives undertaken to face the pandemic at academic and professional levels. We would like to invite you all to send the report of the countries that are missing to complete the compilation; these include Albania, Australia, Bangladesh, China, Estonia, Finland, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, The United Kingdom. Moreover, as we pass the one-year anniversary of the start of COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to devote this issue (Gender) and the next (Social Work Education) of Social Dialogue on COVID-19 topics to highlight our responses to these experiences. A call out for the next edition on Social Work Education’s response can be found here Call for contributions

The 2021 World Social Work Day has been organized also this year online, at the United Nations in New York, in Geneva and in Bangkok. A strong participation has characterized all these initiatives and the IASSW presence has been guaranteed by the President and other Board members. The different contributions rotated around the main theme: Ubuntu-I’m because we are, chosen as a first pillar of the Global Agenda 2020/2030. We are still in the process of preparing the next four pillar of the Agenda, with the support, in the task force led by Abye Tasse, of our representatives Antoinette Lombard and Angelina Yuen.

ISWED 2021 - Online Conference

We organized together with ICSW the online conference, in substitution of the Rimini one, canceled for the pandemic. It has been an important initiative to present contributions from different parts of the world. The conference was conducted across three different months (January, March, April), and included different key note speeches, symposiums, workshops, oral contributions and posters, which you can access on IASSW's YouTube channel.

There you will be able to view:

• The Eileen Younghusband Award lecture by Angelina Yuen “Education For Hope And Transformation: Reflections On A Journey In Co-Constructing Local Social Work Education With Implications For International Social Work”;
• the Keynote Address by Walter Lorenz "Social Workers Practicing Social Rights Against The Erosion Of Social Solidarity – Lessons From The Corona Crisis."
• The Katherine Kendall Memorial Award Lecture by Leila Patel “Social Work and Social Development Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic: Lessons from the Global South.”
• and the Keynote Address by Sahar Al Makhamreh “Shaping and Reshaping Social Work Education and Research in Bridging Human Relationships and Sustainable Development: A Perspective of Middle Eastern Social Work.”