Healing in exile: One refugee’s mission to boost mental health
There are now more than 122 million people worldwide, forcibly displaced from their homes. While trauma, depression and anxiety are prevalent says the UN World Health Organization (WHO), many refugees and migrants struggle to access mental health services.Jîn Dawod is an entrepreneur from Syria who fled to Türkiye to escape the brutal war. Suffering post-traumatic stress disorder herself, she created Peace Therapist, a pioneering social technology initiative dedicated to providing online mental health services to vulnerable populations – free of charge. UN News’s Emma Trager-Lewis caught up with her after she took part in the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation this week in New York.Emma began by asking Ms. Dawod when she first came up with her game-changing idea.
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Regulating AI to protect children online
The digital revolution has created unprecedented opportunities for children and young people across the globe to communicate, learn, and socialise.However, browsing the internet as artificial intelligence gathers pace, also presents dangers – from sexual abuse to cyberbullying – highlighting the need for smarter and more effective regulation to keep youngsters safe.As the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) holds its annual forum on Science, Technology and Innovation, UN News’s Emma Trager-Lewis spoke to Baroness Kidron, Founder of 5Rights, a UK-based organization dedicated to children’s rights in the digital world.Emma began by asking the former film director and producer, who addressed Tuesday’s session on harnessing AI for sustainable development, why she first got involved in campaigning for digital rights.
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Independent investigators take on ‘titanic’ mission to find Syria’s missing
Tens of thousands of people went missing under the Assad dictatorship in Syria during more than five decades of systematic repression and forced disappearances.In response, the UN General Assembly established the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic (IIMP) in 2023 to help account for them all.The investigative body aims to provide long-awaited truth and closure for Syrian families.Speaking to UN News’s Abdelmonem Makki following their recent assessment mission to Syria, IIMP head Karla Quintana said that “everyone knows someone who is missing”.
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Ukraine: Immunisation challenges continue amid conflict, WHO says
Following the COVID-19 pandemic – which disrupted immunisation efforts around the world – data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows Ukraine made remarkable progress restoring its inoculation programmes. However, the full-scale Russian invasion of February 2022 has wreaked havoc with the country’s health infrastructure, displaced millions, and led to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and pertussis.In an interview with UN News’s Evgeniya Kleshcheva, the national official who oversees immunisation at the WHO Country Office in Ukraine, Yevgenii Grechukha, outlines the severe impact of the war, highlights the fight against vaccine misinformation, and how the UN agency’s been working to improve access for those displaced.
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‘If you want to make your country great again, don’t retreat from the world’: UN relief chief
UN Humanitarian Affairs chief Tom Fletcher has been forced to make “brutal cuts” to his organization, as major donors in the rich world slash their aid and international development spending.UN News’s Conor Lennon spoke to him on Thursday via video-link from the UN offices in the Afghan capital Kabul, at the end of a three week visit to some of the most vulnerable communities in the country, where he has witnessed first-hand the deadly consequences of the dramatic aid slowdown.Mr. Fletcher has publicly challenged policymakers who signed off on cuts to come to Afghanistan to see the effect they're having on the population, saying that “the effect of aid cuts, is that millions die”.Conor began by asking if he uses the same blunt language with senior politicians in private.
UN News interviews a wide range of people from senior news-making officials at Headquarters in New York, to advocates and beneficiaries from across the world who have a stake in helping the UN go about its often life-saving work in the field.
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