UNCHR and Big Heart Campaign organise Youth Forum

Sharjah: The United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in collaboration with The Big Heart campaign, will host the first conference on refugee child protection in the Middle East and North Africa on October 15-16 in Sharjah.

The ‘Investing In the Future: Protecting Refugee Children - MENA’ (IIFMENA) Youth Forum aims to engage university and college students and faculty in a series of workshops focused on providing information on the initiatives currently in place to protect children and adolescents.

“One of the greatest tragedies of war and conflict situations is that a very large percentage of those affected are children, resulting in a disenfranchised generation that often have little hope for the future,” said Noora Al No’man, Director-General of the Executive Office of Shaikha Jawaher Bint Mohammad Al Qasimi. She pointed out that taking proactive action to combat the negative effects that war and conflict have on the young must be a top priority.

“It is vital that we work together to protect the children caught in war in order to secure the future of the next generation in the Arab world and give these children the chance to live full and productive lives,” she said.

The Youth Forum, which will be held for the first time outside the UHNCR’s headquarters in Geneva, will gather between 500 and 600 students and faculty.