CENDEP Open House

Cathrine Brun writes:

On 14 March 2017, the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice welcomes everyone who wants to learn more about our work and meet staff and students to join us for CENDEP Open House. The event takes place in the Atrium of the Abercrombie building at Oxford Brookes Headington Campus from 2.30 pm till 5.30pm. CENDEP Open House coincides with the opening of the Oxford Human Rights Festival, which is run by our masters students in Development and Emergency Practice together with students from International Relations, Film Studies, and Business and Marketing Management.

The programme for CENDEP Open House is:

2.30 – 3.30: Presentations on CENDEP’s work: our research, masters programmes and other activities

3.30 – 4.30: Informal mingling to meet staff and students around posters that present our work.

4.30: Presentation on Emergency Shelter exhibit by representative from the organisation Shelterbox (that has kindly lent us a shelter for the festival)

4.30: Joint reception and opening of the Festival, including talks by some of the artists exhibiting their work in the Festival Exhibition

This event concludes with the opening film of the festival, winner of the BAFTA award for best film this year,  I, Daniel Blake directed by Ken Loach. We are very honoured to have Ken Loach with us to discuss the film after the screening.

The Oxford Human Rights Festival has ‘Home’ as its theme this year. ‘Home’ is a topic that brings together much of CENDEP’s research and teaching which concentrates on Shelter after Disaster; Forced migration and Human Rights; Humanitarian Action and Conflict; and Development, Risk and Disasters. Experiences and notions of home are strongest when the home is under threat or lost. Much of CENDEP’s work circles around experiences of loss and uncertainty. Through our work we show the resilience that many people show in adversity. We have conducted research that shows – even in the most difficult of circumstances - how home-making takes place in recovery after disasters and conflicts and during displacement in temporary dwellings such as in refugee camps.

Much of our work concentrate on the Global South, but CENDEP also work on precarious housing and marginalization in our home environment. The film I, Daniel Blake helps us to understand the constraints people may face in their lives when they need to seek assistance. We have shown in our research that the humanitarian system or a social benefits system that many victims of disasters, conflict and poverty have to relate to, may, if not working well and adapting to the local context, prevent you from creating a future for yourself. Consequently, we also work on what humanitarian workers and policy makers do and can do in disaster and conflict settings and for creating social change. If you join us for the CENDEP Open House, you will be able to hear more about our work and see the festival-exhibition on ‘Home’ in the Glass Tank and in the atrium.

We will also present our study programmes: our on-campus, prize winning Masters in Development and Emergency Practice, our newly established online Masters in Humanitarian Action and Peacebuilding  run together with United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and our Postgraduate Certificate in Shelter after Disaster, in addition to a presentation about our doctoral studies.

Welcome to Oxford Brookes on 14 March from 2.30 pm.