Protecting Futures in Crisis: Building resilience through Education and Mental Health in Humanitarian Setting | Goals Lounge

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Gole's Lounge. We often describe this space as a comfortable place for uncomfortable conversations. That feels especially true today. Around the world, humanitarian crises are putting the education and mental health and futures of millions of children and young people at risk. And when we think about humanitarian responses, we rightly think first about food, shelter, health, and safety. But education and mental health are not secondary needs. They are essential to dignity, resilience, recovery, especially for children. A child who cannot learn cannot imagine a future. A child who cannot find calm cannot realize her potential. Today, we will connect global insights with frontline experience. We will explore how strengthening mental health support and building strong partnerships can help turn crisis into resilience and, most importantly, hope. We will also shine a light on something we often overlook, the well-being of humanitarian workers themselves. I'm thrilled to say that Tom Fletcher, Marcus Mumford, Mohamed Saad Al Qubissi, Laura Miller, Sidsel Marie Kristiansen, and Maria Jamal are all with us in GOLS Lounge. So now, let me turn it over to our friend, our partner, and today's moderator, Tony Mitzilis, Chief Content Officer at GZERO Media. Tony, welcome back.

Well, thank you so much. Always a great high five. I always kind of wanted to be Phil Donahue, right? This is my chance. And as she said, I am Tony Misillis. I'm glad to be here with you for this really important conversation in the Goals Lounge. Today's session focuses on how humanitarian workers can do more and respond better to protect education, mental health, and young people who are living through crisis. And sadly, there are hundreds of millions of them. We're going to move from the global picture to realities on the ground, talk about how to keep learning going when schools close, delivering mental health and psychosocial support where it's needed most, and also, and I think this is the most forgotten aspect of this, but one of the most important, caring for the people who are the caregivers. who are constantly put in harm's way. And to bring us a little closer to the ground level, talk about realities there, I'd like to first welcome to the stage Tom Fletcher, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Take it away, Tom.

Well, thank you so much. And I'll be brief because I want to get into the conversation with Marcus and with you all. And I know it's day 747 of the U.N. General Assembly right now. So thank you for your stamina and energy at this point of the week. Let's keep going. Let's keep pushing for the outcomes we need. So just two quick thoughts. One, the humanitarian sector is burning out right now. Anyone working out there in the field at HQ knows what it feels like. We are running hot. And if you recognize that, then please take some care of yourself and some care of the people around you. We're not going to save any lives if we're all in a state of collapse. I say this as someone who has started therapy since starting this job. Please look after yourselves and look after the people you're working with so we can look after the people we serve. And then... We're here, more importantly, for the kids who we want to put at the center of the humanitarian response. A third of our funding is going towards them. I cannot believe that a drone strike last week in the Kordofan took out a warehouse of school books. And if you are not enraged... by that, then you're in the wrong business. This is absolutely intolerable. I've been recently in Ukraine and see the drones that are targeting children. And as they reach the end of their battery life, they are more likely to hit civilian targets. So let's put those kids that we should be protecting at the heart of what we do. And for me, last night, an emotional moment when actually the person next to me at the table, she brought her young child with her, and I had that Just unbelievable moment when a child holds your finger and you feel the grip in their hand. Emotional in any circumstances, but it took me right back to Tawila a few months ago, meeting the child who had got to us against all the odds. Whole family killed in a militia attack. Next door neighbor had lost all her family, 19-year-old mother lost her own children. She staggered in, scooped him up from the blood and gore of that attack, carried him nine kilometers down the most dangerous road in the world, was attacked, assaulted along the way. She had bolts in her leg where we'd had to put it back together, but she brought him to us. And he'd had two days of food by that stage. And I could feel the grip in his hand as he held my finger. And so we've got to put kids like that at the heart of what we're doing. If this week is about social media hits and grip and grin meetings and press conferences and a sense of frenzy, it's not good enough. We've got to get out there and get those results for these kids. really grateful to all of you for what you're doing. I'm really grateful to Marcus for the leadership he's showing, to Warschild for the leadership and creativity and courage you're bringing to this work, and to all of our colleagues across this humanitarian movement. And it takes a movement to get stuff done. So thank you for being here, and I can't wait to have this conversation. Thank you.

Come and join us for a second, if you would. so much. And now to introduce our next guest, you already previewed. Many of you, of course, know him as the front man of Mumford and Sons, but you may not know that he has also spent a decade traveling to visit war child sites. And in fact, just recently was in Lebanon. So Marcus Mumford, come on up here. Thanks for coming. Yeah. Why don't I start on you, Marcus. So as I said earlier this year, you were in Lebanon and you visited with some people who were experiencing long-term displacement. I just kind of want to know, what did you learn from that experience and sort of what did you take away from it?

Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks so much for having me. It's nice to see you. Lebanon was really different for me because, you know, the majority of the places I've visited with seeing war child programs were in places of more acute conflict, you know, refugee camps outside Mosul, or I've been to Gaza a couple of times, or Central African Republic, and kids, a lot of the time, who just escaped and had come into refugee camps or local communities. In Lebanon, for the first time, I met kids who had been born in refugee camps and who were teenagers. And it was a very different way of looking at the problem and the trauma that they live in from growing up as a result of conflict. And so we know that we have evidence-based methodologies that can work in terms of intervention for these kids who are traumatized still. But it's a different, it's more of a chronic problem than an acute problem. I think we can intervene with success. It's just a different, so I was sort of surprised, I think, by the nature of the problem was different to what I'd expected, I think.

So I want to give you an opportunity, actually, to ask Tom a couple of questions, because, you know, it could be useful for you as you continue on your travels with War Child, so please feel free.

Well, I want to ask you lots of questions, Tom. But for a lot of us in this, you know, newer to this work, I mean, it's been 12 years for me, but Tom's one of our humanitarian heroes. And from what you're seeing at the moment, it feels like the conversation, we're losing the humanitarian conversation, global aid cuts and more isolationism from states. And How do you think we have to recenter the conversation around children?

Yeah, it's really hard. And the reality is that across our movement, the cuts have meant actually we all have to get even more competitive for the funding that's out there. And the challenge for us is actually to find themes where we can work together. And I think work with children is a great example of that. Because if you look at the big challenges right now, the challenge of climate, the challenge of AI, the challenge of new weapons, the challenge of the world being put on a war economy, all of those, of course, are going to hit children hardest. And so there's a sort of center point there that we can rally around and try and build this movement around. Because it's something that We all share. We were just chatting backstage, and we were both talking about missing our kids. And one of the things I miss this week with my boys is that it's the spontaneous moments, isn't it? It's not the moment when you've all gone out for Sunday lunch because dad's back from a trip or something. It's those small interventions through the week when something happens or there's a question or there's just a moment of connection. And those are what you miss when you're away. And I think for the kids that we're working with in these crises, Just imagine how many of those moments are missing every day. You've seen it in Lebanon, you've seen it in the West Bank, Palestine, on your travels as well. How many moments when they're not getting that, that moment of human connection and empathy, and they're actually getting something terrible instead?

So, look, I want to talk a little bit about how to scale solutions, right? Because as you mentioned, there is a crisis of funding right now, and it's getting harder and harder. We know what works. I think what we don't know is how to bring it to more people effectively and quickly. What are your thoughts on that, Tom?

We do know what works, and I've seen it, and I've seen so many of the colleagues here out in the field. We have-- can I give a shout out, by the way, to some of our local leaders who are co-leading my delegation this week? I can see-- Yay. Mama, I can't see Mama Noy yet, but you'll meet Mama Noy later at some stage, and she is an absolute, can I say rockstar?

Yeah.

Okay. Can I use that word, you know, under advice? So, I mean, we do know, we do know what works, and our job, folks, particularly our job in what is the sector, it's a heavy sector. It's a sector we built up when there were at least 2 1/2 times the resource we have. Our job is to actually dismantle the bits of the sector that get between the funding and this response at local level. the actual that moment of connection with that child, with that mother, that the crucial intervention that we need to make. So we've got to reduce a lot of the infrastructure around what we do and bring it back. Humanitarian action wasn't actually invented after the Second World War. The rules were, but actually, like, this is our oldest instinct to be human. You know, and that's where we've got to fight the algorithm, of course, because the algorithm is not very human. at the moment. But we've got to bring the human back into humanitarian work.

I have a question about the rules, which I'm going to come back to. But just to talk about scalability for a minute, my wife was here yesterday, who's also an ambassador for the War Child Alliance.

I interviewed her last year on this very stage, by the way. I'm expecting the sons come next year, right?

She launched yesterday the Clinton Global Initiative, a new fund that War Child has helped to establish. called Childhood Beyond Conflict, which is basically trying to create a movement around revolutionizing the way the humanitarian sector approaches mental health and psychosocial support for children. We think that survival is not a sufficient outcome on its own, and that to give these children a chance in life, We know the interventions can work, but we know that without treatment, the trauma that they've had will affect their brains for the rest of their lives, and it will affect their choices as adults. And we're asking these kids to be the leaders in their community. and tying a hand behind their back while we're doing it. Now, we don't need more child's poster on the wall. We think it's a scalable model. We've done the research, the random research trials. We have the evidence-based methodologies. What we're trying to do is go around to all the different organizations that work in these same places and say, can we come together and cooperate in this moment where global headcuts are hitting us all very, very hard and the communities we serve hardest. Can we come up with a way of training the sector in the same way that you guys were involved in changing the way that sanitation worked in camps in the 90s or water worked? Can we do the same with mental health, psychosocial support, so that every kid who walks into a refugee camp, wherever they are in the world, is met with a level of training that can immediately intervene? Because we also know the sooner you intervene with childhood trauma, the better. I have my own story with that. And when I received the help I needed, it completely changed my life. And the first thing they treat you in trauma recovery is not to compare trauma. But of course, I can say that was an act and impact. The impact on me was large. And it totally changed my life. So I have a personal story around knowing that interventions work on this stuff. And we need to cooperate more. So my question for you is going to be-- sorry to just railroad your whole thing.

It's no longer, it's your show now, Marjorie, so please take it.

In this hyper-competitive environment for organizations that work in this field, what does cooperation look like to you at the moment?

It means some of us getting out of the way. It means not just identifying the thing that we should be doing, because we all desperately believe in this work, and we all know that our projects are amazing. But also as organizations and leaders of organizations, sometimes identifying the things that someone else can do better. And that's why the local leaders are with me this week, because we have to start from the assumption that the local leader can do it best and that we are there then to support their work on the front lines. Can I go with one to Marcus?

Yeah, sure, go ahead. You're making my job very easy, by the way.

So I'm just really, because it's so great that you're in this space and Carrie's in this space, and it's like... It's fantastic to see that because you can cut through and reach people that the rest of us evidently cannot reach. And there's almost a sense that we're losing trust as this work, like people are too distracted for it, you know, seven second video, and we can't reach them with the stats and the stories. But you must have watched a number of people do this over the years, you know, the sort of Bonos and the Geldofs. How is it going to be different, actually, for your generation of activists? in that space? How do you do that?

No, yeah, you didn't warn me about that one. Well, I'm not going to slag off Bono and Geldof. I think they did what was right at the time. I think in general, there's a compassion fatigue. People are exposed to more violence on their phones than they've ever been before. And there's a level where people just have to switch off. And I understand that to an extent. But we've got to find new ways of breaking through that message. I think, when it comes to activism, the general public smell a rat very quickly. And so Kerry and I have certainly taken the approach, like, let's focus on one thing that we can really get our heads around and really study and spend the time on and go on a trip every year in country to see the work and then bear witness to it. That's our job as ambassadors, that's how we view it. Now, I'm not going to be your guy on the 90 other issues that we should be talking about. So, we think more focused activism is, it's the time for more focused activism right now. These big global campaigns that worked well in the '90s and noughties to a certain extent, it's just a different time. And I think in some ways it's sad that it's a different time. It's harder to build consensus at the moment in an algorithmically divided world. And yet, we have to strive to find the areas where we can build consensus, and we're absolutely certain that children should be a focus of international consensus at the moment. Because when it comes to any of these conversations around climate or around AI, particularly around conflict, we have to be able to shift the focus certainly from profits or what's cool to talk about to can we just talk about kids because they are the future. Famously, they are the future.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I also appreciate you saying that it takes more for celebrities to really make an impact on a cause than just appear on the poster. You have to walk the walk, you have to go and see the sites as you and Carrie both have done. So thank you.

And know where your boundaries are and know what you're good at and what your strengths and weaknesses are. I'm not going to be your guy for these other issues. On this one, I can speak to it with some experience.

Well, thank you for that. And Marcus Mumford, Tom Fletcher, thank you both for coming by. That was great. Give them a round of applause. Thank you. We're going to move on in the conversation now to talk a bit about education. I'm actually really glad that we're doing this because I feel like we talk a lot in this humanitarian kind of conversation about the basic needs like health care, like food. But a child's education could be interrupted for months, years, perhaps never resume when they're in these kinds of crisis situations, particularly conflict. And we've got a few great experts to help us talk through that situation. I want to call up Mohammed Saeed Al Qubaisi, who is the CEO of Education Above All, Laura Miller, who is the CEO of War Child Alliance Foundation, which you just heard quite a bit about, and Sissel Marie Kristensen, CEO of the LEGO Foundation. Welcome. Mohammed, come sit here. One of you, come sit here. Yeah, come join me. I don't bite. So, all right, thanks so much. So, Laura, we just heard a little bit about your organization from Marcus, of course, and we're turning the focus now to education. So, give us a little sense of the scope of just how many people have their educations disrupted in these humanitarian crises, and how is it possible to sort of keep that learning going?

I think the latest statistics is 100 million children. So 100 million children affected by armed conflict are out of school because of conflict. So a number that's almost too big to really understand what that means. And how you continue?

Providing education in conflict is you do it. You don't stop doing it. Because children's right to education, children's need for education doesn't stop because of conflict. I think that's a really important message. We can continue providing education for children. They want it. And at War Child, we work in 13 of some of the world's most difficult conflict contexts. The number one thing children say to us is, "I want to learn. I want to go to school." So you have to be there and do it and keep working for children.

We just actually heard Marcus Mumford saying that some of the children that he saw at the sites he visited were born into that situation. So just to ask you one more question, how do you begin an education in that situation?

It starts with mental health. And I think one of the things that never changes about kids is that they're kids and that they're going to play. And play is a huge factor for positive mental health for children. Through play, they learn social skills, emotional skills, self-identity, self-esteem, self-agency. And through play, children can regulate their stress. Those are all enabling factors for education. So supporting children to be able to go to school, stay in school, and learn in school starts with letting kids be kids, making sure they can play, and also structuring support around that play. So that's a big way that we start with these kids.

Okay, well, let's stay on that beat of play, because obviously this is a huge part of what LEGO Foundation is doing, and Sissel, I think to that point, I have seen firsthand and even reported some of these stories of what happens when you're in a crisis situation, a refugee camp, and you just simply add a couple of soccer balls or a couple of games and see the difference that it makes. So from your position, how important is that and what is LEGO Foundation doing?

Yeah, so we have a special focus. focus on children living in conflict and crisis settings. And as you said, Laura, we are seeing the highest number of children living in conflict and crisis at the moment since World War II. And children still need to have a childhood. They need to be able to play and learn no matter the circumstances and the context. That's why also we're working with War Child, for instance, in South Sudan and in Uganda to actually give kids spaces just to play and learn. And just give them some kind of normalcy and a little bit of hope as well. And then, as Laura is saying, it also builds connections, it builds trust, it's built their mental health as well, which is so crucial. And that's what we want to secure from the LEGO Foundation side, to really secure childhood for all. And we are seeing that, you know, sometimes we think crises are temporary, but they are just continuing. So these children have sometimes never experienced anything else than just refugee camps and living in a conflict settings.

Yeah, I mean, so Mohamed, education above all. First, just tell me a little bit about what your organization does. And then I want to ask you, what are the factors that make a difference between, you know, kids staying in school or continuing education program and not?

Thank you, Tony. I think what we have learned that keeping a child in the school, we address only education, but we need to consider another element that make the children dropping out from the school, because there is many reasons that children cannot continue their education due to unsafe in the journey, or their family, they cannot afford the cost, or maybe they don't want, they want to work, or displacement interrupt their education. It could be also the trauma make their education even worse. So we need to consider all these elements in any emergency response alongside with the health, shelter, wash, and so on. If you want me to brief you about Education Above All, Education Above All is an international organization. We are providing what we call the long-life learning, starting from primary education all the way to the employment opportunity. We are operating in more than 70 countries all over the world. Alhamdulillah, we reach around 18 million out-of-school children throughout our journey. And I'm proud that Laura is here today, because together we are working in different regions, especially our project in Yemen. Together, we reach the most marginalized community, and we overcome all the obstacles that stop the children going to the school. We work hand-in-hand with the community. We provide them the safe place to learn. We train the teacher how to I mean, how to teach the student. We provide the positive discipline and safeguarding. So finally, I believe that the children, they want to see their education lead somewhere, their qualification. Education need to be recognized even after the war closes. So psychosocial support, education, any emergency response should be treated as a, I mean, integral process with the education system within that country. Thank you.

Thank you. Laura, I want to ask you, so, you know, you quoted a really staggering statistic of 100 million kids who are displaced because of conflict. I know funds are hard to come by for everybody, you know, whether you're privately fundraising or waiting for aid money from governments. How do you make choices when there are so many places in need about where to devote resources?

That's a really difficult question because obviously we shouldn't have to make choices. There's just not enough money and all children have the same rights, no matter where they are, where they were born, which conflict impacts them. So just having to make a choice is really difficult. We definitely look at the most vulnerable. We look at how can we reach the most vulnerable in the most efficient way and also in the best way. So it's not only about efficiency because I want to talk also about our local partners. So we work with organizations that are from the community, they're in the community, they have trust relationships with families, and they know how to deliver quality programming in an efficient way. That's a really important way of making funding go further, but also more importantly, in ensuring quality outcomes. I think for us at War Childs, we have really invested in knowing what works. Of course, there's not one thing that works for one kid. I mean, kids are people, we're not one of cookie cutters. But at the same time, we want to make sure that every service that is delivered to them has proven outcomes. We know that there is going to be impact for that child in the long run. So we've invested in quality, and we know that delivering that quality means having a trusted service provider that is going to be there also for the future. So local partnerships is a huge key to those outcomes, absolutely.

OK, and Mohammed, I want to-- so talking about curriculum, you were talking about training teachers, right, what are the particular challenges that those teachers in humanitarian situations are facing and how do you modify curriculum appropriately?

I think first of all, before we start any project, we need to make sure that what is the obstacle that stopped the children going to the school rather than provide them the curriculum because we've seen this throughout our project that each country or each region has a different challenges that we need to address it. Sometimes, I mean, we always talk about resilient, the children who've been displaced or he lost his family, it's not easy to forget what's happening around him inside the classroom. So the teacher need to be trained how to deal with those children, how to, I mean, be flexible with them and their education, the qualification. how it will be integrated in the system. Because in the emergency response for any refugees, it seems that they are treated differently. And the education emergency, it's only state for, let's say, a short period of time. And then we don't know where it will land at the end. So this is how we are working with our partner, with the Ministry of Education on that particular country to make sure that this is the right curriculum to integrate them after our project has ended and what is the requirement from our side to provide it to the teacher to train, I mean, the children.

So, you know, our next segment after this, we're going to talk about caring for caregivers and the needs of caregivers. But let me just ask you one more question about teachers. What do you hear from the teachers? What are they telling you their needs are?

It's a tough question because in every region, there is different challenges or different, I mean, obstacles that they face at The children, and I think the most important challenge is on our shoulder as a leader, to protect the education itself. So children, they need a safe place to reach. They want to feel confident that the student, teacher, community are protected. So when we talk about education, protection and education need to complement each other to kick off any project in any region. If we proceeded in that way, the children will feel safe, the teacher will not find any difficulties dealing with that children.

Can I add to that?

Please, yeah.

Of course, teachers also need salaries. And right now, we see budget cuts everywhere. So there are no teachers sometimes in these dire contexts. And we need that. So we need to secure that they are paid as well.

Right. They need salary and they need safety as well. Yeah.

For sure, safety and all the basic needs needs to be there.

Sure. And Sissel, to stay with you for a second, we all know the statistics about how little of overall aid money goes to humanitarian situations. And then from there, I think it's something like 1% goes to mental health, psychosocial support. That hasn't really changed. And in fact, it's probably decreased, unfortunately. So, OK, when we interject something like play or the importance of investing in toys and extracurricular activities, if you will. Is it a hard climb to get people to invest in that?

Yes, because that's basically when we speak about crisis and conflict, then everybody is thinking about, well, it's the basic needs, it's wash and all, you know, shelter and everything like that. But we also need to protect the mental health. And both Laura and Marcus said it so well. That's the, you know, it's fundamental for children to thrive and learn. If the mental health is not there, if we do not support them, and they're not able to learn, and it will just, you know, follow them for the rest of their lives. So we need to start there, and I think governments and organizations need to understand that that's a basic need as well, to really be able to be taken care of and be supported by qualified caregivers and teachers.

So to end, let me just ask each of you, you have this opportunity to be at the United Nations. There are leaders from 193 member states, but at least 70 heads of state. here over the course of this week, if you could ask for one thing from this community that you think could begin to make a change, what would it be?

Invest in what works, invest in children. I'm going to ask for three things. Invest in what works, invest in children, and invest now. It's not only about future. We're talking about the future. A child has rights now. Invest now in children. That's what I would ask. And just before you move on to the next one, I also just want to recognize the incredible investment that is already being made here on the couch. You were saying, you know, there's not enough investment in mental health and in children. LEGO Foundation and Education Above All are setting the examples for how donors should investing in what works now. So just to recognize that as well.

Excellent. Thank you. A little round of applause for that. Sure. Mohammed.

And for me, it's the, I mean, during this week, during the ONGA, I keep hearing about AI and derivative finance. My question is we need to make sure that any approaches that we will take it, I mean, for the education, we need to make sure that we are reaching the most marginalized communities, because we are operating in a country that maybe 60% they don't have electricity, how we can adopt, I mean, the AI. So in any approaches that we are aiming to kick it off in the upcoming, I mean, period, we need to make sure that each of the most marginalized communities for any solution. Thank you.

And Sissel.

And for me, it's collaboration, because children are not born in silos, so we really need to collaborate about children's basic needs, and that also includes mental health, learning, and just be able to play and learn and thrive. So I want to focus on that.

Thank you so much. So Sissel Marie Kristensen, Mohammed Saeed Al Qubaisi, and Laura Miller, thank you all. That was great. Okay, so as I mentioned, we now want to shift our attention to talking a little bit about the caregivers themselves, the people who are working in humanitarian crises.

My name is Claudine Joseph, and I serve as a humanitarian affairs officer with OCHA in the Lake region of Chad. Working on the front line means operating in a very difficult context where people face immense suffering. Many families have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and they have experienced displacement and hunger, and some have lost their loved ones. For humanitarian workers, responding in such environment is very demanding. We care deeply about the people we serve, but we also work under difficult operational conditions with constant pressure to respond despite the diminishing resources. For me, this is also personal. Working in an isolated duty station means spending long periods away from my family while carrying the emotional weight of the suffering we witness. Funding cuts add another layer of uncertainty. I previously took voluntary separation in the context of budget reductions, and I experienced first-hand the stress of professional uncertainty while remaining deeply committed to the humanitarian work. Many colleagues are actually, they are facing the similar concern about their contracts, their families, and their future, even as they continue to support communities and crises. Humanitarian workers need safe space to speak openly, access to psychosocial support, supportive leadership, and adequate rest. We need a workplace culture in which seeking help is understood as a sign of responsibility. To serve people in need effectively, we also must be supported and protected. When we care for the carers, we strengthen our ability to remain present and stand with communities during their most difficult moments. Thank you very much.

Please welcome to the stage, if you will, I'm going to slide down here to meet her, Maria Jamal, Chief Executive Officer of Humanity Crew. Hi, good to see you. Thanks so much. So first, tell me a little bit about Humanity Crew.

Humanity Crew is a humanitarian organization specializing in providing mental health and psychosocial support in crisis setting across the globe. We currently work in supporting frontline workers in Gaza, but also working across different stages of disasters in preparedness as well, collaborating with local organizations in areas that are at risk of having disasters and building their capacity to include mental health and psychosocial support across their work. building their capacity also to take care of themselves as a team, as well as taking care of the community that they serve across different sectors.

Yeah, so as we just mentioned in the segment before, when I said teachers also need safety, so do humanitarian workers, right? And they're kind of increasingly being put in harm's way, unfortunately. What impact is that having on the workers themselves? What do you hear from them?

We see a great, a deep toll on humanitarian workers globally in different types of crisis where we work, and especially in Gaza, where the humanitarian workers are themselves living in that context. They are also being displaced. Social workers are taking care of parents, consulting about their children and the safety and the future of their children, while their social workers also worry about their own. they are being displaced themselves, living in uncertainty in the very difficult conditions. We see a lot of chronic stress, difficulty sleeping, emotional regulations, and it impacts their work greatly. Sometimes it's hard to see it because they do show up to work and you think they are managing and they are resilient and they can proceed this work. Sometimes they are working too much in order not to think of their house and their problems and their issues that they have to deal with. And they are so invested and they feel guilty not to work. seven days a week and not to be present with their community. So sometimes it's difficult and we can miss these signs that are for the longer term can really create a deep impact on the frontline workers and in turn also on the community that they serve and the level of and the quality of service that they can provide to the community decreases in time.

I think that's a really important point, actually, because, you know, and as Mark has told us, you know, You can't compare traumas, right? But a lot of what you're saying you hear about all caregivers, people who might be taking care of someone who's terminally ill or, you know, taking care of small children with needs, things like that, that you have to kind of, as they say on the airlines, right, put your own mask on first before you move on to the person next to you. So, in that spirit, what As your organization, what things have you seen that are, are working to help humanitarian workers?

We have seen that sustained support for frontline workers really, uh, really shows a significant, uh, improvement in their wellbeing. Frontline workers that we have supported for a period of time and assessed before and after show an increase in well-being scores from 10 to 20 out of 25 in the well-being score. And frontline workers are saying that they feel more emotionally safe, they can regulate their emotion better, they are more present, not only with the community that they serve, but also at home, and they are able to proceed this work day by day by day while the circumstances of their work are horrible. terrific, and they are still living under a constant displacement, attack, fear, and worry.

Are there examples of specific tools that are being implemented, or is it-we actually did a segment here in the Gools Lounge a few months ago with a breathing expert, believe it or not, who was talking about the importance of, you know, calming yourself down through breath. I mean, is it that kind of practice? Is it other things?

We use that as well sometimes, yes, it's very important because frontline workers are stressed. And first of all, we work with them. We do group decompression sessions for each organizations where we work. We also educate them on what are the signs of stress, what does it look like, how does it feel like. They feel pain in the chest sometimes, which is a sign of stress, not necessarily something you need to go to the hospital to. So this helps them understand what they are going through. And then breathing exercises, positive coping mechanisms, taking time for yourself, having rituals, getting back some norms that you had before the war and before this crisis as well, reducing, talking about negative coping mechanism and what it does to you, how it can impact you, so getting them educated on those. How to manage your caseload. Supporting frontline workers is additional, it's work, it's additional time that they need to invest in, and this is why it's also very important to be able to provide that, provide that safe space for frontline workers to seek that support. It's not something that most organizations, it's difficult to provide.

Yeah, so as I had asked our previous panel, you know, you've got the right community in front of you to state what you need, and I can only imagine how deep funding cuts have been, particularly in this area. Give us a sense of what would help move your work along right now.

Really to enable this to happen, we need organizations to understand We need responsible leadership that understand the needs of the frontline workers to be able to sustain this work. That means having safe space for them to pursue this. That means That means that when a frontline worker is seeking support, that is a sign of responsibility, not a sign of weakness, so that they feel confident and secure that they can seek this help and they don't worry about losing their job or being, you know, because mental health and these difficulties are still stigmatized in many of the contexts where we work. And of course, this needs funding, but also an understanding why this investment is really core and key to humanitarian action. Humanitarians are the the core and the bone for the continuation of and for the survival of the communities that they serve. And this needs investment, a big investment of humanitarian workers so that they can then better support the communities.

Maria Jamal, thank you so much. This was great. Thanks for coming by. Yeah. So thank you all as well. I think, hopefully, this conversation gave you a sense of the importance of these. I've heard Amina Mohammed, by the way, the DSG, say, and I quote this often, that the head is attached to the body. and therefore needs to be treated that way. And we too often, I think, ignore mental health concerns. And by the way, I'm really glad that we talked about education and the lifelong implications that even a few months or a couple years of disruption, and sadly, too many kids are seeing much longer than that, raising a little bit of awareness for those issues. So I want to thank you all for being here. I'm gonna look up at that camera and thank everybody who's watching on the live stream around the world and on VOD. This is the GOALS Lounge. Thanks to Anne-Marie and her team. I'm Tony Macillis. Have a great day.