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Thursday, September 18, 2014

Opening and Objectives - Global Violence Reduction Conference 2014

Today's conference begins with setting the Conference objectives and reminding everyone of the reasons why we have some together these two days. As discussed in previous posts, we are looking to bring together different approaches from Public Health to Criminology. Manuel Eisner reminds us that we are striving to work together as a means to reduce violence globally by 50%. He makes the point that this is the opportunity to move Violence Prevention up on the list of priorities, globally. We need to use this time to consider what need to be done over the next 10, 20 and 30 years to reach these objectives. Manuel mask the valid point that this is a room full of people who have very 'strange ideas' and are not afraid to share those ideas. But as a group, we need to work together and realize that Capacity Building need to be central to our efforts. This includes working in low/middle income countries and working with young scholars from those countries as they are the future. This is why various Bursary Scholars have been invited from low and middle income countries to attend the conference and share their research at the poster presentations. This is a conference that acts on what they have recommended, instead of just talking about it. 

Etienne Krug, who is the Director of the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability at the World Health Organisation, welcomed guests with a clear statement that this is our opportunity to to continue to bridge the gap between Public Health and Criminology, and "it is up to us to convince the rest of the world that this can be done" and we can achieve our goals to reduce violence, globally. The emphasis was that we need to "develop a Global Plan of Action. This is our change and this is your chance to influence this". Ultimately, we need to identify if we are doing the same thing, just in different ways and a synthesis of data and research is what is needed in order to move forward. 

Visit vrc.crim.cam.ac.uk for more information. 


A. Neaverson

Views are my own. 

(note: posts are written on-the-go on a mobile app so please excuse any typos and errors) 

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