‘Peace can create miracles and have a significant impact on even the most troubled

souls.’ This sentence by Dr Abdul Salam Al Madani, president of the DIHAD

Foundation (Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development), will forever

have a significant relevance for the Los Jerónimos Campus, as it will commemorate

the launch of the first Master's Degree that his institution has launched together with

the Universidad Católica de Murcia.

The temple of the monastery was the venue for the presentation of the Master's

Degree in Sustainable Humanitarian Action. These postgraduate studies stand out

for their humanitarian and global character, which is reflected in the students of its

first class. There are thirty scholars from twenty different countries: United Arab

Emirates, France, Syria, Egypt, Colombia, Italy, Nigeria, United Kingdom, Romania,

Panama, Malawi, Kenya, Sudan, South Sudan, Gambia, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Iraq,

Ghana, Bangladesh and Uganda.

The presentation ceremony was attended by Abdul Salam Al Madani, President of

DIHAD; José Luis Mendoza, General Director of Institutional Relations at UCAM;

Abdulrahman Almansoori, Director of the Executive Office of the Department of

Behavioral Rewards at the Ministry of Possibilities, and Khaled Al Attar, Director of

DIHAD's training programme. Some of the teaching staff members of this Master's

Degree attended the event as well. Among them there are prominent figures such as

Amin Awad, the United Nations Crisis Coordinator for Ukraine.

‘This is only the beginning of what we are going to do, as there will be more training

programmes’, said Al Madani, who also highlighted the level of the students in this

first class, among whom there are people in charge of institutions as important as the

United Nations, the Red Crescent Movement and Etihad: ‘More than 1,600

candidates applied and we were only able to select thirty, which means we have a

great student body, which puts us on the global map in the field of humanitarian

action.’

According to José Luis Mendoza García, the relevance of the values shared by both

institutions has been a key factor in initiating this joint venture: ‘We are in a period of

controversy and uncertainty after the pandemic, now with rising inflation and the war

in Ukraine. We have to focus on humanitarian actions and work for peace, and that

is part of what we want to do in this postgraduate course with the DIHAD Foundation'.

Furthermore, ‘this collaboration puts Murcia in the geopolitical context,

because we are collaborating with an institution of great worldwide prestige’, giving

as an example that ‘the students will be able to carry out part of their training in

institutions such as the United Nations.’