Dalul Ordehi: “The conflict with Haitian neighbors is social and human in nature”
SANTO DOMINGO- The Dean of the Area of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo (INTEC), Dalul Ordehi, considered that the conflict between Dominican Republic and Haiti es “of social and human nature”.
During his speech at the opening ceremony of the Seminar "Vulnerabilities and social risks: Policies focused on guaranteeing rights in the Dominican Republic”, event aimed at students studying the Master in Research Methodologies in Social Sciences, professors, social researchers and other students of related careers, expressed that “we are paying a lot of attention to politics, economics, and technologies, but we are missing the most important issue, which is the social and human element. If we start there, things are solved better and easier,” acknowledged the doctor in Psychology, who presented the Seminar.
The event covered theoretical-conceptual, practical and methodological aspects of social research in the Dominican Republic to guarantee rights. Among the objectives described by the dean, she mentioned “evaluating the importance of social theories and their evolution to visualize and shed light on the knowledge of social reality with respect to the global processes of development, updating and responsiveness of our political systems.” to fulfill its role of protection and guarantor of rights for the population in the context of the Caribbean and Latin American region.”
The measures that educators and researchers take regarding these issues and the proposals so that the social problems addressed begin to decrease in the medium and short term were vitally important aspects discussed in the seminar. “We have a high responsibility at the social level to be able to visualize, to be able to bring to light important issues that are fundamental for the comprehensive development and development of any country,” he added.
The program began with Keynote lecture: “Main social theories that explain poverty, its causes and consequences”, taught by the sociologist and doctoral student in Social Sciences Jenny Torres, in which he addressed poverty from individuality to social justice. The conference “Pre-university educational system: Recent educational policies and their impact on the target population” was in charge of Cheila Valera, PhD in Education and program director FLACSO RD, in which he showed the educational policies taken in the last 5 years based on the annual follow-up and monitoring report of the Dominican Initiative for a Quality Education (IDEC), which have been prepared and published periodically since 2013.
In conclusion, Dr. Valera recommended strengthening the institutionality of the educational system to lead the necessary changes, and develop the capacity of educational centers as central executing units of the process.
The program also included the panel “Vulnerabilities and risks in today's society (People in special situations: Childhood, deaf people, and domestic violence)”, which included Alexandra Santelices, president of the National Council for Children and Childhood (CONANI); Onelia Aybar, advisor to Santa Rosa Institute for Aid to the Deaf y Jessica Croce director of the Program for the prevention of domestic and gender violence of the Ministry of women (MMWOMAN).
The activity concluded with the conference “The health system of the DR: policies implemented in recent years and their impact on the well-being of the population”, taught by doctor Alberto Fiallo Billini, former advisor to Ministry of Public Health.
Fiallo emphasized the need for a governance architecture of the health system in accordance with the situation of high levels of inequality existing in the Dominican population. He recalled that “health is a right that the State has the duty to guarantee to everyone, and not a privilege”, therefore, he considered it necessary to guarantee access to health services (geographical, financial, cultural and functional); transparency in the planning and implementation of health policies; and accountability practices with institutional mechanisms that guarantee citizen participation.
At the end of the seminar, the teacher of the subject Seminar II on Social Theories, Elsa Alcántara He thanked the institutions and researchers friends and relationships that contributed their knowledge, the INTEC collaborators who contributed to the organization of the event, as well as the teachers and students from other careers who participated in the activity, and highlighted the involvement of the students.
“The motto of the master's degree in Social Sciences and Humanities is “learning by doing,” and this space is a space for learning, and not only about knowledge but also about processes, about how to develop that space for exchanging knowledge, listening, to participate, to grant the time and the floor to the participants. In that sense, we consider that there is growth and contribution for each of the people who participated in this space today,” she said.