UNESCO produced visuals, graphics, and social media messages to counter disinformation, fight discrimination, and promote best practices.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has denounced the “massive infodemic” of disinformation and misinformation swirling amidst the COVID-19 pandemic as a driver of the crisis itself. In the current context, the impact of dis- and misinformation are potentially deadlier, and responses are at once more urgent and hold the promise of providing long-lasting effects.

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNESCO produced visuals, graphics, and social media messages to counter disinformation, fight discrimination, and promote best practices. Together, we can build more media literate and tolerant societies, and share verified information during the current crisis.

All these resources are open-access and free to be used, downloaded, and shared!

Health workers in Europe are migrating to other countries in the region in search of better working conditions, career prospects and work-life balance. Unfortunately, the countries they leave behind are left with fewer health workers and poor access to healthcare, while the richer destination countries reap the benefits of receiving many health workers.

To ensure that their citizens can receive care from sufficient health workers, Europe’s national governments should invest in their health system and make the health sector more attractive, so their health workers don’t leave. Understanding, for example, the reasons why health workers leave, the number of health workers that leave, and where they are leaving to, is key to improving health workforce policies and ultimately, access to health care. However, concrete and consistent data on health worker mobility is lacking.

Emigration from Serbia to Germany – Case Story 2: Medical graduate from Serbia who only wanted to work abroad
Interviewee: male, 5 years in Germany, a medical doctor in residency on dermatology, regional hospital

An interviewee is a Serbian man who came alone to Berlin after his medical studies to continue his career and life here. He has been in Germany for five years. For about 10 last months, he has been working in a regional hospital as a medical doctor and as a dermatologist in residency training. Before that job, he was employed in another hospital in Germany.
He did not want to work in Serbia after graduating the medical studies, and he wanted to go abroad. Reasons, why he left home, include the poor quality of further professional training available to him and the unsatisfied financial and economic prospects of the country. He spent the first few months in an apartment organized by the hospital, and after about 5 months he found his apartment with the help of a German agency for the recruitment of professionals That German agency helps immigrant health workers, among other issues, to organize a job, find an apartment, the translation of documents/diplomas, and the correspondence to different organizations, but for a fee. That period of the immigration process lasted about 1 1/2 years. First, he had to meet specific requirements to practice as a doctor in Germany, such as the translation and recognition of medical studies (approbation). In addition, he had to complete a German course (at least a B2 level of language proficiency). After that, he applied for a visa. In order to get his license to practice medicine in Germany and to work as a doctor here, he had to pass a knowledge test. In that regard he commented, it is much easier for doctors from the European Union to settle and practice here than from non-EU countries. Find more HERE

Emigration from Serbia to Germany – Case Story 1: “Return to Serbia is not an option”
Interviewee: Female, 10 years in Germany, a molecular biologist at the Public Health Institute in Berlin.

Initially, the interviewee and her family came from Serbia, more precisely, she was a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and due to war-related reasons, she had to flee to Serbia. At that time, there were several reasons for emigration from Serbia to Western Europe, including dissatisfaction with the political situation, remuneration, and professional and quality-related reasons for professional development. This dissatisfaction resulted in existential fears and seeking a survival solution for a person and her family. After graduating as a molecular biologist in Serbia, she applied for a Ph.D. candidate position in Austria. During her Ph.D. studies, she lived in Austria for 5 years. She found a different foundation setting in Austria; the interviewee described that there were definitely problems with the origin; you had to prove to everybody why you were an emigrant in the country, and also being called “Yugo” – she found extremely inappropriate. Due to her expiring contract, she had to look for a new job. Unfortunately, she could not find a new job, and she had to return to Serbia. In Serbia, she became increasingly aware that she did not want to live in her home country and would like to move to a bigger city. Find more HERE