What is international social work and why is it important?

At the onset of the new millennium, The UW School of Social Work realizes the importance of fostering practice in an international context. The realities of an ever-increasing globalized world and inequities between the rich and poor across the globe demand Social Workers to the forefront of international practice. Cultural, economic, social welfare, environmental, and security interdependence between all countries makes it essential for social workers to consider the global implications of practice, advocacy, and exchange of knowledge. It is critical for social workers to understand that globalization is not only an economic issue, but a social welfare, human rights, and social justice issue as well.

In its historic agreement on the international definition of social work, The International Association of Schools of Social Work responds to the needs of education and practice in an increasingly globalized world.

The international definition of social work says, "The social work profession promotes change, problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being. Utilizing theories of human behavior and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environments. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamental to social work."

From Les Brown: State of the World 2000.

• More than 80% of the global population live in less developed countries and social Problems are shared more and more by less developed countries.
  
• Some 23 million Africans are beginning a new century with a death sentence imposed by HIV.
  
• Poverty plays a strong role in migration, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and is no longer contained with in national boundaries. It has become globalized.
  
• In 1990, the World Bank estimated that the number of people living in poverty was 1.2 billion people; half of these were estimated to be living in absolute poverty defined as having insufficient resources to meet their basic needs.
  
• The gap between the rich and poor is growing. The richest fifth of the world's populations controls 85% of the world's income.

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A Village of 100 People Representing the World
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village
of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios
remaining the same, it would look like this

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere (north and south)
8 Africans

52 would be female 48 would be male
70 would be non-white, 30 white
70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual, 11 homosexual
59% of the entire world's wealth would be in the
hands of only 6 people and all 6 would be citizens
of the United States

80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death, 1 would be near birth
Only 1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective,
the need for both understanding and acceptance
by each and every one of us
becomes extremely apparent.

*
-From the works of Donella H. Meadow's "If the World Were a Village of 1,000 People" which is included in an anthology called Futures by Design edited by Doug Ashley. She is a professor at Dartmouth and has a regularly published column. -