Why no one cares about Syria | Barry Andrews | TEDxUCD

Barry Andrews is CEO of GOAL, an international humanitarian agency, whose TEDxUCD 2014 talk is entitled 'Why No One Cares About Syria'

Every generation has its humanitarian catastrophe and ours, according to Barry, is Syria.

In this TEDxUCD talk Barry asks the question as to why we have an inability to separate the political from the humanitarian in order to address the morally indefensible death of people in conflict zones.

Giving examples of Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, Barry in his TEDxUCD talk notes that the international community may not recognise the catastrophe at the time it is happening. In Syria 160,000 people have been killed, 3 million refugees have left the country and 6 million people are internally displaced.

In this TEDxUCD talk Barry asks with evidence like this, why is this humanitarian catastrophe not being addressed?

Barry Andrews has been the CEO of GOAL since January 2013.
A former Minister with the Irish Government, Barry was educated at Blackrock College, Dublin and at University College Dublin (UCD), where he received a Master's Degree in Modern History.

He began his career as a history teacher, and spent seven years teaching in secondary schools in Dublin. He was called to the Bar in 1997, and practiced as a barrister for five years.

Barry became a public representative in June 1999 when he was elected to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for the Blackrock Ward. He was subsequently elected to the Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann, in 2002 and served as a member of Parliament until 2011.

He was appointed Minister of State for Children and Youth Affairs in 2008. In that capacity, he drove a reform agenda in Child Protection services. One of his lasting achievements was the establishment in 2010 of free pre-school education for all children.

Barry is particularly interested in the plight of mothers and children in the developing world.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)