So who is the dude in the suit?
Okay.... self sensoring prevailed.
Figured out who the dude was.
Post deleted.
Showing posts with label aid worker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aid worker. Show all posts
You have been an aidworker for too long (Part 14)
You have been an aidworker for too long...
...if you can sum up the names of all political parties in Zambia, but can't remember which parties formed the government in your own home country. (*)
(*) which is not valid for Belgian aidworkers, as we haven't had a government for almost a year.
You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 13)
You have been an aidworker for too long...
...if you can curse fluently in Pashtu, Swahili and Urdu but forget the translation for the word "assessment" in your own mother tongue.
About Peace Corps, aidworker security, and self-serving mechanisms.
The family of a 24-year old Peace Corps volunteer from Atlanta, Kate Puzey, says agency personnel set her up to be murdered by revealing her role in the dismissal of an employee she accused of sexually abusing children at a school in the African country of Benin.(..)Watch also part 2 and part 3 of the video.
As part of the report, Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross also talked to a half dozen female volunteers who said that after they were sexually assaulted the Peace Corps response was incompetent and insensitive.(..)
(Source article and followup article)
The video series, and the articles in ABC news, point at series of issues inside the Peace Corps. It starts off with the insufficient protection of Kate Puzey, a volunteer in Benin, whistleblowing on a local colleague she believed to be sexually involved with pupils he taught, and she suspected of raping some of her students. This lead to her murder.
But as usual, the problem is more general.
ABC dug deeper into the issue, and came up with a number of "1,000" ex-Peace Corps volunteers testifying to have been raped, and/or sexually abused. Few of them attested to have found an ear within the Peace Corps open to their complaints about feeling insecure, and received little or no support after being assaulted. On the contrary, apparently many were encouraged to "keep it quiet".
I have written many times about security of aidworkers here on The Road, an issue which lays sensitive for aidworkers and aid organisations alike.
While decennia ago, aid and development workers might have been safe pretty much anywhere in the world, this is no longer the case. Aid workers are more at risk today than ever before, punto. Be it because of terrorist attacks or plain crime, the push for humanitarians to be more at the frontline,... We can no longer work like we used to.
Some organisations have taken pro-active decisions to expand the security awareness amongst their staff, expanded security measures of personnel and premises, ensure the safety of whistle blowers, and in general become more sensitive to any issues in sensitive areas.
It seems others still work under the modus operandi of the sixties, where aidworkers were close to untouchable. Very often, these are development agencies, rather than aid organisations, and very often based on low key and lower funding projects in rural communities. And unfortunately also often working with volunteers, who can not base themselves on their personal experience and "sixth sense" for problems.
Having lived "in the field" for many years, I often worked in higher security environments, where movements were restricted, premises were barbed-wired, and where we had extensive security communications... Only to find next door, an NGO who pretty had much nothing of the kind, with employees or employees fresh from Europe or other "civilised parts of the world", with no clue.
When I look at the video and see the house Kate Puzey was living in, I can tell you that this would not be allowed in many front-line organisations, no matter how "safe" the community was. No fencing, no night guards, sleeping on the porch.. Ayyyy...
Part of the responsibility is with the individual aidworker, but for those organisations working with "freshman"-volunteers, like Peace Corps, the first step lays with the organisation itself to sensitive their employees. And to ensure they keep a close eye and ear to any signs of insecurity or complaints.
Worse then comes when incidents happen. Then kicks in the self-serving or self-protecting mechanism of "Oh God, we won't let anyone know about this". Bad press is a killer for a humanitarian organisation depending on donations or public funding. "Reputation protection" is a very deeply instilled tradition in the humanitarian world. Look at the ecological disaster at the scale of BP's oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Did they go out of business? Did they do less business at all? Bah, no. If an aid organisation would have been receiving the amount of bad press BP had, they would have been out of business in the first month.
Thus, "covering up", is the message. And when you cover up, you can not tackle problems at the root, which is the only approach for "the sensitive issues" like abuse, security, misuse, theft, etc...
Maybe we should start an "AidLeaks", the Wikileaks equivalent to report abuse in the aid community, if that is what it takes to break open the cans of worms. Read the full post...
New aidworker blogs
The list of blogging aidworkers grows. Here are my latest additions:
- After Africa: Long time blogger and cyberfriend Pernille faces her new challenge: after years in Bosnia, Uganda and Tanzania, she now works an NGO back home in Denmark.
- Underwater Desert blogging, by Casey in the US, about Somalia. Or is it the other way round?
- Chhaya Path, is Nisha's blog, who shuttles between India and Kenya
- Shotgunshack blogs from different parts of the world, inspired by a video from the Talking Heads.
- Rachel in Erbil (Iraq), after "Rachel in Kitgum" (Uganda) and "Rachel in Goma" (DRC)...
Remember, I aggregate the latest posts of all aidworkers' blogs on AidBlogs, twittered via @AidBlogs.
Picture courtesy of Pernille Read the full post...
Give up, bail out or continue running?
Just read this on Itinerant and Indigent, one of the aidblogs I following. Phil, an aidworker in Afghanistan, writes about his struggle to continue believing in the "Cause". The "raison d'être" of an aidworker:
Why do we keep trying here? I am less and less sure that we achieve anything. I know, I know now that this work is not about us feeling good, or developing our CVs. And I am not an aid junkie, living on the high of the emergency, the thrill of saving lives. But I would like to see permanent progress here in some form, in my lifetime. I am less convinced that will happen, or at least less convinced that there is much I can do to expedite it.
It seems I follow a God of lost causes. I am not sure how I feel about that. As Nathan says, ‘I have joined the long defeat’.
I wonder how many of the long term aidworkers have this struggle. How many years does it take before we let our shoulders hang down, or bail out, or stop caring, or continue running with our eyes closed, or invent the famous "signs of improvement"..
How many years have we been in Afghanistan? In Pakistan? In Ethiopia? Niger? DRC?
Add on top of the lack of progress, the security risks every single aidworker runs in some of these places, and you wonder...
I think the only way to cope in the longer run is to check out for a while and come back with new hope. In a different country. Another project. And for the rest, continue holding on, in the faith that humanity is basically good.
PS: If you know where the picture is taken, I guess you can call yourself an "ancien"... Start counting the days The Doubt will come.
PPS: Phil.. Hang in there, buddy! Read the full post...
I Am an Aid Worker. And a Woman. Help!
This is a post I wrote three years ago. It seems the subject is still ever so close to the hearts of many, so I brought it onto the foreground again.
There are several excellent insights people posted in the comments. I'm interested to hear your point of view.
In the previous post, Shylock explored, in a ironical, cynical, self-criticizing way, what personal future we, aid workers have. We wonder the earth, gradually getting used to travel all the time, often in harsh places, and very often in search of a thrill. Gradually we get addicted to it all.
But is there life after this.. after this life of a gypsy? Do we become gypsy disasters after years of behaving like a disaster gypsy, roaming from one emergency to the next?
No matter how much we chuckle reading the previous post, in the end, it is not funny. Far from it. Many humanitarian workers have a problem to find 'a life after this'.. But it is even more sad to realize how few actually "have a life even now"... Even now, many forget, or at least compromise, their personal life because of their addiction. The addiction to the horizon, to the adrenaline.
And now I want to you stop for a moment, no matter what you are doing. What I am going to tell you, is very close to my heart...
No matter how you twist and turn it. The professional world is still a man's world. This world in general is still a man's world. It has been for hundreds of centuries. From the time men dragged women into their cages by their hair, we have come a long way, but we are not there yet. "There" being "offering equal chances, and equal opportunities to women".
Here is how I see it. (and don't forget I am a man, and no matter how hard I try, I will always be a man, even if I try to look at things from a woman's perspective):
I look around me, and see people -men and women- alike, with loads of personal challenges through the work they do... But then I look again, and see that in most management functions in this business - the humanitarian world -, men hold the key functions (and most of them come from the first world, but let's leave that aside for a moment). I look once more, and see most administrative support positions are filled by women. Many women in this business are strong, well educated, hard working people. Many of them are young, full of energy, inspiration and aspirations. The new generation of women have been encouraged (and enabled) by their parents to get a good education. They are ambitious to develop themselves personally and professionally. Many of these young women whizz through their twenties like a breeze, and some climb up (if all goes well), the professional ladder.
All of a sudden they find themselves in their mid thirties, somewhere in the professional chain and ask "hey where is my personal life gone to?". And that is where the challenges start.
If all goes well, they find a partner. If all goes well. As we - men - are not always too happy to live with a partner who has a demanding career. Even fewer like it when that career takes 'our woman' away on duty travel. Heaven forbids that 'her career' would even have her live far away from us, in some dark and remote humanitarian crisis area.
"If all goes well" they find a partner, as too often at their mid thirties, what men are "available" on the "partner market"? Those coming out of their first long relationship, and not looking for something long term. The 'celibataires eternelles' or 'commito-fobes'. Those who have not made up their mind what the hell they want. The 'players'. And those already in a relationship. Or those who have failed in relationships so far.. (and all of that is a whole different discussion which I would love to have over a glass of Prosecco).
So "if all goes well", a partner is found. And then? "A career" you say? In this world where, no matter what, a woman is still supposed to not only bare the children, but also spend most of her time raising them? Where a woman is still supposed to do most of the household stuff? [if you are a man, think about it... If you don't agree with me, think again... Who spends most of the time with the kids, working for/in the house? You or your partner?].
So, what then? Most women are the ones making the compromise then.. Either give up their career, or work part time, etc...
If they don't, the juggle of kids, house, husband and career becomes a full time challenge.
The other evening, I went with E. over all the women we knew. And we tried to flag those we thought had found a good balance between kids, house, husband and career. And are successful in all. We found one. One woman out of the dozens of women we know, we found one.
That is a sad observation. And even more sad, when we realized that lady does not work in the humanitarian "business".
So, all you ladies out there. And specifically those of you in the humanitarian world! In my "The Dudettes" short story I tried (in my cynical and ironical way) pay a tribute to you all. But come and have your say too. Am I seeing things in a too dark, negative way? Am I seeing things too much from a "male" perspective? You tell me.
World Humanitarian Day on August 19
On August 19 2003, the UN headquarters in Baghdad was bombed, killing 22 people and maiming others for the rest of their lives. Humanitarian aid would never be the same after that.
To remember this event, the humanitarian community decided to call August 19 "World Humanitarian Day". This year is clearly in a lighter note, celebrating "us", and the work we do while still remembering the hundreds that died while trying to help others... (More)
You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 12)
...if you are convinced "KFC" stands for Karachi Fried Chicken and that "Parasonic" or "Somy" are the real thing. Read the full post...
You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 11)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if pictures from your first missions are on black and white print.
(for the aid connoisseurs amongst you: where was that picture taken?)
You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 10)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..when you come home after a six month's mission in Asia and your three year old hugs the taxi driver, crying "Daddy, I missed you so much".
You've been an aidworker for too long (9)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if you know the different tribal chiefs in Kandahar but don't believe people claiming "East" and "West"-Germany are no longer separate states.
You've been an aidworker for too long (8)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if after one minute of speaking your mother tongue with a colleague, you switch back to English.
You've been an aidworker for too long (7)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if you know the fifteen guards at the UN club in Islamabad by name, but forget how to drive to your brother's house.
You've been an aidworker for too long (6)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if you have 20 "best friends". Who live in 19 different countries.
The last time you saw any of them must have been... ooogh.. seven years ago?
You've been an aidworker for too long (5)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
..if your memory is indexed refering to the different humanitarian emergencies:
- "My oldest daughter was born the year after Angola"
- "I got married three years before Bosnia"
- "Just after the Tsunami, my parents finished building their new house"
- "I bought that car the third month after the start of Rwanda"
- "My brother started his company the year before the Iraq war"
You've been an aidworker for too long (4)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
when your kids hide behind your wife's skirt when you finally come home.
Picture courtesy TheGotoMom Read the full post...
You've been an aidworker for too long (3)
You've been an aidworker for too long...
if your own dog growls at you when you finally come home. Read the full post...
You've been an aidworker for too long (2)
You've been an aidworker for too long if...
Half of garderobe consist of Tshirts from past emergencies.
UN - Afghanistan 2002/Iraq 2003
UNHCR - Goma 1995
UN - Lokichoggio 1996
PS: Top Tshirt was IFRC Angola 1994
You've been an aidworker for too long (1)
You've been an aidworker for too long, if...
... If you resist throwing away that torn up, washed off, ravelled UNHCR T-shirt. Nobody understands your justification "but I wore that during the Rwanda refugee operation".
Your kids say it makes you look like an overaged hippie.
Admittedly, the Rwanda crisis was 16 years ago. Which is a real long time in the life of a T-shirt. But the memories are still so vivid.
T-shirts are forever. And so are the flashbacks that go with it. Read the full post...
Welcome to "Erbil", the bar of ex-aidworkers
I read through the last (for now) post of Harry Rud, an aidworker who returned from several years in Afghanistan, now working at the organisation's UK HQ. Someone mentioned in the comments, we should start an ex-aidworkers' bar. A place to indulge in reminiscent memories of dusty pasts...
I thought.. What would be the ideal ex-aidworkers' bar? The bar is to be called "Erbil", for sure. To remember the UN bar up there as the only safe place to drink (and eat for that matter) after the Iraq war (the second one that is).
The bar is really the only place you can go, to meet those in the same "zone" as you. THE spot to chill out and exchange another story "I remember when I was in.." after yet another day trying to save the world and realizing you didn't make a shit of difference. Was mostly after catching your two drivers syphoning out the petrol from your car. That was this morning. This afternoon, you fired the guard as he fell asleep on his stool next to the gate and did not wake up even if you hooted right next to him.
There are old yellow-ish pictures on the wall showing people in happier times. All of them taking in the same bar, of course. Mixed with postcards sent from holiday places. All reachable within the R&R cycle.
There is a trace of stains from the time John thought it would be fun to shake that cheap champagne bottle on his birthday, years ago. A bottle he risked his life for, smuggling it through airport customs.
The tables and chairs are a mishmash of different makes. Mostly cheap plastic. Collected after the bombing of a local community center back in 2005.
The servings of drinks differ as the weeks go by, dependent on what container Patrice - the MSF logistician - was able to smuggle into this darned muslim country. Some months, whiskey is the only drink, as the beer container got stuck at the port, lack of sufficient baksheesh.
It is amazing in how many different ways you can drink whiskey. And in how many ways you can use it. Including lightening up a short shot, and then, flame and all, put it on your forehead where it sucks itself out of oxygen. The half burned round sucking mark stays on one's forehead for a week. And is the trademark of "Erbil", our bar.
Mal once tried the same trick by sticking two of those burning shots onto his balls. He can only grin at that memory now... As I said, there are many things you can do with whiskey.
Andrew is always sitting at the same stool at the corner, no matter when you come in. You wonder if he really has a job at Care International, or if he became a beneficiary himself. His brother, Jolly -nobody knows his real name- is famous for the fancy dive he took in the swimming pool in the back. Forgetting the fact they never filled it up again after the 1995 earthquake which cracked up the foundation of the pool. And the spilling water flooded the underground safety shelter. Something which really upset that ex-Foreign Legion security officer we once had. Remember him? I remember his face, but can't remember his name. Rodriguez, wasn't it? He did not last two days after we took those shots from him dancing naked on this very same bar, and emailed it to the director of UNDSS in New York.
Little did we know they wouldn't think that was not funny. Bureaucrats!
They serve a mean chicken, here. Full of spices to kill everything living in your stomach. Special recipe of Paul, who once owned the bar. Until he drove over a landmine up-country, shopping for two lambs to put on the barbie on Xmas.
It takes about one hour to get the grilled chicken serving, as all is fresh. The chickens roam in the backyard. After the order the cook disappears for 10 minutes with an axe in her hand.
If you want to understand what food poisoning means, you eat the salad too.
The music is always the same choice out of five CDs. The rest was nicked. Aidworkers can be thugs when it comes to personal entertainment. The CD of Tom Jones' "Sexbomb" is kept for special occasions. Diana Ross' "I'm coming out" always keeps hicking up at the same spot, until the bartender gives the CDplayer a kick.
But you don't hear the music, you concentrate on that drink, and the distant noise of your VHF handheld, as a desperate radio operator tries to go through the daily radio check list. And on the distant muffled sounds of yet another grenade attack (all pre-recorded of course).
There is a large, half torn poster of Bukavu, at Lake Kivu. Must be from the Fifties, as the cypresses are not chopped into firewood yet, and the Hotel Karibu is still there. Those were the times when the living was good, and aidworkers were well respected civil servants, representing the social welfare and education arm of the colonizing country.
The electricity is cut twice a day, after which Abdul, the current owner, manually kickstarts the old grumpy 5 KVA generator, which makes the lights shimmer slightly in a rhythmic pattern.
The guests are always the same. Julie, ex-Jalalabad (shagged on R&R in Islamabad) sitting with Patricia (shagged in Juba), and Olivia, the ex-UNHCR reproductive health specialist from Goma (shagged in Mombasa). Olivia actually picked you up with the catch phrase "I have a container full of condoms, expiring next month" (HT Michael). Or was that Shelly? Anyways, does not matter, all of them give you the evil eye anyways. As if it was your fault you wanted to remain celibataire and were only looking for a quick fix?
At the next table we have Joaquim from ECHO, still looking for that single killer project to fund. A project that would propel him into the higher echelons of the Brussels Ivory Tower. For the moment, he is doing his best looking important, going through the 50 pages assessment report, full of baseline data and stakeholder interviews.
Cathy, the Texan chick (shagged in Monrovia) from USAID sits next to him, reading Bush's new book "How I won the Iraq war". As usual, Antoine, the head of mission Lutheran World Relief, joins in (tried to shag you in the Kigali transit lounge, of all places). Bible at hand, as per habit. You remember the fight you had with him, as he kept on spilling profanity on the security repeater in the middle of the night. Usually after he crawled back from the bar to his compound. You've never seen anyone wasted like this.
And then there is the table of the three OCHA dudes. Normally the loudest of all tables, as each keeps on raising their voice on top of the other. They never shut up, do they, those OCHA dudes? Professional deformity, the talking. They are either the youngest or the oldest of the whole bunch. Either fresh graduates naive enough to think aidworkers want to be coordinated, or the pre-retirees fired from every single other agency for incompetency.
Just last month, they all had a fit when their office was closed. Security phase IV, meaning "essential staff only". It was the public acknowledgement OCHA was not essential, all found. Except the Humanitarian Coordinator, of course, who got NY to intervene and allow the "Holy Threesome" as you call them, back into the country.
But all of that is "what once was", of course. Memories mixed with the cheap whiskey. Memories as all of us have decent jobs now. Jobs none of us likes. With only one common thought: "I wish I was back there". In Tblisi, Luanda, Bor, Djamena, Peshawar, Dili, Mogadishu, Nazareth (in Ethiopia, not Israel) or Gulu.
And then at 21:45 someone rings the bell (an old ship's bell that George found on the shipwrecks' beach near Karachi) and shouts "Last call, curfew at twentytwohundred!". After which we order those last 10 shots-to-go. Hand back our make-believe handhelds and safari jackets at the reception, pick up our attache case, straighten our tie, and step into our BMW.
Driving back to our suburban villa we make a mental note not to forget to pick up the lawn fertilizer tomorrow morning. And the tickets for the mid-term holiday in Tenerife.
Picture courtesy Lost in Berlin Read the full post...
Blogroll: Aid Blogs
Updated January 1, 2012
Blogs by colleagues and aidworkers all over the world.
No time to read it all? Check their latest posts in AidBlogs.
Across the Divide (World)
Advice Worth 500 Sheep (Iraq)
After Africa (Denmark)
Aidworker (Senegal)
Aid Worker Daily
Alpha Bah"
Baby Catching (Ghana)
Body in Motion (Malawi)
Captain Cat's Diaries (Afghanistan)
Cashew Man (Canada/Ethiopia)
Chasing Carly (Lebanon)
Chhaya Path (Kenya)
Concrete & Barbed Wire (Afghanistan)
Deep South Sudan
Ending Extreme Poverty (DRC)
The Faders in Sudan
From Congo (DRC)
From Here to Finvara (South Sudan)
Globetrotter Mats (World)
Habib Malik (UK)
Harry Rud (Afghanistan/UK)
Hand Relief International
Head Down Eyes Open (Geneva)
A Humourless Lot (World)
In Development
Innovations with Farmers (Ghana)
Itinerant and Indigent (Afghanistan)
Laurenist
Let Them Have Faces (DC)
Letters From Malawi
Live in Luanda (Angola)
Louder than Swahili (Tanzania)
Mangham Mayhem (Mongolia)
Marge in the field (Chad)
Martyns in Africa (Sudan)
MeriGoesAround (Benin)
My passion is for the people (Kenya)
Nathalie Abejero (Cambodia)
A New Map of the World (DC)
On My Way (Ghana)
Our Man in Hanoi
Owen Abroad (Ethiopia)
Paradox Uganda
Penelope MC (Canada)
The Perpetual Bloom (Sri Lanka)
Pyjama Samsara (Cambodia)
Rachel in Erbil (Iraq)
Rob Rooker (Sudan)
Roving Bandit (South Sudan)
Shotgunshack (World)
Street kids in Vietnam
Sudan Stories (now Haiti)
The Road to the Horizon (World)
The Signs Along The Road (World)
Straight out of the Jungle (World)
Stuff Expat Aidworkers Like
Tales of Life in Mozambique
Tales from the hood (Thailand)
The Uncultured Project (Bangladesh)
Underwater Desert (Somalia)
A View from the Cave
Voice in the Desert (Burkina Faso)
Under the mosquito net (Kenya)
Voyageuse Mondiale (Tajikistan)
Wanderlust
Where in the World? (Ghana)
Retired but still interesting aidblogs here
Do you have other interesting blogs to add? Let me know! Read the full post...
Switching off the lights
As you know, I try not to write too much about the work I do, in an attempt to segregate my official duties from my blog. I will make an exception for once.
When the earthquake stroke Haiti on January 12th, it not only devastated the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, but it also devastated our operations in Haiti. Our offices were destroyed. Our staff lost family and friends. Most of the country's infrastructure was affected, making it very difficult for any humanitarian aid to reach those in need.
We set up our office in the Dominican Republic to provide the needed support both for our own organisation and for the other aid agencies. We set up a logistics "pipeline" receiving aid goods, coming in via air and sea, and transported them via air and road into Haiti. We set up an airbridge ferrying in the initial response goods, and humanitarian staff into Port-au-Prince and beyond.
For the past months, I headed our operations, based in Santo Domingo. End of May, we are wrapping up the the initial emergency response phase. As the months went by, all organisations rebuilt their infrastructure, and the port, roads, warehousing capacity inside the country came back on its feet. Since a month, we have been converting our office from its initial response, to a more longer term configuration.
When I landed here on January 19, a few days after the Haiti earthquake, I found a dozen staff who arrived here before me, cramped in a small room. As the days went by, more and more people flew in, both to support our office, as well as all those on route to Haiti. At the peak, we had people working in the central office, at two ports, two airports, and two suboffices in the country. We built up the operation from scratch, growing to almost 100 staff, mobilized from countries all over the world. We had staff working in our offices who were called in from over 30 different countries. Logistics experts, food specialists, finance and administration staff, procurement people, airops officers, security officers and engineers...
We based our operations in two conference rooms of a hotel, here in Santo Domingo. No windows. The "dungeons" we called them, as they had no windows. Sunlight was a rarity in those early days. A month later, the hotel converted their "ping-pong room" near the swimming pool into a working space, with seven more offices normally used by beauty salons and travel agencies.
The first few weeks were hectic. We worked from 7 am until late at night, 7 days per week, moving cargo and people into Haiti, processing finance and procurement transactions like there was no tomorrow. Staff rotated in and out, replacing the "initial responders" with "fresh blood", again called in from all over the world. We had people working with us, who are normally based in our operations in North Korea, Malawi, Dubai, Rome, all over Central and South America and Asia. Senior experienced professionals worked side by side with staff for whom this was their emergency operation, and local recruits. We dealt with government officials, nutritional experts, security incidents, commercial companies, airport authorities, immigration staff and transporters. It was never a dull day for the -last count- over 170 different staff who worked in our Dominican operation.
Now, four months later, we are "switching off the lights". As of June 1, we have demobilized most of the international support staff, handing over the operations to the local staff we recruited, with just a few expat staff remaining. The initial response phase is over.
Organising a new office has its challenges. Making sure all operations go smooth, fast and auditable. Ensuring all the pieces of the supply chain match together. Building up a team, even with that many people coming in and out. Dealing with sudden 'emergencies': our staff in Haiti running out of food supplies, pockets of displaced people appearing along the border in need of assistance, one of our staff being shot at, to manually stamping 500,000 food distribution coupons.
But building something, a team, an operation, is fun. That is what I like. Downscaling -although an intrinsic part of any good aid operation- is more difficult. Not only ensuring all the last bits and pieces of the operation are properly closed, suppliers are paid, all contracts are well documented, etc... but the personal aspect, is often a challenge... "Switching off the lights".
It has been an interesting experience within myself. I had to downscale something I built. In the past four weeks, gradually people have gone back to the duty station they were called from. There have been many goodbyes. And I am not good at goodbye's.
We had many beautiful people working with us. Professional in their job, and really nice individuals. Some of them have worked in this operation since the beginning. And now, it is time to leave. Time to close what we have worked on. "our project", "our office", "our team".
Over the past months, I have gotten to love the people I work with. Working in any emergency creates that bond, the feeling of "us". And saying goodbye, especially to those who were here since the beginning, is not easy. Sure enough, we are all professional aidworkers. This is our job. But we are also human. We are not only saying goodbye to colleagues, but we are also saying goodbye to people who have become close friends. People who we have shared a unique experience with. People who we have shared these incredible four months with.
As we walk in this road of life, we cross many people and we create many bonds. The bond between emergency responders is unique. We hold together. Together against the challenges of time, the challenge of the enormous needs, the challenges of.. "the outside world". We live and work together, not thinking of "tomorrow", but dealing with the issues of "today".
And now, we will all go our own way. Back to France, Italy, Panama, Ivory Coast... Many of us, in thoughts. A piece of us will remain here, in Santo Domingo. Cradled in memories of those crazy nights stamping those damned coupons. Of the time where we had to get a ton of food for our own staff on the plane in three hours. Of the time where we had to get that much needed aid cargo at the border in 24 hours.
Once upon a time, we will all meet again. In another emergency. When I meet Georges next time in flood operation somewhere in Asia, or Alex in a civil war somewhere in Africa, or Henrik in a drought operation in the Caucasus, we will meet again as old friends. As if we never parted. Sharing the memories of this operation. Sharing the bond.
But for the time being, we have to go. We part. We say goodbye. Knowing there is never enough we can express at the moment when we give that final handshake: "Thank you for your help, it was a pleasure working with you", while we really wanted to say is "You know, I loved working with you. You are now part of my heart. Thank you for being part of this".
So for all of you, this is not goodbye. But "I will see you again". You are in my heart. We did well. We made a difference! Read the full post...
Zen and the aidworker
When I started blogging back in January 2007, I discovered a number of blogs from fellow humanitarian. One of them was "Frida", who - at that time - worked for the UN in Afghanistan.
Over the years, I followed her road to (self-)discovery, until she ended up in her new life, and on her new site, under her own name "Marianne Elliott".
Marianne actively shares her experiences as a person, in the humanitarian world, enticing others to do well. For the world, and for themselves. Recently, she interviewed me about my experiences as a person, in this roller-coaster of a life as an aidworker. The interview, you can read here.
Yesterday, we did an interactive Q&A session via Twitter, together with some like-minded people. You can read through the trackback here.
Both the interview and the Twitter session made me think how often we ignore many things in life that should be important to us, getting too sucked up into the whirlpool of work. Particularly in the type of work we, aidworkers, do. Often in all of it, we forget life is more than work, and while our time on this planet is limited, we'd better make good use of it.
The timing of it all came just right. In two weeks time, I will wrap up my mission here in Santo Domingo, and since a few weeks I've been thinking what to next. I thought the time was right for yet another sabbatical. Another breath of life, before embarking in the next adventure.
Sabbaticals are not new to me. I took the first one back in 1993, where I decided to go to the Antarctic. I took another break in 1997, to go to the Antarctic again. And yet another one in 2006, for 13 months, to sail across the Atlantic, and start writing down some of my past adventures, both for work, and in my free time.
So, as of mid June, I am off again, for 6 months. No clear clue yet as to what I will do. Spend more time with the family, that is for sure. Shuttling between Rome and Belgium, as I want to continue being connected to work. I also want to have more time to experiment with social media and see how far I can push the Web 2.0 tools for the humanitarian cause. We will see what we come up with, and where we will end. Destiny has always been good to me, so I not worried. We will see... Life is too short to be boring. And a bit of a breather will be good.
Picture of Marianne in Afghanistan, courtesy of Marianne Elliott
Newly found aidworker blogs
I cleaned up my list of aidworkers' blogroll in the sidecolumn. Blogs with irregular updates and those from aidworkers who moved on, I moved to the archive.
I also added my latest aidworker blog finds:
- Habib Malik from the UK, who travels around the world for Islamic Relief.
- Sudan Stories, by Ali who actually just moved to Haiti.
- My passion is for the people is a blog by Meghan in Kenya
- Wander Everywhere follows the travels of aidworker Caitlin
While I cleaned up the blogs, I continuously got distracted by browsing through them. I should say, anyone wondering if aidwork is something for them, should read through those blogs. They give the best peep one can get into the daily life of a humanitarian in the field. With the joys, frustrations, surprises, doubts, anger, sadness and dumbness we are often confronted with.
Enjoy!
Picture courtesy Sudan Stories Read the full post...
Now I know: one never knows!
Once the French actor Jean Gabin made a song "Maintenant je sais", "Now I know". He tells a story that when he was young, he always thought he knew everything, and as he grew up, he started to doubt what he really knew, what he really understood of life. He concludes saying as a 60 year old, his life is mostly behind him and "there is only one thing I know for sure: I never know".
Maybe as you are young and are trying to find your way in life, you need to reassure yourself not to be swept off your feet by everything happening in life. And as years go by, you learn about your own strengths and weaknesses, so you no longer need to hold on to the straws of false assurances... So you can give yourself the liberty or privilege of doubting.
Another way to look at it, is: when you are young, 8 or 10, you look up to adults as if "they know what they are doing". A job, kids, house, financials, life in general. As you grow into an adult yourself, you start to see the doubts and struggles that also your parents have experienced: they did not know neither, but tried their best.
I will turn 50 this year, believe it or not. When I was young I always said I would die falling of a tree, a cliff, freeze to death on some mountain top, crash in a remote area in Africa before I turned 50... I never believed I could turn 50, me, who was always the youngest and the wildest in the bunch...
But now I do turn 50, I also learned that struggles and doubts continue if you live life intensively and to the fullest. I know these internal battles will never stop. I learned that bit, and came to terms that "I will never Know"... I will continue to doubt whether the choices in life I am making, are the right ones for me, for those around me. Whether the choices I make at work are the right ones, whether I do things right. And somewhere that is the beauty of life. And maybe it is the strength of a person: the strength to dare to doubt. The strength of understanding you will never know.
Aidworkers are like driftwood
Last night I arrived back in my apartment near Rome. As I opened the door with a key I had not used for almost three months, the familiar smells and sights engulfed me. It felt as if I had just walked out of the door for a few minutes, to buy a pack of cigarettes in the shop downstairs.
A pair of shoes stood under the small table in the hallway, with next to it some spots of volcanic sand from the previous stroll on the beach now ten weeks ago. I walked into the kitchen to unlock the backdoor, switched on the boiler, picked up a glass on the way back, hooked up my iPod to the sound system, selected Italian opera, checked messages on the answering machine, drew the curtains aside and opened the living room windows.
The smell of distant sea-silt, the fresh breeze, the trees waking up from a winter sleep, the laughter of the kids playing below in the street, the dog from the house across the street barking, and the meshed conversations from the people coming out of the ristorante on one corner, with the those sitting on the terrace of the coffee shop on the other corner.
All of it made it feel as if I only left for a few minutes. But it did not feel this was the place I missed during my travels to the Dominican and Haiti. It did not feel this was the place I dreamt of. It felt as if I wasn't really gone. A piece of me stayed here. A big piece of my heart never left. Coming back felt like two pieces of my heart were joined again, making it skip a beat for a second. I smiled when I realized my heart pounded faster. I felt happy. "Honey, I am home"..!
But what is "home" for a wandering aidworker? I will be here for four days, then off to the North for a few days, followed by another plane ride to Belgium, my other home, for a week. Then I will drive off for a week of skiing, and back. Plane back to Rome for a day, and then to my other home, in the Dominican, for a few months.
What is home really? What defines home? The pillow I lay my head on? The hands I held in thoughts? The smile of my girls?
In thoughts, I pushed my travel bags in a corner, sat down, and opened a bottle of Prosecco, realizing this life I lead is a weird life. But it is the life I conscientiously had chosen since I left for a war-torn Angola back in 1994. Sixteen years I have been on the road, and made my home in dozens of places. What? Hundreds of places! From the hotel room in Georgia where the wind would swing the electrical wires on the street until they shortened with a bang, waking me up every night. To the apartment in Tajikistan where the tap water was as black as ink. To the bed and breakfast place on the border of Cambodia and Vietnam where I had to pick the leeches off my legs each time I walked in the garden. To the underground bunker in Kabul. The humid guesthouse in Islamabad shared with cockroaches. The Out-of-Africa villa in Lilongwe and the house on the hill in Kampala, known as "the house next to the big mango tree", until the transformer next to it went up in flames, burning down the tree while it was at it, then to be known as "the house next to the big charred mango tree"...
This morning, before even taking a shower, I wanted one of the things I missed about this place: A Cafe Latte with a cornetto. As I got out of bed, I put on some clothes - realizing I forgot my jeans in my Domingo home, and went down. Laura, behind the counter as usual, said 'Ciao, Peter!", as if I'd never left. I sat on the terrace tasting the coffee as if it was my first. Looking at the blue sky lined with palm trees as if it was the first time I saw it.
I thought a shower might be a good idea, but, as I went through the last piece of the croissant, I realized I took my electric shaver with me, but forgot my charger in Santo Domingo. Strange how you realize things clearly sometimes, but at the moment where you should have remembered, you forget. I dug out the keys to my car, brushed the pine tree needles off the wind shield, and went to buy a razor. Got distracted by the early spring flowers on the way back. Conscientiously took a different turn, and drove off to the sea. Locked the car, and walked up the beach.
It was then I saw a large piece of driftwood. It was then I realized my life was as if it were driftwood. Floating from one place to the other. Each place left marks on me, in me. And as time went by, each place sculptured me bit by bit, making me who and what I am.
It was then I realized this is the life I like. Drifting from place to place. Not rooting in any, but loving all. And particularly loving this beach where I was pulled ashore, right here in Italy.
Haiti, where Mañana is not an option...
"Mañana, por favor!", I answer when housekeeping knocks on my door. Mañana, please, I am working...
I sit, computer on my lap, on my bed reading through a backlog of emails, catching up on work done, being done, and work to do.
I just got back from two days in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. It has been almost two months since I landed in Santo Domingo to coordinate the support functions for the Haiti crisis, out of the Dominican Republic. My days are full. My attention is switching from a meeting with one of the ministers, staff recruitment, debugging a cash advance problem, a meeting on limiting the overtime the drivers can do, a shipment which seems to be lost but really is not, stamping the numbering on the food coupons, staffing contracts and a security incident.
It is not the amount of work that tires me, it is the intensity in which issues come, and need to be dealt with. Not that I don't like it, but in the evening, I pass out on my bed...
After two days in Haiti, I wonder how my colleagues can deal with their work, which is a ten fold more complex than mine. They don't have a comfortable hotel room, five floors up and 1 minute away from the office. They either live in Camp Charly, the tent camp for the humanitarians, or have to shuttle to the boat anchored off shore, to spend the night. Given, the boat is more comfortable, but it takes anything between one to two hours to get there. Some of the staff pitched their tent in the back of the container park, in "Log Base", right next to the airport, where most UN agencies set up tents, tarps and office containers, making it the "humanitarian nerve center" of the operation.
The humanitarian part of Log Base is nothing but one narrow road, lined with parked vehicles, crowded with people moving around between the offices, and filled on either side with "offices".
The fortunate have a 20 foot office container, some with airconditioning, with tarps over them to avoid water sipping through the joints. The less fortunate have massive tents to work in. Meetings are held in open spaces covered with tarps, or half open shelters. Lack of working space is common with most containers cramped with four people, hardly fitting the make shift desks, filled with files and folders hardly leaving space to fit their legs inbetween.
The noise is constant, mostly from planes and helicopters taking off or landing on the airstrip a few hundred feet away. During the meetings, when the screaming noise of yet another Ilutsin taking off builds up, people just stop their sentence for thirty seconds, and then continue as if nothing happened. Like pushing the 'pause' button on a video.
Most of the containers are now properly wired up onto the generators, and have network connections to the servers and satellite links. Nothing much we can do these days anymore without connectivity, be it for emails, telephone calls, or registering all procurement or logistics transactions onto the central servers in HQ.
Luckily, during my two days, it was neither hot, nor raining, and many staff commented "this weather is as good as it gets". I can imagine the dust, humidity or mud on other days.
There is a constant flow of visitors. Army personnel, staff from the other agencies and NGOs, civilians, people from the government and local communities, people coming back from assessment missions or distribution points. It makes it hard to keep concentrated to the task at hand, as people get interrupted every other minute.
And although the spotlight of the world's cameras is no longer focused on Haiti, the humanitarian operation is still to peak. While during the first six weeks, the utmost urgent needs were being met with loads of cargo being flown in, the steady massive flow of the aid cargo coming in per ship has started. While one plane can bring in up to 100,000 kgs of aid supplies, a ship can bring in 400,000,000 kgs in one go. So the logistics and distribution challenges are only starting now.
On top of it all, the rainy season has begun, making the need of the bringing in supplies even more urgent. And we have the hurricane season just around the corner.
So, sitting back in my hotel room on this Sunday, I can not have but admiration for the staff working in Haiti. Many of them were present during the earthquake. They have lost their homes, suffered from loosing family or friends, scarred by seeing the human misery day by day.
I wish anyone criticizing the humanitarian agencies on the ground in Haiti, could spend a week there, working with them and feel what it is to be faced with the daunting tasks ahead, where "Mañana" might not be an option.
Pictures from my visit to Haiti, and random snapshot from day to day life here, can be found on Shot from the Hip.
Being a manager of an emergency team
For almost 9 years, I headed different emergency response teams while I was based in Uganda (the Great Lakes emergency), Kosovo, Pakistan/Afghanistan and later out of Dubai. Back in 2006, I took a sabbatical and after that worked for three years in Italy, outside of the emergency response scene.
The Haiti operation is my first emergency since four years. Just before leaving Rome, on my way to the Dominican Republic, I wondered by myself, if I still had it in me. If the tools I built for myself over the years were not rusty. But already the first day on the ground in Santo Domingo, it was clear the past experience I was able to build up, did not fade. I felt -once again- as a fish in the water.
In our office, we manage about 80 people, most of them coming from different operations all over the globe. People were picked from other offices, all over the world. From North Korea to Ecuador, from Rome to Indonesia and Malawi. I think they must come from 50 odd different offices. Some are experienced staff, and for some, this was their first emergency response. Some are logisticians, others finance officers or procurement staff, others are administrative assistants, fleet managers, air operations specialist, counsellors, warehouse managers or nutritionists.
How, as a manager, do you make these people fold into one team? I often think about what makes a team work. And the role of a manager in a team. Off the top of my head, let me sum up some points I find crucial.
1. Give direction
Define the team goals from the beginning. It gives people a sense of direction, it helps turning the faces of all different units in the same way.
2. Care
As a manager, your staff is your main asset. Your staff will make or break an operation. Be sensitive to the individuals in your team. Debug conflicts right at the start, before they become major issues. Ensure your staff keeps healthy, care for their wellbeing. A fruitbasket a day sometimes makes all the difference. Mind their energy levels. Chase them out of the office when needed, so they don't burn out.
3. Give feedback
Tell your staff when things are not done well, knowing they do their best, and have the best intentions. Praise when praise is due. An occasional pad on the back does not cost anything.
4. Structure
Draw up the team organigram from the start. People need to know who they report to, and what unit they belong to. Put a person in charge of each unit. Ensure the reporting structure is respected, and assist the unit heads where needed.
Brief new staff as they arrive. Explain the team goals, the organigram, the way the office is run.
5. Smile
Everyone has a bad day once in a while. I for one, never hide it when I am in a pissy mood. But I also love to walk around my team and hand out a friendly word and a smile from time to time... Amazing how much difference it makes sometimes.
6. Enable
As a manager, you are an enabler. You have to give the people the tools they need. Be it the budget, connectivity, a decent office space, or equipment. Without their tools, the best team members will not be able to function.
7. Debug
After defining the initial team structures, the basic systems and procedures are put in place, and giving your team the tools it needs, one of the main tasks of a manager in emergency operations, is to be a debugger. Ensure people come to you with their issues, and help them on the spot. Don't let problems 'breed' or 'simmer'... Keep your door open.
Often people ask me what I do, as a manager. Apart from my task in linking the teams to the 'outside world', be it the government, the UN system or our HQ, my main day-to-day task is "debugging". I see myself as the guy who walks around with a toilet plunger -the stick with a large rubber suction tab- sticking it into the lavatories and going 'Zwonk-Zwonk', until the garbage is gone, and the water flows again. I am a professional toilet-declogger.
8. Involve
Teams working in emergencies tend to become very focused, which is good. Well-functioning units concentrate on their task at hand. All OK, but also ensure they maintain the overall focus and the context of the operation. Even after the first month in this emergency, I still have an all-team meeting once per day. It gets people from behind their desk for a few minutes while I can give some information on what is going on beyond our office, within the emergency. Everyone likes to feel part 'of the big machine', feel their work makes a difference. Certainly important for humanitarians!
9. Delegate
In a fast evolving emergency, it is impossible to micromanage. Ensure you have staff you can entrust with the task at hand. Empower the supervisors within their own team, and delegate the tasks. Pass through the supervisors rather than tasking people directly. Often one of my big challenges, by the way.
10. Spot check
It is impossible to check everything going on. But random spot checks on what's up, gives you as a manager a good idea what's going on. Read the signs. Sloppy expense reports might point to a sloppy finance officer. Delayed attendance sheets, might point to a sloppy HR officer...
And now I am thinking "Where did I sin against my own rules, today?" :-)
Picture courtesy Jonathan Thompson
The pipeline into Haiti
Eight days ago, which seems a lifetime ago right now, we were meeting in Rome, with the operational group, briefing about the Haiti earthquake emergency. The initial response teams had already been deployed, and the reports we got from the ground gave us a clear view of the enormity of the catastrophy, and the size of the humanitarian response it would require.
During the meeting, we realized that the destruction of the infrastructure inside Haiti would not allow us to bring humanitarian aid straight into the country, neither by air or sea. I stressed the need to beef up the logistics and support capacity we had in the Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbour. While we were discussing the possibilities, my boss bent over to me, and asked: "Would you want to run that part of the operation". And I said "Yes".
That was at 10 am. Two hours later, senior management had agreed, and I got my "marching instructions": set up the logistics and support "pipeline" in the Dominican Republic. I asked to leave on Tuesday, so I had time to define what I would need in terms of people and structure, and to prepare myself.
On the Tuesday, I flew into Santo Domingo, the capital. As I walked into the office, I saw 30 people cramped into a space, suitable for maybe 10 people. Staff was working with 6 at a table of one.
The same day, we negotiate office and accommodation space at a local hotel, and the next day, we moved. Staff kept on flying in, either to work out of our "Dominican hub" or in transit to Haiti. This evening, I checked, and we already had 67 rooms occupied in the hotel, meaning 67 people were already working in our Santo Domingo office, excluding the logistics hubs we are currently establishing in Barahona and Jimani.
Our operation is supporting the food "pipeline" into Haiti, transporting 40 trucks of food per day, soon to be increased to 60 trucks per day. We also have two passenger planes and one cargo plane which fly into Haiti twice or three times. We don't only transport food, but also ferry people and humanitarian aid into Haiti for other agencies. And it is only the beginning.
Since I landed, the operation has rapidly increased in size, and will continue to do so. Days and nights fade into one. I concentrated in organising the office structure, and creating an environment where my staff could work. We are working out of two converted conference rooms in the hotel, squatting with our laptops at conference tables with admin staff, procurement people, the air operations officers and the logistics group. As I walk around the rooms, I overhear conversations about flight and cargo bookings, people negotiating warehouse space, deals being made about jet fuel, travel bookings, offloading planes, security clearances, the purchasing of drinking water, and situation reports. It is a positive, 'we-can' atmosphere. I can see people smile, and enjoy the work the do. This is the stuff they like, the core of a humanitarian aid spirit.
And I have great staff. They know their work, I don't have to do much, other than a bit of guidance here and there, and for the rest, just be the "oil in the machinery". Each group, be it the logisticians, air ops people, procurement staff, or the travel people, all know what to do and how to do it. I see small teams working on the deployment of the helicopters, the flight schedule of the next days, the increase of our trucking capacity or simply putting together the contact list of those operating in the country. I am proud of them.
And inbetween all of it, Jayne stands up and shouts "Quiet everyone, who has bloodtype B+"? One of our staff member in Haiti dug his two children out of the rubble of what once was his house, and we evacuated them into Santo Domingo. One of the children was going into shock and the hospital lacked B+ blood. A staff member raised her hands, and she was driven to the bloodbank. Meanwhile the hotel staff started an SMS campaign to find more B+ blood and in one hour came up with a list of 8 donors. The child was saved. For now that is, he remains in critical condition.
Meanwhile we continue to get 'shopping lists' from our people on the ground in Haiti. The need instant coffee, sun screen, water, toilet paper... I admire them. In between the trauma of having experienced the quake, they continue to operate for 18 hours a day. With a complete lack of any basic comfort. Living and working in temporary tents. I think of them, as I am sitting in my comfortable hotel room, one hour's flight away. I wish them well. They have a daunting task ahead of them. I wished they could see how dedicated we are to serve them, and their work. We, our office, is committed to keep "the pipeline" going. The virtual flow of humanitarian aid, and survival assets.
We are committed.
Haiti: When aidworkers need aid
Colleague Roxanne wrote an excellent post about the complexity of the humanitarian operations in Haiti.
I can add this: I just got of the teleconference with our staff on the ground in Haiti. When the earthquake struck, they saw buildings collapsing all around them. Of the UN compound only one building remained half standing up. It took over a day before anyone had any overview if we accounted for all the staff, leave alone their family members, national and international staff alike.
While the enormity of the humanitarian needs was immediately clear, staff started to provide humanitarian aid, while still left with the question if their brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, aunts and nieces were ok.
Many people were buried under the rubble, many lost their houses, and our staff was no exception. Even up to today, some are still trying to find out if family members are still alive. Most lost their homes. This morning, one of our staff came with his child in his arms, a child he pulled out of the ruins of his house the night before. The child needed urgent medical care, care which was not available.
The office was evacuated, and they set up a temporary base in make-shift tents. Most of the staff still sleeps in the cars. Just as I left the office today, people were bringing me sleeping mats and mosquito nets, medical kits and first aid kits, for our own staff. Stuff which I will bring with me, when flying to the Dominican Republic tomorrow, stuff which will go onto the next plane out of Santo Domingo.
While this was still going on, food distributions, despite the logistical and security challenges and the uncertainty of their own well-being, went on. Aid was being delivered.
It is easy for us, remotely, in our comfortable chair, to judge if relief efforts are going well or not, if sufficient aid is being delivered. But it is, despite all odds, including staffs' own well being.
Their commitment deserves our respect. They surely have my respect. And I vow that the moment I hit the ground in the Dominican Republic, not only will I ensure my devotion to the delivery of aid, but I also vow I will ensure we take care of the well-being our staff.
Picture courtesy WFP/Alejandro Lopez Chicheri Read the full post...
Ending the year on a sad note: lost two more colleagues.
2007 was bad. 2008 was worse. 2009 topped them all. And the last week of the year was no exception to a very disturbing trend: the aid community lost two colleagues again. Ali Farah Amey was shot dead in Beledweyn (Somalia) and a 24 year national UN staff member was killed in a suicide bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Aidworkers become part of a free-for-all turkey shoot. I can't put it more blunt than that.
In a post reminding everyone on the plight of his two colleagues taken hostage in Darfur, fellow blogger Paul Conneally states:
There is another aspect which niggles slightly and that is the deafening silence that generally meets the news of aid workers being killed or taken hostage. There is not only a relative silence from governments, media or the public but even from the humanitarian sector itself. Compare the death in Afghanistan of aid workers to that of soldiers who, by and large, are armed to the teeth and sent to Afghanistan to kill or be killed. I don't dispute military interventions - not my business - but it is quiet incredible that the media is so keen to eulogize the military as 'fallen heroes' and ignore those who risk (and give) their lives desperately trying to make a difference on the human level without resorting to state of the art munitions and military occupation.But I want to make it even more black and white: We, the aid community are left clueless what to do with this increased risk we face. The only thing we seem to be doing is piling up those sandbags even higher. Buying more bomb-blast film, bullet-proof jackets and mine-resistant Kevlar layers for our vehicles. Measures which should be taken, but proven to be insufficient.
I will make a prediction for 2010: there will be no end to the killing of aidworkers. And unless the aid community drastically changes its approach toward the risks now inherent to aidwork, one year from now, we will be looking back at the year 2010 and say "This was a bad year....".
My suggestions to any aid organisation who is concerned about security for their staff:
- Make it compulsive for all aid staff to follow a two-three days security awareness course. The course is to be re-done, as a refresher, every two years.
- Everyone going into high risk area, should get a separate and customized security briefing.
- Every agency and NGO should comply with the MOSS (Minimum Operational Security Standards), and ensure the MOSS guidelines are strictly adhered to. MOSS compliance is to be verified by an independent external team.
- Security compliance should become part of the normal audit cycle. Complaints about security deficiencies should be handled with the same priority as theft, harassment or embezzlement.
- Every agency and NGO should employ a "Dirty Harry" team, with one and only one task: to try and bypass the security systems in order to expose deficiencies.
- And most importantly: as you can not reduce the thread, but can only decrease the risk to your staff members: reduce the amount of people we employ in security-risky areas. Resist donor pressure and the aidwork-inherent-testosterone-craze by wanting to rush into any emergency operation, without thinking "are we really needed there?".
Security... Much blabla, little boumboum.
Case #1:
Yesterday, Italian prime minister Berlusconi was hit by a guy hurling a statuette at him. He was taken away with blood all over his face. The hospital later confirmed he broke his nose and two teeth.
Berlusconi was amidst a crowd handing out autographs. Only last weekend tens of thousands marched in Rome to demand Berlusconi's resignation, accusing him of conflicts of interest and of tailoring laws to protect him from prosecution in cases involving his media, real estate and sports empire, and links to the mafia.
Case #2:
"EU leaders must show leadership!" shouted one while two others waved yellow flags reading "EU Save Copenhagen" and another started reading out a statement on the red carpet meant for the EU top officials: A bus load of Greenpeace activists stunned security officials at last Thursday's EU-summit in Brussels.
Eleven people dressed in suits, driving hired limousines, displaying look-alike security badges - displaying the Greenpeace logo and their real name -, were waved through at both a police and a private security firm's roadblock, before arriving at the red carpet amidst top politicians.
The reaction from the Belgian officials flabbergasted me: "If we would have thought anyone would be stupid enough to do this kind of dangerous stuff, then probably this would not have happened", said Christian De Coninck, the Brussels police spokesperson. "If people use heavy material like faked police cars, and ditto badges, than of course anyone can get in". He stressed the police had not made a single mistake and "there are no holes in the security system at the EU summit."
Securitas, the private security firm which staffed the last road block before entering the red carpet zone, stated: "It is our duty to check all delegate cars. For security reasons, none of these cars should stand still, so we can only do a superficial check." According to Paul Schoolmeesters, spokesman from Securitas, "we only did what the client asked of us".
My case:
Having worked for years in security constrained humanitarian operations, the comments in the last case have me rolling over in (cynical) laughter.
Both cases prove three things:
- If anyone wants to 'hit' anything or anyone, they can do so. Easily. It only takes some guts, creativity and very few means.
- Any security system has flows, flows which we don't see because we don't want to see them.
- Any security system is only as strong as the weakest link. The weakest links are often the people who implement the security checks.
No matter how good we think our security system are, there are always flaws. For as far as I know, no humanitarian organisation employs a "dirty Bob": a person with the sole task to try and break existing security systems, exposing their weaknesses. The results would be astonishing.
Pictures courtesy BBC and De Redactie Read the full post...
How to create an aidworkers briefing kit
Reliefweb is one of the main repositories of aid news. One of the lesser-known features of Reliefweb is briefing kit creator, an handy pre-mission informationtool.
The briefing kit creates your own overview of a humanitarian situation in a particular country or emergency operation, and puts it all in a single PDF file. You can select the information on basis of the country, the type of information (appeals, assessments, field reports,...), the source of the data (NGOs, government,...), the sector (agriculture, food, refugees,...).
The data includes situation reports, press releases, maps and other information, which can be generated and downloaded on the spot, or can be made in the background, and emailed to you after it is generated.
Here is a video explaining it all:
And of course, while you are on mission, continue to check Humanitarian News. With a simple search you'll get the latest articles on your interested subjects from over 600 different hand-selected information sources. You can even create your own RSS feed based on your search criteria. Read the full post...
More blogging aidworkers
I have found four more blogging aidworkers:
- Denise in Tajikistan features astonishing notes and pictures from some of the most isolated places in the world: Voyageuse Mondiale
- Nathalie in Cambodia always amuses me with her witty writing: Nathalie Abejero
- Matthew is an aidworker in Bangladesh and writes mostly about self-development: iDevelopWorld
- The last blog is "someone" writing from "somewhere" in the field: Straight out of the Jungle
Take your time to browse around these blogs. They provide a unique view into the daily life of a unique brand of people I am happy to call "my friends and colleagues".
I automatically post update summaries for each of these blogs on AidBlogs (updates via Twitter: @AidBlogs).
If you want to follow the updates mixed with the "wider humanitarian news", then Humanitarian News might be your thing. The latter broadcasts updates @HumanityNews on Twitter...
Picture courtesy Voyageuse Mondiale Read the full post...
Picture of the Day: Shot and Charred
A charred bulletproof vest lays in the burnt-out UN Kabul guesthouse, which was attacked last week. (Full)
More Pictures of the Day on The Road.
Picture courtesy Peter Nicholls/The Times Read the full post...
Attack us where we work, attack us where we sleep.
After the devastating suicide bomb in our office in Islamabad three weeks ago, I knew it was going to be bad day when the first Twitter message I saw this morning was: "UN guesthouse in Kabul attacked, 5 staff dead".
From the NY Times:
The guests were still sleeping when the gunmen, dressed in police uniforms, arrived early Wednesday. In the dark, they shot the guards, scaled the front gate of the guest house and began firing grenades, the beginning of a terrifying two-hour siege that showed just how little it takes for the Taliban to trap foreigners in central Kabul.
By the end of the siege, at least five United Nations employees, two Afghan security officials and the brother-in-law of a prominent Afghan politician were dead, as were their three attackers. (Full)
2008 was a record year in terms of casualties amongst aid workers. 2009 promises to be even worse. I keep track of most of these attacks on The Road Daily.
It is only weeks ago I wrote:
It is strange.. It is only after the hours go by that the cruelty and the reality of the act today really seeps through... And the consciousness that if we are to work in a higher risk environment, there actually is not one place, where one is totally safe. Where would that be? In the office? They drive a truck through the gates and blow it up. In the guesthouse or the hotel? Same thing...(Full)
This is the dilemma we, aidworkers, face today: We are nowhere safe anymore. Terrorism, banditry, sheer violence. And we can not isolate ourselves from the communities we are suppose to serve. We can not lock ourselves up in fortresses, as the US did with their embassies worldwide after the bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. We need to be "there", we need to be where the aid is required. We need to do the assessments, we need to monitor to ensure the aid goes where it is supposed to go. But slowly, the violence makes it impossible to do our work properly. And who suffers? Those in need. As always.
Picture courtesy Altaf Qadri/Associated Press Read the full post...
A deadly bomb blast in my office
It is difficult to imagine what people go through when a suicide bomb determines who is to live and who is not. Here is the story from Rehmat Yazdani, one of our colleagues, who survived yesterday's bombing of the UN WFP office in Islamabad, Pakistan.
I am shaken and traumatized after the yesterday’s blast which took place inside my office building only a few paces away from my glass-cabin. The blast was so sudden and strong that it took me some time to register what actually had happened there with all of us. It was so strong that I was thrown from my chair to a few feet away on the floor.
Everything was shattered into pieces only in a matter of seconds. When I tried getting up from the floor, I had broken wooden pieces in my hair, my head and body were aching badly as something had hit me severely. I was not in my senses and my whole body was shaking badly, the sound of the deadly blast was resonating in my ears and I was so shocked that I could not move a step. There were injured colleagues lying on the floor. My room was on fire and pieces of paper, broken pieces of doors, broken pieces of my glass cabin, windows and tables were lying here and there. I was looking at my injured colleagues in a state of shock and horror. “Vacate the building immediately”, I heard one of my colleagues saying. But I could not move till the time one of my colleague dragged me outside the building. But that was not the end of it.
The real horror started when my colleagues started taking the dead and injured bodies outside the building. Yes, bodies drenched in blood of people I worked and used to spent a major part of my day on regular basis… It was such a heartbreaking scene……We had tears in ours eyes. We were horrified and traumatized…
None of us in the office had ever imagined that this Bloody Monday will change our lives for ever and we will be left with haunted memories of the incident. I have not recovered from the shock yet, the whole scene is playing back again and again in my brain, even the sedative pills failed to calm down my nerves. None of my other colleagues are out of trauma yet. Those innocent souls who died in the blast would never be there in our office again and our office would never be the same place again….. I pray for all the departed souls (Gul, Farzana, Wahab, Abid Rehman and Udan) and I am going to miss them forever …
My mother says that it is a miracle that I have only minor injuries and I survived despite the fact that the bomb blasted only a few paces away from where I sit But I am thinking why this miracle did not happen in case of Gul, Farzana, Wahab, Abid Rehman and Udan. Why these innocent people lost their lives?? What will become of their families now?? What was their fault or What was our fault that all of us became victims of a bomb blast and are left with haunted memories ??
Read also this story by one of our colleagues, Dima, who remembers her friend, Farzana, she will not meet again.
Story republished courtesy MetBlogs. Picture courtesy Dawn Read the full post...
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Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
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