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.
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...
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):
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, 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, 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".
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
The Road's Dashboard
Log in
New
Edit
Customize
Dashboard