Category Archives: humanitarian action

Me participating in a volunTOURism activity? Yes, it’s happening!

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A drawing of Jayne, with wild hair, jogging while pulling a suitcase on wheels behind her.

I’m well known in many corners of the Interwebs for speaking out against unethical voluntourism, where people from North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand pay money to a company to go abroad for a week or two for a feel-good experience and lots of photos, doing things that can actually be harmful: interacting with orphans and refugees (who need long-term relationships and should never be used as Instagram props), interacting with wildlife (who should never be exposed to repeated human interactions, especially tourists), doing activities that local people want to do themselves and paid for (building a school, building a well), and undertaking activities that aren’t a priority for nor led by local people. Unethical voluntourism is vanity volunteering at it’s WORST.

But there is such a thing as ethical voluntourism: where local people define the activity and lead it. Where the focus is on educating the visitors so they can become advocates back in their own countries. Where the activity actually creates jobs for local people. Where short-term visitors are kept away from vulnerable people, like orphans, and view wildlife from afar, not interacting with them as though they are pets. Where intercultural learning really does happen. And, yes, volunteers might have fun and take lots of photos, but in an ethical matter: no photos of children without parental permission, for instance.

I’ve long promoted the idea of transire benefaciendo, “to travel along while doing good.” When I travel abroad, I try to eat at locally-run restaurants, eat locally-sourced food, drink locally-produced beer, book local guides, and stay in locally-run, small guest houses as much as possible. I try not to create a lot of waste. I refuse to have my photo taken with supposed “orphaned” or performing wildlife. I find an adult to ask permission of before taking a photo with a recognizable kid in it. As I say on my web site,

I think transire benefaciendo is also about traveling with purpose. It’s a trip, a journey, with the intention of learning, with an intention of local interaction. It’s travel that is mutually beneficial for both the traveler and the people in the place where the journey will take place. transire benefaciendo is purposeful travel, about widening a traveler’s understanding of the world rather than ticking something off a bucket list.

But I’ve never thought about a voluntourism trip for myself… until now.

In May 2025, if all goes as planned, I’m going to Paraguay with Habitat for Humanity. And if I know you – as in, we’re linked in LinkedIn or my personal Facebook page, or we have worked together, YOU CAN COME WITH ME.

Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village program was revamped during the COVID epidemic. I sat in on the official video call going through the program. Some things I learned:

  • From the beginning, volunteers participating in this program will learn about the need for adequate housing around the world, so they can become advocates regarding the cause and champions for equitable housing long after their trip has ended. 
  • Habitat wants to avoid, specifically, “voluntourism” and “white Saviorism.” International volunteers should be “partners”, not “saviors.” The program is moving away from the charity mindset to a community-partnership mindset. Community-centered volunteering focuses on local leadership and local impact. International volunteers should to enter a community with their own ideas of what needs to be done. Local people should be listened to. The “agenda of change” needs to be defined by and led by the local people being served, not the funder, not the outside volunteers coming into a community. 
  • Habitat Global Village projects are designed by local communities. Focus will be on local ownership and local sustainability. Local leaders will be identified and will be leaders in these Habitat projects. The goal of the builds will be to support existing projects in the country.
  • Local partners will be front and center in communications and marketing.   
  • Habitat wants to be involved in more than just the creation of a structure – it’s also the support for “development,” like better safety and security, children doing better in school, etc.
  • Volunteer activities will be focused on volunteers engaging in mutual learning and exchange with local people, rather than tourism activities.
  • A promotion of safeguarding will be much more emphasized throughout the experience.

I was thrilled as I sat through this presentation, especially when the research cited for these changes was from UN Volunteers (my former employer) and VSO (one of my former consulting clients). And I was even more thrilled when I got the invitation from the team leader to go to Paraguay!

So, what will it take for you to come with me?

  • You need to email me and say you are interested. If you know me, you have my email.
  • You need to read the information I send you. And if you decide you want to go, you let me know and I will connect you with the group leader.
  • You will have to fundraise a certain amount of money for Habitat, just as I had to (and I will help fundraise on your behalf), and you will to pay your own expenses (airline tickets) for your part of the trip, just as I have to. Habitat makes it SUPER easy to fundraise. I also made a video to help promote my trip and support for such. So, yes, this trip is going to cost you money. You will find out how much when you contact me.

Let’s go to Paraguay!

(but what if I do NOT know you & you want to go? Then you are going to have to do some very effective convincing for me to know you are a good, reliable, appropriate person to recommend for this trip).

Your Nonprofit CAN Resist. Here’s how.

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A cartoonish hand is palm facing the viewer, as if to say stop.

The following comment is on a subreddit now, posted anonymously (and I have a screen capture in case it gets deleted):

Welp, it finally happened. The national office of the small non-profit I work for has asked the whole organization to remove any DEI related language from our website and social media. Not because their stance on supporting DEI has changed, but because they are afraid that the current administration will cut our federal funding.

This goes beyond removing any “diversity and inclusion” statements. They are asking us to remove all individual instances & variations of the words diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I’m pushing back. I won’t win, but I’ll push back anyways.

My advice to this web site manager, and to everyone else: say no. I wrote in directly to word his “no” this way, in writing:

I will not remove language on the web site with regard to diversity, equity or inclusion. I will not remove information from the web site regarding any aspects of human rights or civil rights. If management wants this removed, you will have to do this yourself. If you want to reprimand me, I request that the reprimand be in writing, and please detail the exact language I was refusing to remove. I cannot in good conscience commit the actions you are asking me to.

The likelihood of being fired for this is REALLY remote at a nonprofit, because they are terrified of bad publicity.

I also suggested leaking that the nonprofit HQ was asking affiliates to do this to a credible media outlet, and to keep doing so until someone picks up the story and asks the HQ for comment.

None of this is to punish the nonprofit. But if a nonprofit can be pressured “from the top”, why not from elsewhere, and to actually do the RIGHT thing? Some in senior management will no doubt be grateful that their staff is showing true character and saying no, and that the press has the story and the public can understand what is happening and pressure the nonprofit NOT to do this.

So, to be clear:

If you, a staff person, are asked by a senior staff member or your organization’s HQ to remove information on your web site or social media that affirms any commitment to diversity, equity or inclusion, or that supports racial equality or social justice, you should first ask for the request to be in writing. Say that you cannot follow-up on any such request unless it is in writing. And then, when the request comes in writing, leak it to the press and also refuse to delete the information. Tell management they can do it themselves, but you won’t.

Other ways you can stand up for core values of civility, human rights and dignity:

  • If you are asked by a funder to remove information on your web site or social media that affirms any commitment to diversity, equity or inclusion, or that supports racial equality or social justice, ask for the request to be in writing. Say that you cannot follow-up on any such request unless it is in writing. And then, when the request comes in writing, leak it to the press and also refuse to delete the information.
  • If not removing the language would jeopardize an amount of funding that, if lost, would harm your clients, then remove the language and put a press release on your web site stating that you are removing the funding at the request of whomever is making the request (NAME THEM), have a scan of their communication asking or telling you to do this linked from the web page, and tell people if they would like to see the pre-censored version of the web pages you had to alter, to go to archive.org and look such up. Be sure to share on social media that this is happening.
  • Do not comply with any request by phone from the federal government that involves turning over client or staff personal information to a federal office; tell the requester that the request must be in writing. Consult legal counsel regarding whether or not you legally have to do it.
  • Post on social media about your organization’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, or about activities your organization undertakes regarding such, or regarding related to racial equality or social justice, at least every quarter.
  • Attend public events by nonprofit in your area that are focused on serving minority communities, such as immigrants, refugees, local LBGTQ people, etc. Share a photo of yourself on social media with a member of that nonprofit, celebrating that you are together at the event.
  • Like, and if it’s appropriate, share, on your own social media account, posts of organizations in your area that support refugees and immigrants, LBGTQ people, and anyone else targeted by the current executive branch of government.
  • Go on social media using your organization’s profile and “like” the posts by your area’s elected officials and government offices that acknowledge diversity, equity and inclusion, racial equity, social justice issues, ALL religious holidays, etc.
  • Post acknowledgements at the start of Black History Month (February), Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), Pride Month (June), National Hispanic Heritage Month is annually observed (September 15 to October 15), and National American Indian Heritage Month (November).
  • Post acknowledgements of a diversity of religiously-affiliated and “patriot”-affiliated celebratory days:
    • MLK Day
    • Chinese New Year
    • Easter (and perhaps Eastern Orthodox Easter as well, depending on your community)
    • First and Last days of Ramadan (varies each year – in 2025, it may start on Friday, Feb. 28, or Saturday, March 1, 2025)
    • Armed Forces Day (People currently serving in the United States military – celebrate on the third Saturday in May).
    • Memorial Day (last Monday in May)
    • July 4th
    • Labor Day (first Monday in September)
    • Veterans Day November 11
    • Rosh Hashanah
    • Yom Kuppur
    • Christmas.
  • Tell your volunteers they have the right to refuse the Presidential Service Award. Encourage anyone who will do so to write the office in charge and your executive director to say they will be refusing it for at least the next four years.
  • If you have to refer to these regions, then make sure you call them what they are: the Gulf of Mexico and Denali. And spell it Kyiv.
  • Have a plan for what to do if the police or federal law enforcement, such as ICE, shows up at your organization. Make sure all staff know that the first thing to do is to call the Executive Director and to say, “I am not authorized to give you permission to search these premises.” Even if they have a warrant and the Executive has to relent, create time for clients and others to leave the area.

Addition on February 13, from a colleague on LinkedIn:

  • Practical protection for nonprofits – Check your recent email subscribers to see if there was recently added DEIAreports[@]opm[.]gov as a subscription, meant to monitor DEIA activity.
  • Consider temporarily filtering out anyone with .gov email, as the current executive order requires government workers to report any DEIA efforts or face adverse actions.

A final thought on the seriousness of what is happening:

Ever wonder what you would have done at the darkest times of history – when Nazis were about to take over all of Europe and were murdering millions of people, most of them Jewish? When black people were enslaved and tortured regularly and systematically in the USA? During the US Civil Rights movement? When the mass murders of ethnic groups was happening in Rwanda or Srebrenica? – Well, you are doing it now.

BTW, I’m jeopardizing my own career, such that it is, by suggesting all this. Yet, here I am.

Have more ideas? Share them in the comments.

Philanthropy is commendable, but…

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., looking thoughtful.

In anticipation of MLK day later this month:

“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice, which make philanthropy necessary.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

On a related theme: Shifting Philanthropy From Charity to Justice, from the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Also see my earlier blogs:

Charity isn’t enough.

Volunteering, by itself, isn’t enough to save the world.

Webinar: Careers in International Development

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Images, in the style of petroglyphs, of people doing various activities, like writing or construction.

In late August, I had the honor of presenting a live webinar for the Beyond Africa Podcast. You can see a recording of the webinar on YouTube. You can also download the slides I used and see resources I used in the webinar and that I encouraged people to view after the webinar here on my web site.

The webinar opened with a question I have never been asked: why am I doing this? Why am I posting on r/UNPath and other online communities about how to work in international development? As briefly as possible, and among other reasons, because I don’t think there’s equity in who know about and has access to careers in international development, including at the United Nations. You can hear my full answer by listening to the webinar.

Please note that I did this pro bono for this group, but that I usually charge for my consulting, including delivering trainings.

Yes, you CAN get experience for entry level UN positions in your own community

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A frequent lament of people on online groups who want to work for the United Nations is “It’s impossible because there’s no way for me to get the experience needed.”

Bollocks.

I’ve addressed this before in blogs such as

These aforementioned blogs are about how to get expertise that can be applied to UN positions, usually at the P level and above.

But a lot of people want to work at a headquarters or break into UN work at the administrative level. They claim the aforementioned doesn’t apply to them and then, again, say, “It’s impossible for me to get the experience necessary.”

I spent an hour going through G-level positions currently being recruited at some UN agencies. I then made a list of some commonalities in the positions, which I have listed below, stripping out UN-specific references. And as I read through these, it was obvious to me that:

  • If you have been a longish-term leadership volunteer in your community, managing other volunteers, in any project – Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, an NGO that helps refugees, a children’s theater camp, a hospice, a food bank, etc. – you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been a successful Girl Scout leader for more than two years, and been on the board or core organizers of your service unit in that time, you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been a leadership volunteer at a local farmer’s market or artists cooperative for an entire season, you have probably done most of these activities.
  • If you have been on the board of a nonprofit for at least a year, you have probably done most of these activities.

Often it’s how you frame and phrase your responsibilities on your CV and applications as to whether or not you look qualified for a position.

I was part of a hiring committee that hired a guy with extensive hotel management experience for a G level administrative support position: his procurement skills, his experience in dealing with conflict, his organizational skills, his multi-language skills, his client-focused mindset and his experience with international clients were all represented on his CV , explicitly. He was an incredible and perfect fit for the job (he did also have a Master’s degree – I think it was in business).

Job responsibilities that show up on a lot of G-level positions that you can learn through leadership volunteering and through most administrative jobs at nonprofits and local government agencies as well:

  • Schedule internal and external meetings and events, and communicate these dates, or possible dates, to the team/partners.
  • Assist in organizing events, workshops, webinars, launches of publications, seminars, conferences and campaigns.
  • Support the team with planning and implementing of operational activities.
  • Gather relevant and corresponding data (socio-economic, gender, etc.) needed for project development, proposals, reports, presentations, etc.
  • Support activities contributing to the regular communication with project partners to monitor deadlines, commitments made, actions taken, etc.
  • Support in mapping and identifying relevant stakeholders or desired audiences or potential partners.
  • Populate and maintain a database of potential partners, or area NGOs, or area small businesses, or some other needed data set for a project.
  • Review and proofread drafts of reports, drafts of online materials, etc.
  • Closely follow up with other staff, consultants, partner organizations, etc. regarding collaborative projects, data, etc.
  • Review reports developed by others and edit/contribute as needed.
  • Verify the accuracy and validity of research conducted or feedback provided by others.
  • Continuously monitor and collect all data indicators relevant to the project.
  • Provide support in the dissemination and sharing of relevant data and lessons learned.
  • Keep pulse on emerging best practices nationally, regionally, and internationally that relate to the work.
  • Regularly read knowledge networks and communities of practice related to the project/program area.
  • Support program-related knowledge building, management and sharing activities for both external and internal audiences.
  • Assist in preparation of official correspondence to all relevant project partners, HQ, etc.
  • Provide inputs in the development and producing knowledge products, i.e. case studies, success stories, lessons learnt reports, press releases and etc.
  • Contribute to the creation of content for specific stakeholders, including presentation decks, photos videos, programme briefs, webinar/event cards, literature.
  • Monitor online platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. regarding mentions of the program and activities by partners/stakeholders.
  • Assist the Project Manager/other staff in preparation of the regular progress reports in line with reporting schedules, as well as any other reports requested by management, donor, government, press and/or other stakeholders/audiences.
  • Support other staff in implementing project M&E activities and providing on-going feedback and technical backstopping.
  • Make logistical arrangements for HQ staff visits and external visitors, preparing briefing kits and background materials.

Quit complaining that “the fix is in” and you can’t get a UN position unless you “know someone on the inside.” I’ve worked for the UN three times, at three different UNDP offices, in three different countries, and I knew NO ONE in those offices that hired me. I’ve been on several UN hiring committees and only one time in all those times was I pressured to hire someone who someone on the hiring committee knew – a practice common in the private sector! (I refused to change my score regarding her interview and qualifications, but she did still get hired somehow). Every other time, we hired the person obviously most qualified.

Get busy taking a hard look at all you have done to date and think about how to better frame it. And if you lack needed skills for the jobs you want, get busy with volunteering or working locally to get them!

Also see:

The endangered women left behind in Afghanistan

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This is an account written by an Afghan colleague, with grammar and spelling corrected by me. She was able to flee Afghanistan and now lives in an English-speaking country as a legal refugee. This account is regarding what life is like for her sister back in Kabul, Afghanistan:

When I lived in Afghanistan, I lived with my adult, unmarried sister and my widowed mother, without a male family member, in Kabul. My nieces also frequently stayed with us and I, an unmarried woman, was the head of the household. My brothers lived with their families in Kabul, but across the city from us, and we did not rely on them for shopping or for money. Because of my job, the job of my sister, and a small inheritance from my father, we could all live together, even sometimes travel together, in relative peace and prosperity.

I worked for the Afghan government, as did my sister. We are both university educated. She and I could go to and from work on our own, but when we left the house for appointments, shopping and other tasks, or to walk in a nearby park or to visit relatives, we were accompanied by each other or my mother. This was accepted by society in Kabul before the Taliban.

In the chaos of the Taliban takeover, I was able to flee Afghanistan along with my nieces and my mother. We were able to flee to a country where I had studied many years ago, and we now have asylum here. My nieces, then all under 18, now live in safety. But I had to leave my sister behind, as the government of the country where I live now was unsure if they could count her as my immediate family, and she insisted we go without her and not delay.

After we fled Afghanistan, my sister immediately lost her job, as all women working for the government did, per the orders of the Taliban. She immediately lost her right to go to appointments or shopping for food alone or even with just another female family member – it had to be with a male family member. And she was immediately living by herself. Her male relatives, my brothers, do not live immediately close to her. I am sorry to say our brothers are not helpful to her as they should be, for many reasons: one brother is busy trying to provide for his family, to feed his young sons and ensure their safety. Another brother is dealing with a great deal of drama with a former wife and former in-laws, who are threatening his well-being. Both of my brothers are reluctant to accompany my sister in public, both because they do not see it as a priority and because she has a speech impediment, and in my culture, people with disabilities are not treated well on the streets, with many people openly mocking such people, and my brothers do not know how to deal with such disrespect and mocking (my mother was treated with great respect and no one would mock my sister when she was present).

My sister is an educated, professional woman. She graduated from Kabul University with a Bachelor of Science and she loved her job with the Afghan Ministry she was a part of, working in a small department where she felt her work was very important – I cannot say much about her work for fear she could be identified. She never had health problems, other than her speech impediment, in all of our years together. All of that has changed now.

Her work and life puts her in danger with the Taliban: she is unmarried, she lives alone, she is university educated, she worked for the government, she worked for a program funded by foreign governments that Taliban sees as the enemy, and she has studied and worked alongside men that are not her family members. She sometimes even worked directly with foreigners who represented the US and Canadian funders of her work.

I try to talk to her every day on WhatsApp. I am in great fear for her. I am afraid I will die before I ever see her again.

My sister is now solely reliant on just a few trusted people bringing her food, and doing it in a way that neighbors never see her. She cannot go to doctor’s appointments. She will go days with no interaction with any other human being. The Taliban are targeting Shia Muslims and people of Tajik ethnicity with oppression and physical violence – this is what my family is. My sister’s neighbors support the Taliban and are of a different ethnicity than us, and while they know there is someone in the apartment where my sister is, they are not entirely sure which family members are still there. She lives in constant fear of her neighbors. We believe that if they knew she was there, alone, they would inform on her, to garner favor from the Taliban, and the Taliban would take over the apartment and turn my sister out to beg on the streets, or perhaps decide she has broken their law and punish her physically and put her in prison. She is now, in many ways, in a prison, as she cannot leave her home or even be seen by neighbors. The isolation, lack of human interaction, stress, lack of physical exercise, lack of exposure to the outdoors and lack of regular nutrition are causing her to experience intense headaches. She has recently informed me that she has fainted at least twice and is unsure how long she was unconscious.

And I know she’s not the only one. I know there are more women in her situation – and much worse.

I have filed all of the paperwork with the government where I live for my sister to join me, my mother and my sisters here. I have gone to public meetings with national officials to try to meet them in-person and petition them to help bring my sister here. It’s been almost three years since we fled. I wonder if she will die before her case is even decided, and I fear what a rejection will drive her to do.

It is impossible to find comfort in this land of safety when I know what my sister experiences in Afghanistan. And I know that even in this dire state, she is in a more advantageous position than so many other women, than most women, in the country, at least for now.

I am now at loss of what to do, other than pray.

And I am at a loss of how to help my friend.

UNV 2023 Annual report

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Highlights from the United Nations Volunteers 2023 annual report:

United Nations Volunteers mobilized a record-breaking number of 12,840 UN Volunteers, marking a four percent increase from 2022.

Of the total number of UN Volunteers, 11,339 or 88 per cent were from the Global South. Of these, 8,027 served as national UN Volunteers in their countries of origin, while 3,350 served as international UN Volunteers in other countries of the Global South. This demonstrated the commitment of UN partners and UNV to engaging local volunteer talent in peace and development worldwide, as well as to South-South cooperation.

In 2023, the average age of a UN Volunteer was 35, and the overall age range was from 18 to 78 years. There were 167 UN Volunteers aged 60 and above. There were 2,012 UN Youth Volunteers between 18 and 26 years of age.

The largest number of UN Volunteers served in sub-Saharan Africa (5,299). Latin America and the Caribbean had the next-largest contingent (2,762), followed by Asia and the Pacific (1,931), the Arab States region (1,649), and Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (1,224).

UNV achieved gender balance in the international professional category, while men were underrepresented in the national officer and general staff categories. Exceeding the target, 73 per cent of the UNV staff came from the Global South.

The proportion of women UN Volunteers increased to 57 per cent (2 per cent growth from 2022). Notably, in 2023, 49.8 per cent of UN Volunteers on the African continent were women, whereas this was 48 per cent in 2022.

SPOTLIGHT ON ONLINE VOLUNTEERING

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) relied on the talents of 100 Online Volunteers in Niger to run social media campaigns in French and English to raise awareness regarding the rights of refugees, most of whom are from <span>Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria. UNFPA marshalled 586 Online Volunteers to highlight women’s reproductive rights in Guinea and Niger and another 552 in Niger to combat fake news against the backdrop of political instability. Niger was also where 125 Online Volunteers assisted WHO in raising awareness of breast cancer and 105 Online Volunteers teamed with UN Women in championing women’s rights. Responding to the floods in Libya and the earthquake in Morocco, 95 Online Volunteers designed social media posts, mapped volunteering initiatives and managed information flows. As well, 18 Online Volunteers supported all UN entities in responding to the crisis in the State of Palestine and neighbouring countries – Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. The assignments focused on media monitoring, need-based analyses, response mapping and translation.

To raise awareness about the 54 Faces of Africa Campaign and the Youth Connekt Summit in Nairobi in 2023, UNDP called upon 102 Online Volunteers. Another 77 analysed development plans and budget priorities for the UNDP Ethiopia Country Office. Online Volunteers with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) contributed to research on climate, nature and pollution, while for the Government of Zambia, they created content for the Africa Music, Art and Cultural Exhibition 2023.

The talents of 257 Online Volunteers were applied in support of UNDP’s work on youth empowerment in the Asia-Pacific region, while with UNFPA, 151 UN Volunteers supported the #EveryGirlCounts digital campaign. Additionally, 134 Online Volunteers supported Thailand’s Social Development Ministry by contributing to International Volunteer Day activities and creating social media content. As well, 56 Online Volunteers assisted the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in an AI-generated platform on gender equality. UNV in China and UNDP launched #HerDigitalFuture with the support of 185 Online Volunteers to highlight opportunities and potential educational pathways in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) for teenage girls.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, 647 Online Volunteers served with the World Food Programme (WFP) in Peru to provide information to refugees and migrants, with a primary focus on those from Venezuela. In Bolivia, another 72 served in Online Volunteering assignments that helped inform people about accessing public information.

Emergency response in Ukraine was supported by 392 Online Volunteers who mapped, translated and provided important research to UN entities. Another 30 supported the UNDP Accelerator Lab initiative creating chatbots for public information. The Gender Equality and Women Empowerment programme was assisted by 60 Online Volunteers with UN Women in Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with assignments ranging from research to data management, women entrepreneurship, peace and security. A vital role was played by 17 Online Volunteers, who contributed to the Türkiye earthquake response through psychosocial support, translation and social media content.

Here’s the full report.

https://www.unv.org/Annual-report/Annual-Report-2023

Our Lady of the Manifest: the icon for a very particular community of online volunteers

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When most people think of the Afghan evacuation, they think of August of 2021, when crowds surged around Kabul’s airport, desperate and doomed Afghans clung to the sides of planes taking off, and a suicide bomber murdered scores of Afghans and 11 U.S. Marines, one soldier, and one Navy Corpsman. And they think the evacuation is over. But the evacuation of Afghans never ended. And neither has the volunteering by people all over the world trying to get vulnerable people out.

Jeff Phaneuf of No One Left Behind, the largest volunteer organization working to assist Afghans who served the USA as interpreters, has noted that when the organization surveyed its 16,000 contacts in August 2022, it found 180 clear instances of Afghans killed while waiting on a visa, with a 80 further possible murders they’re looking into. No One Left Behind estimates that there are close to 200,000 people still in Afghanistan eligible for visas from the USA set aside for Afghans and their family members who are at risk because of work they did for the USA. That doesn’t count the women’s rights activists other groups are working on. Those Afghans who do make it out often exist in an indeterminate legal space because of the inaction of governments to give them permanent status. Many of the people in Afghanistan that volunteers abroad are trying to help are literally starving: in August 2022, when No One Left Behind asked Afghans applying to leave about the conditions they lived under, only 5.5% reported being able to feed their families.

a doll with only its white face is visible amid its cover of blue and white fabric, like a chador. It holds a large, fake sunflower. It is hung on an otherwise bare, white wall.

This Time article profiles the work of people, most of them volunteers, who are still in contact with Afghans in Afghanistan and are continuing to try to get people, especially women, out of Afghanistan and to a safe country with official asylum status, and focuses on their macabre mascot, Our Lady of the Manifest, “She’s who we pray to, to get people on flights” – and how she’s helping volunteers facing mounting fatigue, frustration, depression and stress as they feel a growing helplessness to assist Afghans.

The article notes what everyone faces in trying to get at-risk Afghans out of Afghanistan:

You can get every necessary document in order, push your case through the sluggish and unresponsive refugee system, get every name of the family you’re working with on a flight manifest, and somewhere between that Afghan family’s home and the airport they can run into the “18-year-old with a gun” problem—a young Afghan running a Taliban checkpoint who doesn’t have much respect for international agreements or paperwork and who might be in a bad mood, or struck by how a woman is dressed, or acting, or who just doesn’t like the idea of a family who wants to flee the country. Everything can fall apart in a moment.

As the author of the article notes, “Sometimes, Our Lady feels a little less like an inside joke with these volunteers trying to get Afghans out, and more like a companion on a painful road.”

These volunteers work mostly in isolation. Even with online communities and interacting with others remotely, volunteers can feel very unsupported and alone, especially when friends and family are more than ready to move on and stop talking about this. I know, because I am such volunteer: I wrote about my efforts two years ago as a part of Digital Dunkirk: online volunteers scrambling to help endangered Afghans get visas & out of Afghanistan and the mental and emotional toll I could see it taking on others and myself. There’s no organization supporting me or guiding me in this role – myself and other volunteers are all pretty much making it up as we go along, because the guidelines and information about getting people out of Afghanistan and into an asylum program are ever changing. Most of us, including myself, have no training in interacting with people witnessing and experiencing violence, who have no safe haven from those acts – but we are interacting with Afghans, via WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal – that live in this daily reality and want our help. In addition, many of these volunteers, myself including, know that there are people – former colleagues, real people, with names and stories, who are in the photos we have of our time there – who qualify, on paper, to come to the USA, but are still languishing in a country run by terrorists 18 months later. As Laura Deitz of Task Force Nyx notes in the article, “I probably can’t underscore the toll that this mentally and emotionally takes on anyone who’s trying to help.”

And as I wrote in my earlier blog about this volunteering:

For the online volunteers trying to help, no certificate, no statistic on the monetary value of the time they contributed, no t-shirt, is going to serve as appropriate recognition for what they’ve done. There’s just one way we’re going to feel good about our virtual volunteering: getting people out of Afghanistan.

And I shall say it again, as I did two years ago:

Of course, the stress and frustration of online volunteers in this effort is nothing compared to the Afghans we’re trying to help. In addition to being terrified of the knock at the door that means the Taliban is there, to search the home, to take away boys and young men to fight, to take away girls for rape (there’s no such thing as “child marriage” – please stop saying that), to find files and data that could prove someone in the family worked with the USA, the UK, Australia, or some European country, Afghans are also running out of money and food.

I confess to having a very macabre sense of humor at times, and to gravitating to other humanitarian workers as colleagues and friends who also have such. It’s how I can face the absolute unnecessary absurdity of humanitarian work, whether internationally or just trying to help in my own community. This article provides a good profile of people who I think are like me – we don’t mean to offend. We’re just trying to stay sane.

I may print out a photo of Our Lady of the Manifest and put it on my wall.

If you have read this blog and are in the USA, I beg you to please write your US Congressional representative and both of your US Senators, as well as to the President of the USA, and ask them to please fulfill our commitment to our allies in Afghanistan, and to please put in the staffing and systems necessary to evacuate our allies and their families from Afgahnistan. They believed us – believe me – when we said they could and should pursue their education and careers, and they did so with the belief that we woud have their backs. We owe them this. And if you are in a country that worked in Afghanistan, whether militarily or in humanitarian interventions – Australia, the UK, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Japan, India, where ever – please do the same in your country regarding contacting your federally-elected officials.

Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully

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image of a panel discussion

I’ve been working on this for a while: a list of abilities that I believe a person needs to work in humanitarian development successfully – including to work at the United Nations. For my purposes here, I define such success as meeting the requirements of your job and the goals of your program and getting along well with others while also staying personally satisfied.

These are the skills I’ve seen that have made the difference in success, as I have just defined it, for oh so many people – and myself. Many would call them “soft skills.” These skills usually won’t be listed in job requirements. You can’t major in any of these skills at a university; you get them from working, volunteering and collaborating on anything with others (co-workers, neighbors, family…), and you can do all of that (and gain these skills) no matter where you live.

Also, it’s good to approach at least some of these as job interview questions: “Tell me about a time when you needed to adapt and improvise regarding a strategy you had planned out but you realized wouldn’t work as planned…” or “tell me about a time when you broke down a process into smaller steps so that it was easier to understand by co-workers or community members…”

To work in humanitarian development successfully, you need the abilities to:

  1. read large amounts of text, and to understand what you have read and apply it to your work.
  2. memorize.
  3. manage time effectively.
  4. speak comfortably in front of audiences, including those that may be hostile to your subject matter.
  5. shut up, listen and learn from others (and I am using “shut up” because too many don’t understand “listen quietly”).
  6. adapt and improvise when you realize a strategy has to be altered or something unexpected happens.
  7. negotiate.
  8. write words to educate, persuade and influence others.
  9. cultivate trust quickly and on an ongoing basis with others.
  10. make decisions based on facts and not on emotions or just your “gut” – and be ready to do that despite what you wanted to believe in your gut.
  11. break a process down to smaller steps.
  12. reframe complex ideas into plain language.
  13. delegate tasks appropriately and frequently with an eye to building the skills of others.
  14. build the skills of someone to eventually take over a process you currently undertake.
  15. guide without micromanaging.
  16. work with co-workers, community members and others you don’t like.
  17. know how to quickly tell your boss what you are doing and why you are doing it, what you are achieving and what is challenging you – and make sure your boss’s boss knows all of this too.
  18. not let an insult of you derail the work you need to do.
  19. read the room, to be aware of the feelings and opinions of those you are talking to, and to be able to alter your approach if you realize it’s not going to work or be inappropriate in that circumstance.
  20. keep trying and experimenting, and learn from failure.
  21. do self-analysis and let go of ideas when it’s clear they won’t work.
  22. stay positive and hopeful – and get that back when you lose it.
  23. understand what others feel, even if you disagree with their values.
  24. ask for advice and help and know how to seek and find the expertise you don’t have.
  25. recognize situations that are unnecessarily dangerous or when you are personally at risk and react to keep yourself safe.
  26. process your own stress, anxiety, and other negative feelings, and address feelings of loneliness in a healthy way.
  27. balance priorities with personal needs and know when it’s time to take a break.
  28. pick your battles.
  29. know when to ask for permission and when to do it without prior approval and be ready to ask for forgiveness.
  30. own your mistakes.
  31. know who you are working with that has your back and those who do NOT.
  32. how to get back up when you stumble and fall.

No one person can have all of these abilities all the time, by the way.

And, yes, it’s helpful to have abilities like being able to learn another language so that you can work in a language other than the one your own family and neighbors speak – your native language. And you need the abilities to obtain a university degree and a lot of work experience and on and on. But you need these “soft skills” as well – and just as much.

For those of you who have worked in international development, what abilities would you add – abilities that might not ever be named in a role’s Terms of Reference?

Also see:

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UN Volunteer requirements – but with no guidance?

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I’ve been reviewing open positions in developing countries from United Nations Volunteers. It’s something I do when I want to do a bit of dreaming about maybe going overseas again… and also to see what’s up with my former employer. Recently, I noticed that many of postings have a standard set of additional requirements, no matter what the role is (IT manager, sanitation communications, microenterprise development, etc.).

I smiled when I saw the requirements, because I was one of the first people, if not the first person, to develop these type of additional requirements on UNV terms of reference (TORs): back when I was working as a part of the UNV UNITeS initiative, focused on promoting volunteer engagement in ICT4D initiatives, there was a program manager for a particular region who would come to my office, hand me the TOR for the volunteer placement and say, “UNI-Tize this.” What she meant was this: add in required skills and responsibilities that justify this being done by someone under a UN Volunteers contract, rather than another type of UN contract that would require the payment of more money to the person that fills the position and the designation of that person as a consultant or staff member. When that UNV program manager gave me the TOR to “uni-tize,” I went through and added responsibilities regarding

  • building the capacities of local counterparts regarding whatever it was he or she was doing, with an eye to this UNV position becoming unnecessary as local people take over. I treated every UNV placement that was “Uni-Tized” as one that would eventually be taken over by a full-time, paid local person NOT under a UNV contract, and for that to happen, local capacity had to be built.
  • creating at least one, local event that could help build the skills of community members regarding some aspect of computer and Internet use: where to find information about current market prices for agricultural products, where to find reliable maternal health information, how to evaluate the credibility of online information, etc. In this case, “Uni-Tize” meant to evangelize regarding ICTs for various development activities (ICT4D).
  • suggestions to involve local volunteers in their work in some way, reaching out to students at nearby universities, or at home on leave from university, to help them gain experience that would help in their future careers. In this case, “Uni-Tize” meant to get local volunteers invested in the work of UNVs in some way.
  • suggestions to make particular efforts to reach out to women, girls, religious and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities in any of the above aforementioned activities, to take all of the tasks beyond merely getting tasks done.

Here we are all these years later, and here are the requirements UNV now puts on many UN Volunteer TOR. If you’ve read the aforementioned, they will sound familiar. However, for each of these requirements, I have some questions that I really hope UNV answers for candidates it chooses for these roles:

UN Volunteers are required to:

• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day).

Seems fairly straightforward. Requires a volunteer to volunteer UNV on social media and read that social media regularly, read web updates, etc.

• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country.

And HOW does one become acquainted with local volunteerism in the host country, let alone build on it? Most people aren’t acquainted with local volunteerism in their OWN country. UNV did away with the World Volunteerism Web, so there’s no online source now to do this. And what does “build on it” mean? Are UN Volunteers supposed to involve volunteers in their work? Or are they supposed to promote volunteerism, as a concept, in general? What does that look like for an IT manager or a microenterprise developer? I could write an entire manual on just this subject, because I’ve done it – and it’s NOT an easy thing to do.

• Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities.

UN Volunteers aren’t undertaking voluntary action; UN Volunteers are under a contract called “UN Volunteers”, but they aren’t really volunteers. UNVs receive an excellent stipend. International volunteers receive a stipend that’s equal to the regular pay for local government workers. The pay is enough for housing, food and local transportation – some “stipends” are enough to support a small family.

• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.

Reasonable requirement.

• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly arrived UN Volunteers.

Link to the UNV Buddy Programme? What is it? How does it work?

• Promote capacity development activities and transfer of skills to national personnel during the assignment.

Excellent requirement. Building local capacity is at the heart of international UN Volunteer engagement. But where’s the guidance on how to do that? I felt like I was pretty good at it when managing communications activities in Afghanistan and Ukraine – where I worked for UNDP but was not a UN Volunteer – but I’ve seen other UN workers who never made this a priority, or weren’t very good at it and needed a LOT of guidance.

• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.

It’s really great to see this as a requirement – but where is the UNV guidance on how to develop online roles, how to support online volunteers, how to evaluate online engagement, etc.? It’s not on the UNV web site – UNV reduced, then shut down the online volunteering service a few years ago, and before that, removed support for those that wanted to involve online volunteers (I archived what I created for UNV about online volunteer engagement here). Or what about giving volunteers copies of The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook and helping make them experts in virtual volunteering?

Would love to see UNV’s responses to these questions… but I doubt that will ever come.

Also see:

Make volunteering transformative, not about # of hours.

Resources from my time at United Nations Volunteers.

The United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS).

United Nations Volunteers says, when it comes to onsite & online, “They are ALL volunteers”.

Misconceptions re: VSO, UNV & Peace Corps.

New UN Initiative seeks “Information Volunteers”.

United Nations site for people with disabilities is inaccessible.

Thoughts on new UN paper re: Volunteering Practices in the 21st Century.

I’m thrilled with UNV’s 2015 State of the World’s Volunteerism Report – Transforming Governance.

History & Evaluation of UNV’s Early Years

Initial feedback on UNV plan to integrate volunteerism in development.

A blend of international & local volunteers can “decolonize” humanitarian development.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.