Category Archives: humanitarian action

20 years ago, when everything changed for me

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20 years ago this week, an incredible opportunity came my way, out of the blue: I was invited to Germany by a program of the United Nations, to be a part of a group exploring how information communications technologies – ICTs, computers, PDAs, and the Internet – were transforming communities all over the world and the role volunteers played in supporting and expanding the use of ICTs to support a whole range of activities: health education, agriculture, governance, small business development and more (ICT4D).

This is from the original United Nations communications about this event:

Close to 30 experts in development and information and communication technologies (ICTs) met for a workshop from 21 to 23 August at the headquarters of the United Nations Volunteers programme (UNV) in Bonn, Germany, to discuss ways how volunteers can assist developing countries in the application of ICT to human development. Representing a wide range of organizations from all over the world, the workshop participants focused their discussions on how to launch operations of the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), a volunteer initiative to help bridge the digital divide. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked UNV to take the lead in bringing together a coalition of partners to launch the new initiative, which was announced in April.

I was invited to participate because I was directing the Virtual Volunteering Project at the University of Texas at Austin, and was frequently posting to various online communities about working with online volunteers and how volunteers were participating in various community technology initiatives. A UNV staff member saw my posts on a group called CYBERVPM and some other online communities, passed on my information to another staff member looking for advice, and the rest is history.

The role volunteers have played in helping people use online technologies cannot be under-estimated. Volunteers were the primary staffing for most community technology centers and nonprofit Internet cafés, helping people to get their first email address, surf the web and find essential information. The Community Technology Network, ctcnet.org, compiled best practices from community tech centers all over the world, sharing these on their web site for anyone to access – you can see these resources yourself by going to The Internet Wayback Machine and looking for www.ctcnet.org yourself.

Because of this invitation, my life changed forever: at the end of the event, held at the headquarters of the United Nations Volunteers program, I was invited to apply for a new position that was being created at UNV to manage the online volunteering part of NetAid, which I later successfully moved entirely to UNV and it became the Online Volunteering Service, I also co-managed the United Nations Technology Information Service (UNITeS), the Secretary General’s ICT4D initiative born out of this meeting – it was a global initiative to help bridge the digital divide that both supported volunteers applying information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) and promoted volunteerism as a fundamental element of successful ICT4D initiatives.

And from there began my work in international humanitarian and development work: I stayed at UNV for four years, got my MSc in Development Management in December 2005, worked in Afghanistan and Ukraine with UNDP, stayed based in Germany for eight years, and continued to work internationally even after moving back to the USA in 2009.

20 years. It’s just so hard to wrap my head around it being two decades since this happened. I will always be grateful for the circumstances and people that earned me the invitation to this meeting. I will always be grateful to have had these 20 years since.

I’m the girl in the peachy/pink shirt in the middle of this photo, by the way… if you are in the photo, please comment below!

Also see:

UN Digital Cooperation report released

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The age of digital interdependence: Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation has just been released. 

In July 2018 the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) appointed a panel to consider the question of “digital cooperation” – the ways we work together to address the social, ethical, legal and economic impact of digital technologies in order to maximize their benefits and minimize their harm. The Secretary-General asked the panel to consider how digital cooperation can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – the ambitious agenda to protect people and the planet endorsed by 193 UN member states in 2015. He also asked the panel to consider models of digital cooperation to advance the debate surrounding governance in the digital sphere.

The Co-Chairs of the panel are Melinda Gates (USA), representing the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Jack Ma (China), Executive Chairman of the Alibaba Group. Ex officio members are Amandeep Singh Gill (India) and Jovan Kurbalija (Serbia) of the Secretariat of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. Members of the panel that contributed to the report include:

  • Mohammed Abdullah Al Gergawi (UAE), Minister of Cabinet Affairs and the Future, UAE
  • Yuichiro Anzai (Japan), Senior Advisor and Director of Center for Science Information Analysis, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
  • Nikolai Astrup (Norway), Former Minister of International Development, now Minister of Digitalisation, Norway
  • Vinton Cerf (USA), Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
  • Fadi Chehadé (USA), Chairman, Chehadé & Company
  • Sophie Soowon Eom (Republic of Korea), Founder of Adriel AI and Solidware
  • Isabel Guerrero Pulgar (Chile), Executive Director, IMAGO Global Grassroots and Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School
  • Marina Kaljurand (Estonia), Chair of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace
  • Bogolo Kenewendo (Botswana), Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Botswana
  • Marina Kolesnik (Russian Federation), senior executive, entrepreneur and WEF Young Global Leader
  • Doris Leuthard (Switzerland), former President and Federal Councillor of the Swiss Confederation, Switzerland
  • Cathy Mulligan (United Kingdom), Visiting Researcher, Imperial College London and Chief Technology Officer of GovTech Labs at University College London
  • Akaliza Keza Ntwari (Rwanda), ICT advocate and entrepreneur
  • Edson Prestes (Brazil), Professor, Institute of Informatics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul
  • Kira Radinsky (Israel), Director of Data Science, eBay
  • Nanjira Sambuli (Kenya), Senior Policy Manager, World Wide Web Foundation
  • Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah (Australia), Chief Executive, Oxfam GB
  • Jean Tirole (France), Chairman of the Toulouse School of Economics and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse

From the report:

Our dynamic digital world urgently needs improved digital cooperation and that we live in an age of digital interdependence. Such cooperation must be grounded in common human values – such as inclusiveness, respect, human-centredness, human rights, international law, transparency and sustainability. In periods of rapid change and uncertainty such as today, these shared values must be a common light which helps guide us… 

We need to bring far more diverse voices to the table, particularly from developing countries and traditionally marginalised groups, such as women, youth, indigenous people, rural populations and older people…  

The resulting report focuses on three broad sets of interlocking issues, each of which is discussed in one subsequent chapter: 

  • Leaving No One Behind argues that digital technologies will help progress towards the full sweep of the SDGs only if we think more broadly than the important issue of access to the internet and digital technologies
     
  • Individuals, Societies and Digital Technologies underscores the fact that universal human rights apply equally online as offline, but that there is an urgent need to examine how time-honored human rights frameworks and conventions should guide digital cooperation and digital technology.
     
  • Mechanisms for Global Digital Cooperation analyses gaps in the current mechanisms of global digital cooperation, identifies the functions of global digital cooperation needed to address them, and outlines three sets of modalities on how to improve our global digital cooperation architecture – which build on existing structures and arrangements in ways consistent with our shared values and principles.

Some of my observations about the report:

  • I like the three broad sets of interlocking issues.
     
  • I was very pleased to see so much emphasis on countering misinformation and on the need to use online tools to build trust and social cohesion.
     
  • The date of the publication is nowhere to be found on the report. I think it was published in June 2019. 
     
  • The term non-governmental organization (NGO) is never mentioned in the report. Not once.
     
  • Activists nor activism is never mentioned in the report. None once.
     
  • The phrase civil society is used. Does that include the work of NGOs, or activists, including those opposed to government or promoting alternative strategies to those being promoted by more mainstream international NGOs, all of whom mobilize people to engage online as consumers, clients, campaigners, supporters, proponents, opponents of activities by corporations/businesses and the government?
     
  • People with disabilities and their unique needs regarding access digital technologies are lumped in with other marginalized groups, which ignores the unique needs of people different kinds of sight impairments, people with hearing impairments, people with different mobility issues, and a range of other physical and intellectual challenges that people creating online tools do not design for. And there’s no mention that improving accessibility for people with disabilities improves access for EVERYONE. The scant references, lumped in with other marginalized groups, are easy to find: just look for the word “disabilities.” This would have been remedied if the panel had included Sharron Rush (USA), of Knowbility or anyone from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

For the next year or two, this report will be used to justify what any UN initiative does regarding ICT4D – and used to dissuade other proposals, like supporting the needs of human rights activists online, or initiatives that make a centerpiece of promoting accessible web design. And given those ommissions, it’s a mixed bag – a followup is most definitely needed to address this. 

See a list of all United Nations Tech4Good / ICT4D Initiatives to date (yes, I track them, since I was involved with two of them, United Nations Technology Service (UNITeS). and the UN’s Online Volunteering service (formerly NetAid).

Here is the panel’s official web site. You can also follow the initiative on Twitter @UNSGdigicoop.

Also see:

Justifying a position as “volunteer” instead of “paid staff”

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From February 2001 through much of February 2005, I worked at the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) program, managing the UN’s Online Volunteering service (formerly NetAid) and the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS), an initiative created by then Secretary General Kofi Annan. UNITeS promoted the importance of engaging volunteers in information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) activities and supported volunteers engaged in ICT4D initiatives. The UNITeS staff worked from the premise that a key to getting communities, government, civil society and individuals in developing countries to leverage computers and the Internet so that they benefit from their use was to involve volunteers in introducing the tech, building people’s capacity to use it, supporting digital literacy, etc.

UNV places and supports thousands of highly-skilled people throughout the world to undertake a variety of highly-skilled work: HIV education, providing medical care, managing schools, training teachers, managing a government office’s communications, being apart of Ebola response, and on and on. When a placement would get approved for a UN volunteer to work on a project that related somehow to computers or the Internet, there was a program manager for a particular region who would come to my office, per my association with the UNITeS initaitive, hand me the Terms of Reference 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.

I’ve long believed that any organization that recruits volunteers, for whatever reason, must have a written statement that explains explicitly why that organization reserves certain tasks / assignments / roles for volunteers. The thousands of experts that are recruited and placed by UNV all over the world, working at a variety of agencies (mostly UNDP), in a variety of areas, are called UN Volunteers, or UNVs, but often, there’s not much to show that they are volunteers, especially given the generous financial compensation UNVs receive. The vision of UNV – as well as other volunteer-sending organizations like Peace Corps and VSO – is that the people that are volunteers through their programs are NOT necessarily people who are career humanitarians; rather, the volunteers are professionals willing to give up six months to two years of their jobs/careers and the compensation that would come with such and, instead, work as a part of a humanitarian endeavor. But I’m sorry to say that, for many agencies, involving people under UNV contracts is a way to save money, as such contracts are far, far cheaper than hiring someone as an employee or consultant outright.

When that UNV program manager gave me those TOS 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.

I have to admit I loved looking up from my desk and seeing her standing there with a printout of a Terms of Reference in her hand, or getting an email from her for help to “Uni-Tize” an assignment. It was always challenging to really think about what would make the assignment worthy of the word volunteer. To me, my additions made those UNV placements fully justified in using the word “volunteer” to describe their work, to show that this was more than just a job that had a UNV contract.

I’ve said it before, I say it again: create a mission statement for your organization’s volunteer engagement that explicitly says WHY your organization or department involves volunteers. Such a statement will guide employees in how they think about volunteers and guide current volunteers in thinking about their role at the organization. It will help your organization avoid the reputation for being just a low-cost staffing solution – something no volunteer really wants to be a part of. Here’s more about my philosophy regarding justifying volunteer engagement and making certain roles volunteer instead of paid.

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.

Also see:

Rethinking ethics of volunteering abroad medical missions

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I am a HUGE fan of m NPR’s Goats & Soda program. This is an excerpt from a recent article:

In 1969, volunteer teams of doctors and nurses from a U.S. charity called Interplast began flying to poor countries to do reconstructive surgery. They operated on children with cleft lips, cleft palates or burn scars so thick their limbs were immobilized. It sounded like a great idea. The team members donated their time, paid for their travel and lodging and sometimes their supplies, and got to do good…

Today, missions are sponsored by churches, universities and charities. There are for-profit missions as well that collect fees from volunteers, mostly students. A 2016 estimate put the annual cost of getting doctors and other health care workers to sites around the world at $3.7 billion, paid for by donors or health personnel themselves.

But today there’s some real soul-searching going on about this kind of fly-in. At conferences and in academic papers, health professionals are asking: Is this really the most effective way to provide health care to the developing world?

This article from NPR’s Goats & Soda program explores the ethics of this volunteering abroad practice. There are growing concerns about what happens when these volunteers leave, and there’s a lot of concern that the care they’re providing may not be culturally appropriate or even wanted by the people on the ground. Sociologist Judith Lasker, author of the 2016 book Hoping to Help, worked with the Catholic Health Association on a study that showed that about half the money spent on medical missions goes for travel costs for the teams. “It doesn’t seem like a very cost-effective strategy,” she says. After she told a local health provider in Haiti the cost of the airfare for bringing in a single American doctor, the Haitian said to Lasker, “Imagine how many antibiotics that could buy.”

Please read the article before commenting!

And if you are not following NPR’s Goats & Soda on Social media, you really, really need to be. I follow @GoadsandSoda on Twitter. It’s terrific for people that work in humanitarian interventions or development abroad, or want to understand them – but it’s also good for anyone involved in nonprofit work in their own countries to read. There are a lot of issues that bring up that are local to any charitable activity locally – not just internationally.

Update: This September 2019 article from the American Medical Association explores ethical implications of international medical volunteering, such as scope of practice, continuity of care, and erosion of local health systems, and offers a personal perspective from a related field.

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.

Also see:

Provocative campaigns against voluntourism

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The pushback against voluntourism – where Westerners pay large amounts of money to go to another country for a few days or weeks and engage in an activity they believe is helping people in some way with just a few hours of volunteering – seems to be getting more intense, judging from what I’m seeing online. I’m now not the only one posting about the dark side of voluntourism on sites like Quora and Reddit – which is so different from 10 years ago, when I felt like the lone voice on sites like YahooAnswers, and on my own web site, begging people not to support voluntourism.

In fact, the pushback against voluntourism is spilling over into all humanitarian action, with many local NGOs in high-poverty countries asking large international NGOs why they aren’t being paid to teach their own children, build their own schools and water wells, etc., instead of bringing in foreigners to do so and why there are so many Westerners – most of them white – starting their own NGOs in developing countries. Here’s one of a few memes I’ve seen reflecting this: 

To be fair, many international agencies have greatly evolved and already focus on hiring local people for their humanitarian interventions. Many international agencies running refugee camps are, whenever possible, hiring refugees themselves, in the camps, for the work that needs to be done.

Still, the campaigns getting the most traction are the ones against voluntourism, and one of my favorite messaging on this subject is this video, Who Wants to Be a Volunteer from Radi-Aid, an annual campaign created by the Norwegian Students’ & Academics’ International Assistance Fund (SAIH).

There’s also the even more provocative No White Saviors campaign, which I found out about via an online group for professional humanitarian workers – highly-skilled people who go to a developing country for several months, even years, to build the skills of local people so that they can take over the work themselves. The campaign is using social media to share highly provocative images and messages, which you can view and read here:

It’s similar to the satirical White Savior Barbie campaign.

Here is one of their tamer memes:

And here is one of the campaign’s much more provocative memes:

I shared these No White Saviors campaign memes on the volunteer subreddit, an online group on Reddit for the discussion of volunteering, and, as you can see if you look yourself, some folks were outraged, calling the campaign racist. I disagree, and think this campaign is important in pushing forth some very important questions that need discussing – the campaigns have certainly made me reflect on not only my international humanitarian work, but my own local volunteering activities and attitudes right here in rural Oregon.

Your thoughts? Let’s hear them in the comments below.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into developing material, researching information, preparing articles, updating pages, etc., here is how you can help.

Also see:

Paying thousands to volunteer abroad & ignoring same opportunities at home

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Late last year, I did an all-day training for a state fish and wildlife department – a government agency – about how to better engage volunteers: how to better design tasks for a variety of volunteers, to better support volunteers, to better track what they are doing and to recruit – not just recruiting volunteers to get tasks done, but also to recruit in order to reach a variety of communities and people. The people I taught were a mix of biologists and long-time volunteer leaders who had never had training in volunteer management.

(read more about my consulting services and training work)

Before doing this type of intensive, specialized training, I do a lot of research to look at what similar organizations might be doing, trends that the client might want to consider, etc. One of the things that struck me as I was researching state fish and wildlife departments all over the USA was how many activities these agencies have for volunteers that people will pay thousands to go do in another country: building and repairing fish and wildlife habitats, counting wildlife, reporting on habitat conditions and more.

I thought about how this is true of so many other agencies as well: there are nonprofits and government programs all over the USA that will help people learn English, that help refugees navigate their new homes, that help people better understand the risks associated with HIV/AIDS, that help people who have lost their home, that help impoverished women with maternal health and infant care, and on and on – yet, people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for voluntourism experiences that make them feel like they are helping refugees, helping children, helping people at risk, etc., rather than participating in these programs just around the corner – or, at least, in their own country.

I don’t like voluntourism, where people pay money to go to another country and feel like they are helping people or the environment in just a few weeks, and I blog about my distaste frequently. So many – not all, but so many – are scams: a supposed wildlife sanctuary captures wild animals and puts them into enclosures and then sells voluntourism experiences, bringing in foreigners to “help.” A supposed orphanage is full of children who have parents, but the parents are paid to keep their children in the “orphanage” so that foreigners will pay large sums of money to come from overseas and “help.” The organizations take anyone who can pay – they don’t need anyone with actual skills or expertise because, supposedly, no one locally can do this “work”, so they must bring in anyone from abroad with “a good heart.” Sure, there are some worthwhile organizations for short-term volunteering abroad – and I list them on this free resource on my web site. But most are, to me, loathsome.

But I also am puzzled as to why so many nonprofits and government agencies in the USA – and other countries – do such a lousy job of talking about their volunteering opportunities. When I told the state agency I was training that people pay thousands of dollars to go do in, say, Kenya, many of the same volunteering tasks that this state agency struggles to find volunteering activities for, they were stunned. But it’s true!

Have a look at some of those shiny, heart-warming voluntourism sites. I’m not going to link to them here, but trust me, they are easy to find on Google or Bing. Look at photos on their sites, the language they use – look how much fun they make volunteering sound, or how they make volunteering sound like a challenge worthy of traveling thousands of miles for – and paying top dollar to experience. Now look at your organization’s web site: how does your agency talk about volunteers and the activities they do? Don’t oversell your program, but do recognize that any activity that allows volunteers to be outside, to be very physical, or to interact with clients are highly desired by many people. What you may see as just more work to do they may see as an opportunity to make a real difference in a cause they care about deeply.

Here’s more of my advice on volunteer recruitment:

And here’s more of my blogs regarding voluntourism and Westerners going to help abroad:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs (and how I define scam)

Read more about my consulting services and training work.

Humanitarians explain their jobs – badly

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I thought it would be fun to start the New Year off with some humor.

A currently popular meme circulating says:

Explain your job badly.

A Facebook group that I’m a part of, for humanitarian workers, started a thread around the meme and I found the answers hilarious.  So, to kick off 2019, here are my favorite responses, sometimes with explanations or commentary by me in parenthesis jus to make sure you get the joke.

Aid & Development Workers explain their jobs… badly:

Conflict bad, peace good.

Making bad better.

Saving the world one report at a time.

I align little figures on power points. Also, I give detailed input on the banner for pointless events. Once in a while I sit up and suggest we publish brochures.

Angering doctors, engineers, government workers and others by making them explain their work.

Saving lives. After I’ve finished the paperwork.

Ensuring measurable results.

I try to communicate to people who don’t know how to communicate why better communication will be of help to them

Pretending to change the rules by following them.

Attending *all* the life-saving meetings.

I ask adults to play games and write on colourful cards explaining to me things I just told them. (this also works for consultants teaching volunteer management)

Fitting 200 pages report titled “Climate change and its effects from last century to nowadays in developing countries” into a 2 page folded brochure, obviously including infographics and pictures

a friend did it for me once “So basically you give soap to rapists and murderers in prisons?” (ICRC Detention Delegate).

I help sex workers and gay men get drugs. (HIV/AIDS public health worker)

Trying to convince local administration that the governor / mayor / prefet home is not the best location for a handpump.

I tell people things they don’t want to hear.

Assisting 80 y.o. receive their first passport (statelessness reduction and prevention).

Parting money from fools – and handing the cash to other fools.

Glorified travel agent arranging travel for old white men whom I babysit and train on how to talk to people.

In response to the responses to someone saying they are a “Cash Adviser” – “No, it’s nothing to do with finance; no, I’m not a cashier; no, I’m not an accountant”, and, occasionally when you say Oxfam, “No, I don’t work in a shop.” (note – humanitarian agencies provide cash assistance in crisis response, giving cash directly to local people so that local markets can quickly be rebuilt, so recipients can prioritize their needs, and because cash can be faster and cheaper to deliver than goods)

Reinforcing systemically weak capacity using antiquated, broken and ineffective systems and doing so with systemic capacity gaps yet expecting and reporting positive outcomes.

Cleaning up after global leaders who sell weapons in one hand and give aid with the other and governments who care more about their pockets than their citizens.

To be fair I think those last two explain humanitarian work quite well.

Would managers of volunteers dare to do this exercise? I challenge you… 

More nonprofit / NGO  humor blogs:

What it is like to be a consultant

If nonprofits were brutally honest with funders

Many app4good efforts fail to get stakeholder input: lessons from UNHCR

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Developed in a ‘bubble’, many apps that were developed by various IT dogooders for refugees duplicated existing well-used communication platforms. They didn’t take into account complex issues of trust, how information (or rumors) spread, nor how rapidly the political and protection landscape changed. There was also demonstrated naivety around data protection and the political sensitivity related to information being shared.

“I definitely don’t want to disparage the motivations nor the commitments demonstrated by thousands of volunteers during in Europe. But, ‘tech-led solutions’ to complex challenges failed to solve the significant communication issues.”

Katie Drew of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) writes a much-needed piece about the many apps4good / tech4good efforts launched to help migrants that didn’t last past their splashy launches. She also provides helpful advice for future efforts. Her advice is applicable to ANY hackathons / hacks4good that think a room full of IT folks can solve an issue faced by migrants, people experiencing homeless, women facing domestic violence, or any mission of a nonprofit or non-governmental organization.

Also see:

More Than Me scandal in Liberia: a lesson to all who “just want to help”

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Katie Meyler of the USA wanted to save girls in Liberia from sexual exploitation, to educate them, empower them, keep them safe. She founded a charity called More Than Me and quickly raised more than $8 million for her efforts. The first More Than Me project multiplied quickly to 19 schools teaching 4,000 students. When the Liberian president, who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for women’s safety, was asked what she wanted from those keen to help her country, she answered, “To expand Katie Meyler’s initiative to as many communities as possible.” Meyler rubbed shoulders with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, and even get invited to the Obama White House.

Yet many of the girls in the program were regularly raped by a high-level MTM staff member, who was never vetted and rarely supervised in his interactions with girls. Victims told authorities and the media that he threatened to take away their scholarships or even kill them if they reported him.

The first school launched byMore Than Me was staffed in large part by year-long American “teaching fellows,” volunteers who were each asked to fundraise or pay $10,000 to participate. Except for one position, teaching experience wasn’t required, nor was a criminal background check – applicants just had to show they were an “innovative, out-of-the-box thinker and risk-taker” and include a video demonstrating they were “on fire with passion.” And, of course, have the money to pay. One of the first volunteers tried to sound the alarm and mismanagement and lack of appropriate safety systems at the organization, drafting a document highlighting the risks the organization was taking regarding financial management and children’s safety. The organization did create a written policy which said staff members were required to report child abuse to the organization, but in a country where sex for grades and other school-based exploitation were prevalent, the charity had no procedures for how to do so, and did not train staff about what reporting would look like.

Instead of helping girls, this program has irreparably harmed many. It put girls into the path of a serial predator and ignored warning signs about such. And many thousands of dollars are unaccounted for.

If you want to go abroad, with no experience, just a good heart, to help others, and you don’t yet know about the horror show that is More Than Me in Liberia, you need to read up. The ProPublica piece that exposed More Than Me is worth your time.

As this article from the Nonprofit Quarterly notes about the More Than Me scandal:

Cases like More Than Me’s underline the importance of context and relevant experience. Anyone with the most basic understanding of the social dynamics in Liberia or any other post-conflict situation would have known that sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) was a huge problem and not taken it for granted. The inexperience of Katie Meyler has been remarked upon and shows clearly through her handling of this crisis. White saviorism also thrives on the porn of poverty that freezes affected countries into essentialized images and relations of dependence from which they struggle to recover. But equally dangerous is its instrumentality as a facade for the less than honorable activities of some so-called humanitarians. There can be no sustainable reform of humanitarianism unless the world puts heads together to block the unintended consequences of humanitarianism.

Why am I so hard on people that post to forums or write me directly and say, “I have a good heart and a love of adventure and want to help poor kids in other countries!”? Why am I even harder on organizations that say, “Pay us this amount of money and we’ll let you help in our orphanage abroad – no need for any special skills or a criminal background check!”? This is a perfect example as to why. Yes, I am abrupt and demanding with people that posts such messages to fora or directly to me – and I will continue to do so.

And it’s not just abroad: I frequently come into contact with programs right here in Oregon that do not have any written policies about preventing and reporting inappropriate behavior by staff, volunteers or clients, and have no training for staff, volunteers or clients on what inappropriate behavior is and what reporting looks like. And when I try to bring this up, however gently, prefaced by lots of compliments to the program for producing such great results, I hear “We haven’t had any problems with inappropriate behavior.” And my response is always the same, “How do you know?”

Four things I wish every person knew who wants to go abroad and help, and every organization knew that wants to fund efforts to help people abroad:

  • Having a good heart and passion for a cause will not make your organization immune to corruption, mismanagement, harassment of clients or sexual abuse.
  • Any nonprofit, charity or government effort to help people should always put the clients, their priorities and their safety FIRST, below whatever organizational, program or personal brand you are trying to establish.
  • Local people that you want to help, even children, get a say in how you are going to help them, a say in what the organizational and funding priorities should be, and a priority for when they complain about something that threatens themselves, their family or their community.
  • Your goal, as much as possible, is to build the capacity of those local people to eventually lead and staff these activities themselves WITHOUT YOU.

The backlash against humanitarians working abroad with children, including volunteers (voluntourism), is coming. Are you ready? Also see: Nepal’s children at risk: Sexual abuse in the aid sector.

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Sexual harassment of humanitarian workers

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I’m on a Facebook group for humanitarian workers that work in countries other than their own. It’s an invitation-only group, so I’m not going to say the name.

Over the last few weeks, women have posted about experiencing sexual harassment from co-workers and, in one case, a representative of a donor agency, and some have asked how to deal with it.

After sharing some information about her latest experience, one woman asked for specific advice:

What implication will it have to report, how will my colleagues see me after I report, my reputation is in-line, what implication will it bring to my career in this field.

The reality is that NO ONE can answer her questions, because there is no way to know unless someone else has reported before at that specific organization, with exactly the same staff, and can share what happened in their case. Every organization is different. No matter what their policies regarding sexual harassment, it is possible her colleagues will support her and it is possible they won’t. It is possible it will affect her career negatively if she reports and it is possible it won’t.

Of course, there are responses like this to accounts of sexual harassment:

I’m a man and I’m telling you to stand up for such a$$holes.

I’m not sure why men don’t understand that there are consequences for “standing up”: she could be fired for something seemingly unrelated to the harassment, her job could suddenly be eliminated, she could stop being invited to meetings and stop receiving important internal memos, isolating her to the point of being forced to quit, supervisors could share that she’s a “problem” and she could find herself without references and without a job.

Here are responses from women on the Facebook group about how they handled sexual harassment by co-workers or representatives from partner organizations or donor organizations, or what their own fears have been about reporting such:

My experience is that if you stand for yourself, you are labeled as a prude and not funny and/or the person that is so deeply offended that no future communication seems possible.

The only thing that ever worked for me was to find a male “ally” that would intervene in such a situation. Sad but true.

I had a similar situation (inappropriate comments) inside my own organisation: he was the boss of my boss. I never confronted him directly but I told my boss and my colleagues, and they never left me alone with him again.

Sometimes, responding angrily, in the moment, pisses off predators even more and they retaliate by being even more disgusting or threatening.

The problem here is the impact our decision has on our organizations or our future careers. And while most often men accused/investigated for such things are just free to go, with no consequences, women’s career or their organizations’ future is at stake. And that’s unfair. I should not be forced to chose between my dignity, my beneficiaries/colleagues and justice. I should not have to risk more than him. But it is true. And tbh, if you ask me if I chose to speak up and risk that my organization will not be able to support people in need and my colleagues will lose their jobs or my dignity, I will just shut up and smile, both while feeling extremely helpless and frustrated. Fair? Not. Probable? Very.

This is the reality of so many professional women, not just those working in humanitarian assignments abroad: it’s the reality for journalists, for professors, for doctors, for nurses, for women working in manufacturing or food service or retail.

When I was in this position myself – being harassed by a male co-worker – I reported it to the UN HR field office where I worked – and was told by the UN HR representative, “Working in the field is really difficult, and if you aren’t up for these challenges, perhaps you should leave when your contract ends, if not before.” I was stunned. I wasn’t ready to give up the job – and I felt like I would also be giving up my entire career. So, instead, I went to the local staff HR counterpart, someone who was from the country where I was working. I told him what was happening, and told him to never, ever put me in the same car with the perpetrator on field visits – to put no women in his car at all. We had a long, honest talk about it and he had my back – he made sure this guy never got opportunities to be alone with any female staff in cars. I talked to all other women in the office and we agreed to watch out for each other, to never leave anyone alone with this person. I will always be angry that that UN HR person wouldn’t support me – but I also know my career would have been completely derailed if I had officially reported the incident, and I wasn’t ready to lose my career.

This is my advice for a woman experiencing sexual harassment on the job in humanitarian work, and I hope it’s helpful to other women in other professions as well. It’s what I wish I had done:

Remember that your safety and health are most important and you need to do what is best for you.

Email the details of exactly what happened – exactly what was said, where and when – regarding the instances of sexual harassment to a trusted colleague. That doesn’t have to be a colleague at the same organization, but it does need to be someone you trust NOT to forward the email unless and if you ask them to, and will keep the email indefinitely. This will give you a written record of what happened and proof that you told someone close the actual date of what happened. In your account, focus on what was said and done. Don’t just say, “He said sexual things that made me uncomfortable” but, rather, EXACTLY what the person said. Don’t say “He touched me sexually” but, rather, “He put his hand on…” Keep a copy of this email or emails on a computer of your own as well. If you choose not to report now, but to do so later, this email/these emails will be crucial.

Think about ways to keep yourself safe while you are waiting to decide whether or not to report. For instance, do not meet alone with the perpetrator: always take someone with you. Refuse to be in a car alone with the person. If the person comes to your office, insist that the door stay open. If you think it would be helpful, tell trusted co-workers to help you in never meeting along with the person, never being next to the person in a car, etc. Don’t be surprised if, in talking with other women, you find that they have similar stories of being harassed.

I suggest you go to the person that you are supposed to report to at your organization regarding sexual harassment. This is probably someone in human resources. You may want to ask a trusted co-worker to go with you and sit quietly while you speak, to be a witness to what happens. At this meeting, tell exactly what happened, without saying the name of the perpetrator’s name but with as many details as possible. Say that you are not going to say the name of the person at this point, and say why:

I am worried about giving you further information because I worry about my career and how I will be treated if I fully disclose. I would like to know what exactly will happen when I give you the name of this person. How will you investigate? How will this be documented? What other staff members and office will know about the investigation? I am not asking if the person will be fired or reprimanded – I am asking only for how these kinds of cases proceed by office policy, so I can know whether or not I should give further details. 

If you feel comfortable proceeding based on the answers you get, proceed with full reporting and give the perpetrator’s name. If you don’t feel comfortable, say, “I don’t feel comfortable saying more because I’m not getting clear answers” or “I am going to take 24 hours to consider your answers.” No matter what happens at the meeting, you need to write an email of followup with the person you met with, copying the person who was there as a witness, saying, “Thank you for meeting with me on such-and-such date. In our meeting, we agreed that…” and then recount exactly what was said in that meeting, exactly what the answers were to the questions you asked, so that the person cannot later try to say that he or she did or didn’t say something.

Also, rehearse comments to make if the harassment happens again. You want to be able to say these clearly, with a somewhat raised voice so that anyone nearby can hear you, and rehearsing these statements can help you later, in the moment:

“What did you just say to me? Please repeat what you just said to me.”

“I don’t think this is an appropriate comment/conversation and I don’t want to hear it again.”

“That comment makes me uncomfortable and you are not to talk to me that way again.”

Then leave the space immediately, if possible. If you are next to the person in a room, move. If the person walks into a room with you and closes the door, walk over and open it, with no explanation, until someone else enters the room. If you are in a car and the security situation allows it, ask the driver to stop the car, insist if necessary, then exchange seats with a man in the vehicle: “I am going to have to exchange seats with you immediately. Thank you.”

And continue to document any inappropriate behavior or references to such.

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