Posted on September 4, 2008 - by Frank

Humanitarian Jobs

With the ever growing awareness of humanitarian issues around the world related to aid and community development, there is a corresponding desire growing amongst many people to get themselves directly involved in humanitarian work. Because of this, many people are specifically looking for humanitarian jobs.

Because the aid and development sector is so large and growing at an alarming rate with new organisations popping up all the time, many people have no idea where to start to get themselves involved.

There are many options available involving different skill levels.

First and foremost, volunteers are always wanted. Most organisations have volunteer programmes that involve advocacy positions and sometimes, direct work amongst the peoples that such groups specifically work with. This is a valuable port of call for anyone seeking to engage in humanitarian jobs, but with no experience or specific education in this area. It can act as a testing ground for whether the desire to pick up a humanitarian job is simply an emotive, untested, romanticised ideal, or something more grounded. You never know though, even a romanticised ideal can be developed into something more cemented via volunteer work.

If you are looking to volunteer, decide first whether you want to engage in hands on work or act as an advocate for an organisation. If you decide for hands on work, you need to decide whether you want to offer your services to a local organisation (city missions, food banks etc) or be more global - there are organisations whose work abroad is completely based around what volunteers have to offer. Good examples are Unite for Sight and their Volunteer Abroad system, Cross Cultural Solutions and Global Volunteers.

If you wish to engage in a humanitarian job locally as an advocate for an organisation whose work is overseas, just get in touch with them and see if they offer any sort of advocacy programme where you can engage in helping to raise awareness of what they do and help to raise money for their work.

Paid humanitarian jobs can be found as well. Much humanitarian work abroad now involves skills and knowledge in the area of community development. There are specific courses that can be taken for this. Other areas that are often engaged by humanitarian organisations are management and marketing. Volunteer and advocacy bases need to be managed and promotion and awareness raising are key to the survival and growth of such organisations. Events management is an important role as well. Upskilling in these areas can be extremely valuable for those seeking humanitarian jobs.

For those seeking paid work in the humanitarian sector the best thing to do first is research. Research the organisations engaged in the work you are interested in a find one that aligns with your values. Find an organisation you can be passionate about and then contact them - find out if they have any work on offer and if not, ask them to keep you up to date on any positions that become available.

If you’re not fussy and simply want to find something, there are places on the internet you can look to find available humanitarian jobs around the world:

ReliefWeb - Vacancies

International Career and Employment Weekly - International Development and Assistance

Ethical Jobs UK

Myspace Jobs

Skills for Causes

Ethical Jobs

Those are some good places to start. If you’re looking, never forget that Google and the telephone are your friend. Happy job hunting.