Posts Tagged ‘Aid’
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:
International Career and Employment Weekly - International Development and Assistance
Those are some good places to start. If you’re looking, never forget that Google and the telephone are your friend. Happy job hunting.
Posted on September 2, 2008 - by Frank
TEAR Fund Commits Aid to India Flood Victims
TEAR Fund is committing $80,000 to bring relief to the displaced millions following the worst flooding in 50 years, in India’s state of Bihar.
TEAR Fund’s partner in India, the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (EFICOR) is experienced in disaster relief, having responded to most of the worst disasters to hit India over the past three decades. A team is already assessing the situation and will provide much needed water, shelter, medicines and food as families flock to relief camps across one of poorest states in India.
TEAR Fund senior programmes officer, Bernard Gomes says while the death toll is not high at present, it is a huge disaster in terms of displacing more than 2 million people.
“These people have an uncertain future as their hopes and dreams have been swept away. It is now a race against time to make sure others don’t die from secondary killers such as waterborne diseases. The floods have also destroyed vital crops and killed livestock, adding to the pain, and this will have a ripple effect across India given the current global food crisis. “
TEAR Fund’s partner is co-ordinating its efforts with other aid agencies and the Indian Government to ensure an effective response and that there is no duplication of aid.
Posted on August 27, 2008 - by Frank
Emergency Aid and Community Development
When many of us picture aid and charity to developing nations, I think we often picture the heady times of the 80’s and the aid that poured into Ethiopia due to the work of people like Bob Geldof and Live Aid. We were bombarded with images of poverty and rightly the world’s heart was moved, resulting in one of the biggest outpourings of aid and charity that the world has ever seen. Aid in the forms of food and supplies poured into the starving region, alleviating much need.
At that time it filled a gap, but some would argue that it was also somewhat naive in that it failed to address long term issues and simply created dependency. The ongoing problems of that are being seen now, with the effects of the latest Ethiopian famine destroying the lives of many and the nation being ill equipped to cope without depending on a large amount of outside assistance. There are clearly internal issues that need to be addressed, with Ethiopia having a large army that uses much resource, but it cannot be denied that the dependency on aid has somewhat crippled the nation.
It is this problem that many have in mind when they speak of it being futile supporting NGO’s (Non Governmental Organisations) working in and amongst communities in developing nations. But it is here that we can highlight the difference between straight aid and community development.
Let’s use TEAR Fund New Zealand (part of the global network of Compassion International partners) as an example of a healthy model.
TEAR Fund New Zealand engages in emergency aid in crisis situations as a part of what they do, with an eye for long term stability and development where such crises have had an ongoing detrimental effect, but by far their greatest work is in ongoing community development and long term advocacy.
The TEAR Fund model is built on partnering with local churches and projects in poverty stricken areas to equip, empower and resource indigenous groups to solve their own problems. Indigenous groups are encouraged towards problem solving that leads to long term stability and eventually, independance that sees them no longer needing the services of organisations like TEAR Fund. It is a long term strategy where child sponsorship programmes that equip an up and coming generation, and micro-enterprise schemes that give a hand up to local entreprenuers are a central part of that development.
The community development model is a very different aid strategy than the emergency aid that flooded into Ethiopia in the 80’s. Community development has become a science that looks to move communities towards independance rather than third party dependance. Good community development takes into account the social intricacies of that which it is partnering with. No longer can we rest back and use the wrong assumption of irresponsible aid as a reason not to give. Whilst such irresponsibility continues in some organisations, there are many organisations involved in the sort of community development we would endorse.
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Image in post: CC Some Right Reserved. Original by Carf.
Posted on May 13, 2008 - by Frank
Burma / Myanmar: TEAR Fund Press Release
TEAR Fund has just dispatched an initial $50,000 to help its partner working on the ground in Myanmar, deliver much needed aid to the desperate Burmese people.
“While the situation regarding restrictions on external workers and aid flows is totally unacceptable, charitable funding given to TEAR Fund is getting through and being used wisely and effectively in this very difficult and almost unprecedented situation, “said TEAR Fund NZ executive director, Stephen Tollestrup. “In fact our partner’s team is working 24/7, in ways I can only describe as heroic.”
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