Humanitarian aid Workers

Humanitarian aid workers assist people forced from their homes because of conflict or natural disasters. This assistance begins within hours after a disaster and often continues for years. Humanitarian relief deployments themselves can last weeks to years. During these deployments, humanitarian aid workers must plan for self-sufficiency and for the unique challenges they will face, including insecure environments and emotional stress.

Each year tens of thousands of aid workers are deployed worldwide, and many more people (doctors, civic and religious groups) participate as amateur responders to international disasters. Professional aid workers often deploy with large specialist organizations like Doctors Without Borders that have infrastructure and resources to properly support their personnel. By contrast, amateur responders may deploy with smaller, less prepared groups with less experience in humanitarian work (Box 9-2).

Box 9-2. Voluntourism

Volunteer tourism, also called “voluntourism,” describes tourists volunteering for a charity or development organization, usually for short periods, in developing countries. Although largely well intentioned, the impact of short-term visits—often by volunteers lacking specific understanding of the local context and lacking requisite skills—is variable and may be harmful in certain settings.

Voluntourism in humanitarian emergencies may be particularly problematic given dynamic and often dangerous humanitarian environments that require professional knowledge, organizational infrastructure, and understanding of the humanitarian response coordination system. Without the necessary individual competencies and organizational support, voluntourists in these settings expose themselves to unnecessary personal risks and can create a burden on the broader humanitarian response operations.

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Humanitarian aid Workers