Author Archives: Alessandra Pigni
New every morning – a poem
New Every Morning, a brief poem by Susan Coolidge, is especially for all those humanitarians who will be working throughout the summer in hot and difficult conditions. Take heart, as the poem says… [If you wish to read my reflections … Continue reading
Posted in Letters to the field
Tagged poems for humanitarians
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What aid organisations can learn from Pope Francis
“We value people….yes just now our own” tells me an aid worker as a half joke. We all see it: aid agencies have a business to run, and “staff care” is at best a policy. Unless you happen to land … Continue reading
Posted in Burnout
Tagged organizational culture in aid
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Nope, you can’t “be the change” alone
“Positive Attitude” Bullshit: On the dangers of “radical self-love”, reads the title of what I think is a provocative post that brings together important reflections on the “personal and the political” that may be of interest to my fellow readers. … Continue reading
Can aid workers be activists?
In this new guest-post the author explores how humanitarian agencies “kill” the spirit of humanitarianism in aid workers A guest post by an impassioned humanitarian aid worker.* Ever since I left my job at a women’s rights organization and went … Continue reading
4 ways toxic workplaces are harming the social good sector
Guest post by Jennifer Lentfer “How toxic is your work environment?” Between the quiz in the New York Times recently or the many(!) articles found on the subject in Fast Company, Forbes, Monster or LifeHacker, you’d think there’s an epidemic … Continue reading
War is Zen
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to choose a profession “on the edge”, like being an aid worker. And not only to choose in the first place, but also to stay on, sometimes hang in there for … Continue reading
Posted in Letters to the field
Tagged aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing
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Mindfulness and Self-Care in Humanitarian Action
This post was originally published as Protecting the Humanitarian Individual: Mindfulness and Self-Care in Humanitarian Action on The Individualisation of War blog, a project by the European University Institute *** I arrived in Nablus in 2008, amid the human and emotional devastation … Continue reading
Posted in Burnout
Tagged humanitarian ethics, mindfulness for aid workers
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Managing teams in dangerous places—the self-destructor
A guest post by J. If you’re a manager in the aid world whose role and team are based in the field (or a deployable, field-facing team based elsewhere), I’d be willing to bet that you have at least one … Continue reading
Managing teams in dangerous places—The basics.
A guest post by J. Those of you who follow my writing in other places know that I’m a full-time, professional humanitarian worker, a die-hard believer in the humanitarian enterprise. What I’ve said less often publicly is that for the … Continue reading
Posted in Burnout
Tagged aid workers' mental health, guest posts
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Home, Sanity and the Politics of Aid
A review of J.’s new novel Honor Among Thieves As a former aid worker I carry the signs of the field: I can bear long waits at airports, sit on planes for a good however many hours, or find ways … Continue reading
Posted in Burnout
Tagged aid workers' mental health
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