Tag Archives: aid workers’ wellbeing
Aid to Zen: G – Good Intentions
This post is part of Aid to Zen – A Quick Guide to Surviving Aid Work from A to Z by Alessandra Pigni. *** “The power to help is just about as dangerous as hard power” – Binyavanga Wainaina Those who are fairly new … Continue reading
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Tagged aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing, humanitarian ethics
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Aid to Zen: F – (The) field
This post is part of Aid to Zen – A Quick Guide to Surviving Aid Work from A to Z by Alessandra Pigni. Much has been written about the myth of the field and fieldwork. There are countless memoirs about life in the field with … Continue reading
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Staff care beyond the World Humanitarian Summit
I followed the World Humanitarian Summit online. I often got bored and missed key events such as the screening of Sean Penn’s new aid romance (or drama, whatever it was, it was booed at Canned and screened at the WHS, … Continue reading
Posted in Burnout
Tagged aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing, organizational culture in aid
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Aid to Zen: E – Empathy
This post is part of Aid to Zen – A Quick Guide to Surviving Aid Work from A to Z by Alessandra Pigni. *** Dear all, Apologies for having gone quiet for a bit. The last few months have been unpredictable as … Continue reading
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Aid to Zen: D – Dignity
This post is part of Aid to Zen – A Quick Guide to Surviving Aid Work from A to Z by Alessandra Pigni. *** We may not think of dignity as an issue of mental health, but it has a lot … Continue reading
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Aid to Zen: C – Counselling
Note to the readers: Counselling is probably a kind of western thing and it’s certainly not the only way to make it through a personal and/or professional crisis, so take what’s useful and forget the rest. The point is: we … Continue reading
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Tagged aid workers' burnout, aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing
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Aid to Zen: B – Booze
I was going to write about burnout (again), but as it is becoming the talk of the day among aid workers, I decided to address something slightly more controversial: the pervasive drinking culture among humanitarians. You can read about burnout … Continue reading
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Tagged aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing
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Aid to Zen: A – Aidland
This is the first post of a new series Aid to Zen – A Quick Guide to Surviving Aid Work from A to Z *** I think universities should consider offering a course called “Aid work is not what you think”. It could … Continue reading
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Introducing Aid to Zen – The A to Z Guide to Surviving Aidland
When I first visited London both tourists and locals were familiar with a pocket-book called London A to Z. Now also an app, the London A to Z is basically a roadmap that helps you “find your way round literally and metaphorically” in … Continue reading
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Tagged aid workers' burnout, aid workers' mental health, aid workers' wellbeing
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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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