Real talk: The thrills and risks of being a female humanitarian worker
By: Un Refugee Agency
Tags: Development, Humanitarian, Refugees, Women, Careers

How have other women helped you in your career or how have you helped other women?

Eujin: I was in Lebanon during the Syria refugee crisis. I saw children and women living in tents when there was a huge snowstorm and then when I entered my house with a heater, a roof, nice food—I just cried every day. Then I got very good advice from a senior officer. She said, ‘If you cannot accept those differences, you cannot continue your work as humanitarian. Somehow you have to accept them and then you have to move on, because you are there to assist them and if you are suffering from their situation you cannot support them.’ It was an amazing advice. I always get that kind of advice especially from senior female staff like Aurvasi. We see the number of women in senior management is increasing and that actually has a huge impact, so that we can learn from them. It’s really inspiring to hear your story, after 30 years with UNHCR—I don’t know how you could do that [laughs].

“I will cry as well, even after 30 years. But I just try and hope that it is not in a field setting.”

Aurvasi: I still really, really love my job and I’m very excited to get up and go to work. Of course you have one or two bad days every decade [laughs]. I actually enjoy management. I enjoy bringing out what I can with a team. That’s one of the most critical things you’ve got to be able to do—to support one another and bring out the best in each other. Like you said, I sob like a baby in any movie. And I will cry as well, even after 30 years. But I just try and hope that it is not in a field setting. Our job is to help the people and therefore us being emotional in some instances might work, it might help them to feel that we’re empathetic, that we understand, but in other situations it might be the opposite—‘How is this woman going to help us if she’s crying? We do enough of it ourselves and we need somebody strong and determined.’ Of course we’re human, so as much as you want to have this emotion, sometimes you just have to deal with it and accept that it’s probably not the right emotion at that right time.

The beauty of our job—aside from the amazing work we are privileged to do—is the peers and the friends that you forge. They become the surrogate family and the morale boosters. They’re there for you, they understand what you’ve been through.

You have both undergone some really dangerous situations while working in the field. Aurvasi, you were trapped in a car during a terrorist attack by the Taliban in 2008, and you, Eujin, were in South Sudan in 2016, when a series of women aid workers were raped. Did you ever fear for your lives? How did your colleagues help in those situations?

Eujin: I think fear is there, clearly. Even greater after this rape incident, because it feels too close to me. Ever since then I think the fear is there among the female staff. But that’s why the colleagues here in this environment are so important—hearing that I’m not the only one who is afraid, that it’s okay to be afraid. And then we jokingly say that we’ll protect each other. We we sit together, we drink tea and we talk about those kinds of fears and it actually helps a lot.

“When you’re at work, you’re family.”

Aurvasi: I seem to be one of these people that can think in danger situations, so I was able to manage it and of course once you get out of it, you think, ‘Oh my god, any of these scenarios could have happened.’ You’ve got to be mindful that it could happen again. In Afghanistan today the security environment is so difficult and a large number of humanitarian workers were killed last year. My representative at that time and the deputy did an amazing job in keeping the team together. After the attack, I remember all of us having takeaway pizzas because nobody wanted to go home. The way it was managed was wonderful in terms of reminding us how when you’re at work, you’re family.