Zero Tolerance

The month of August started slowly and picked up rather quickly. Within a couple weeks of the family being together, I was off to Somalia for a series of trips. Given our efforts to move our Nairobi operations to Mogadishu, I anticipated that I would have an increase in my travels to Somalia over the coming months. This is more or less what I signed up for. Though all of our activities and 90% of our staff are already in Somalia, there are some support functions that have continued in Nairobi for various reasons. In our strategic plan we were to shift these remaining functions (primarily operations and finance) by 2020. It appears now that this is going to happen sooner. Generally speaking it’s a good thing, given that it’s not sustainable to continue remote management long term, but it there are some constraints (that I won’t go into here) that will make this rather challenging. If it were easy, it would have been done a long time ago.

not that many non-Somalis get to enjoy a Mogadishu beach

One interesting task I had during a couple of these visits was to facilitate a dialogue session regarding sexual harassment and sexual abuse and exploitation SH/SAE. It has been a big issue in the humanitarian sector. Things have surfaced over the past few years that made people realize that this is a bigger issue than most people thought. It may seem counter intuitive to the outsider. Why would aid workers, people who signed up to provide aid to those in need, harm the very people they are assisting? In fact there are lots of reasons this happens, including the power dynamic between the beneficiary and the aid giver. There are others. For example some international staff are attracted to this work out of more of a sense of adventure than a desire to help. Local staff, on the other hand, are often less interested in adventure and more interested in a salary. Humanitarian efforts are predominantly in economically depressed areas and humanitarian organizations are often the largest employers. But it’s a myth that aid workers are all altruistic in their motivations to work – even in the more dangerous parts of the world. It should be said that many are passionate about helping the needy, and I’ve known many that admitted that they started out doing this work for the wrong reasons but over time developed deeper passions about what we do. But regardless, measures need to be in place to make sure that organizations who do this work have zero tolerance toward SH/SAE.  

and the bombed out yet wonderful architecture

As such we’re approaching the issue on multiple fronts. This dialogue session is just one piece. It’s something that we’re doing in each of our offices and then using this information to improve our monitoring and reporting and better protect our staff and beneficiaries. The Mogadishu team was separated by gender and both groups proceeded to have honest reflections about SH in the workplace and SAE in the populations that we serve. What made it fascinating was exploring how these things play out in our context. For some, it was new territory to openly discuss these things. For me, leading the men’s session, it was an opportunity to learn about the culture and how people, particularly people of opposite genders, interact with each other both in the workplace and outside. Some things are surprisingly similar to other contexts and other things are very different. I’ve had the opportunity to work in about ten different countries and this is by far the most interesting.

the team in Mogadishu

A few weeks later I traveled to Puntland to conduct the same session with staff there. There were some similarities between the two locations but a few new things came up. I only sat in on the men’s sessions but I received debriefs from the women’s sessions. In both places I was impressed by how candid the conversations were. There seemed to be an appreciation that we were talking about these things, particularly from the women obviously, that there isn’t an impunity for people who violate our policies.

a visit to one of the hospitals

One other thing that I did with the team in Puntland was inaugurate a safe space for women. A few months ago staff proposed that we set aside one room per location where women could pray, nurse, talk among themselves, etc. It’s not an easy commitment to make given that space is limited but I felt that, in addition to the obvious practical benefit, it would be a solid gesture of support on the part of the organization.

In fact I didn’t realize I was going to inaugurate the space. I was just told that they had furnished it and it was now functional. But the second morning I was there the women asked me to stop by the room. I assumed that it was just to show it to me but as we approached the entrance I saw was a strip of red garland strung across the doorway. Clever man that I am, I picked up on the fact that a bit more was going on.

They promptly handed me some scissors and told me that I was to cut the “ribbon” to launch the inauguration of the room. As camera phones flashed, the garland was cut and entered the new space (a former guestroom that I had stayed in previously). It had been tastefully furnished with a new carpet, sectional sofa and matching curtains. They’d bought a cake to celebrate the occasion and, with the Field Manager, I had to cut that too.

It was very nice and it really demonstrated how much they appreciated the fact that they now had this space available to them. While we had cake, we chatted about a number of things, including what it’s like to be a working woman in Somalia. Interesting and talented team.