News coverage about the situation in Darfur have helped raise the profile of humanitarian aid work. That's led to an increase in the number of people applying for jobs with aid agencies. But working for a non-governmental organisation in Darfur or Sri Lanka can be more gruelling -- physically and mentally -- than many people anticipate. So a program run by several Boston-area universities tries to prepare future aid workers by exposing them to a simulated refugee crisis. The World's Katy Clark went along and filed this report.
Clark: It's Saturday morning, and the sun's just breaking through the trees at ‘Harold Parker State Forest' in North Andover, Massachusetts, but Hilarie Cranmer is already busy. She briefs me on what's been happening since yesterday. That's when the three-day simulation started, and the forest became a stand-in for the arid border area between Chad and Darfur.
Cranmer: "There was a huge amount of militia activity throughout the night. Various factions were seen marching in and around the NGO camps, harassing the NGO's, lots of gunfire was heard. And lots of people moving about."
Clark: Cranmer runs "The Humanitarian Studies Initiative," at Harvard University. Faculty at Harvard, and Tufts University, devised this very realistic simulation several years ago to challenge grad students who're completing a certificate course in humanitarian response. This exercise let's students practice what they've learned in class.
"You're a local, know much more about the weather, expecting any changes?"
Clark: Here, some of the more than 50 students taking part in the simulation pretend to be members of a western NGO. Part of their assignment is to interview local staff in charge of the various refugee camps in the simulation. They try to figure out how their agency can help.
"... answers all my questions, you are a strong man, Damean... I know I can get more money from donors if I have more women on my staff....more money, more food, for the people, for the people, yes?..."
Clark: To make the simulation as real as possible, participants must stay in character throughout the weekend. They sleep in tents, dine on military rations, and encounter volunteers who pretend to be pesky reporters and surly border guards. Painted sticks stand in for groups of refugees. Each of the 5 refugee camps in the simulation presents students with a unique health challenge. Hilarie Cranmer says at the "Oure Cassoni camp," it's diarrhea.
Cranmer: "So what they're supposed to do at Oure Cassoni today is do some water interventions, building latrines and purifying water. And they're gonna compete with each other when they show up as NGO's. Gonna be like Top Chef Humanitarian."
Digging latrines
Clark: Most of the simulation leaders have done stints in overseas crisis zones themselves, and it's clear they're enjoying a little payback at their students' expense. Still, Peter Walker, a professor at Tufts University, says he wishes there'd been something like this before he got into humanitarian work more than 20 years ago. It's not the type of life you want to commit to, he says, unless you're sure you're cut out for it.
Walker says one of the things that always amazes him is how hard it is for students in the simulation to distinguish between what they report as "fact" and what they merely "suspect" is fact.
Walker: "You know these people have been at top universities for 3 years and they'll still say things like there were 2,000 people in camp and there's 1,000 rebels. I said how did you know that? Someone told me there were a thousand rebels. And the point is if you don't make that distinction you have no idea what the information means."
Clark: Later, when the students tell Walker that the armed men who attacked their camp the night before were "Janjaweed" militiamen because they said they were, he again stresses the importance of getting the facts straight.
Walker: "It could have been the Janjaweed, or it could have been another group trying to set the Janjaweed up. So how would you interpret this? If nobody was killed, nobody injured, nobody abducted, nothing stolen... Sounds much more to me like someone's trying to put the frighteners on you, or somebody's trying to set up an incident that gets reported to the press."
Clark: Many of those helping out this weekend are former students. Devon Cone was in the simulation last year. It was enough to convince some in her class that aid work wasn't for them.
Cone: "In these humumanitarian situations you often live, work, and eat with the same people and play witht the same people. You can't leave compounds and you have these curfews as we have here, and you're in small confined spaces. If you can't be in a small confined space with strangers, then you're not gonna be able to do this work and I think people do realize that after a weekend."
Clark: Cone has done humanitarian work in Kenya and she finds the simulation realistic, though she does have one minor complaint.
Cone: "They kind of overdo the security incidents here. But I think that's really important because the work is needed, if you're out of commission you have a lot of people relying on you who don't get what they need."
Clark: For many refugees, one of the things they often need is a way to cook the rations distributed by aid workers. In real-life, in Darfur, women who leave the security of the camps to search for fire wood risk being raped. Organizers of this year's simulation figured a possible solution might be introducing inexpensive "solar cookers."
"you got some good weather to try your invention.Yea, that's what we were thinking..."
Clark: Ovens that use the sun's rays for cooking have been around for generations but they're getting a fresh look ever since a cheap version that uses two cardboard boxes, black paint, and some reflective foil won first prize this year in a contest for green ideas.
Buidling a solar cooker
These future aid workers agree to try their hands at building one. Organizers hope that one day they'll teach the same skills to refugees.
"How hot do the ovens get?" Well, from our initial testing, you can apparently boil ten liters of water in two hours." "Really?" "You look skeptical." "Does it need to be used in equatorial climates, or would it work in North America somewhere?" "If this works, my gas bill here in Boston goes down." "Is that Boston, Chad or Boston, Darfur?"
Clark: Here in the woods north of Boston Massachusetts, the sun dipped behind the trees before the water in the solar cooker reached boiling. Given the desert landscape of the real Darfur, trees likely wouldn't be such an issue.
For The World, this is Katy Clark, North Andover, Massachusetts.
