Aid Worker Voices

Would you recommend this line of work to young people in your life?

Would you recommend this line of work to young people in your life?

To state the obvious, being an aid worker can be dangerous physically and mentally; many deployments can be existentially challenging in all senses.  The career trajectory of an aid worker can generate hinderances to ‘normal’ home and family life.  For many aid workers, the early career bloom of idealism soon withers and turns into rock-hard realism and even cynicism.

In other words, being an aid worker ain’t no walk in the park.

Given the nature of this line of work, the responses to Q39 are very interesting and perhaps speak to the deep conviction of many aid workers that what they do is valuable and meaningful.  We asked, “If someone you are close to (a child or mentee) wanted to become a humanitarian aid worker, would you encourage him/her, or would you try to discourage him/her?” and the response was overwhelmingly ‘yes!’  If you combine the ‘Strongly encourage’ and ‘Encourage with qualifications’ you get a rousing 92% affirming that they would recommend to youngsters that they should become humanitarian aid workers.  That there were no significant differences between the responses of males or females is at least mildly surprising. Here are the data for the whole sample.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What do these data mean?  I’ll stand by my observation that this is a positive sign for aid workers and that though many may have lost some of the initial idealism with which they began their careers, it is a path they would recommend to young people.

Let me know if you have thoughts, feedback or comment.

 

 

 

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