On January 25, 2011, “UN Military Police detained a local male Sudanese who intruding into UNMIS compound near Post 12. He informed UNMIS that he wanted to see the Human Rights section due to his situation that he is fearing for his safety. He was later taken to NISS office.”

Ah yes, the National Intelligence Service of Sudan…. That would be the same NISS that carries out unlawful arrests, illegal detentions, and metes out ill-treatment to those in custody, according to the UN Office for the High Commission for Human Rights.  Okay, so the NISS in southern Sudan cannot be compared to that in the North, but still – one would hope that there was a little something like an investigation between a request for an appointment with the HR section, and being handed over to NISS.

Keep up the good work, fellas.

The BBC website is showing some interesting graphics comparing northern and southern Sudan.  I think this one tells the starkest tale of the divide:

Sudan: Access to Education

You can view the others here.

And when you read stories like this one, of the horror of war and a lost generation – the children who fled, who had to grow up over night, fending for themselves and their brothers and sisters, you know why the atmosphere is electric here today.  The BBC has captured the carnival mood in these images.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900sid/OCHA-8CTLN6?OpenDocument

Good luck!

an SPLA soldier was involve in a dispute with another person over money at a dancing place, as a result he exploded a hand grenade at the venue

meanwhile the “peacekeepers” were at it too…

two UN staff members had quarreled and fought in a restaurant in the Town each suffer minor injuries on their body

So much for peace on earth and goodwill to all mankind!

Handy.

The historic marginalisation of the south, the disputed border, wealth-sharing, citizenship for southerners in the north and northerners in the south and the contested region of Abeyi are covered in just a single sentance.

Sigh.  Al-Jazeera, I expect better.

Happy days!

I feel like I have forgotten my humanity. I’ve been so focused on delivery – meeting deadlines, targets and standards – and so frustrated when something doesn’t work out the way I want it. And a lot of that frustration has been with my staff. I guess I want them to all be like me. But they’re not, and for good reason.

Yesterday afternoon started with a de-brief on the fluid security situation in one of our programme locations, followed by some trouble-shooting with a contractor before the programme manager goes on leave.  I wished my programme manager a restful break, and enquired about his plans.

It turns out his holiday will be far from restful. Firstly a trip to a neighbouring country, where his children are in school, to negotiate the lease on the house and pay fees.  Then home to the village to meet with his brothers and discuss how to pay for the upcoming weddings of two nephews.  This man has raised his brothers’ sons as his own, paying their school fees in Sudan, and later in Uganda, and more recently, the costs of their university education because of his fierce belief that education is the only real way out of poverty and conflict. He has sacrificed his own opportunities, and those of his own children to do this.  He told me that he had a place at university to study medicine, but he could not keep up his studies and his employment – which he needed to support his extended family.  Family came first, and so he quit his studies and kept his job with the government.  His wife is desperate for his brothers to contribute cows as part of the bride price their sons will pay, so he doesn’t have to make further sacrifices.  He’s not sure they will listen.

We chatted for only forty minutes or so, and in that time I learned so much about what the Sudanese themselves have faced during the conflicts here, and what their jobs mean to them and to their families.  Whilst the notion that western aid workers like myself are in places like Sudan because we can’t get a good job back home, or because we’re in it for the hazard pay and the cheap thrills provided by the ever-present threat of malaria or dying in an upside-down-white-4×4 drive me nuts, it is oh-so-clear that the choices I have made on the road that brought me here have been nowhere near as tough as those faced by our Sudanese staff.

With all this going on in the background, it’s amazing that staff turn up, day after day, and get stuck in.

You know the ills of this world, they can get you down.

But then you get back up*

* Inspired by the smooth soul of Detroit’s Mayer Hawthorne

I’m currently engaged through both my universities alumni networks, providing advice to students looking to break into this sector.  Reading their emails, I sense that it is much tougher to get that foot in the door than it was when me and my friends finished studying.  The sector seems to be much more attractive to young graduates now, and so most people trying to get on internships, or those entry-level jobs have Masters degrees.  And in the current economic climate, internships and graduate training schemes seem to be drying up.

So for what it’s worth, here’s a brief summary of my advice to those trying to break in:

1.  Masters degrees.

I have mixed feelings about the importance of academic qualifications. I think their value depends on what you ultimately want to do, and how specialised you want to be.  For example, if you want to be a public health engineer, or a nutritionist… you won’t get far without a masters.  However, if you want to do a more generic programme management job, I’m not sure it helps so much. I rely far more on my experience than my academic background in decision-making! That said, I’m aware that as the sector has ‘professionalised’ over the past 20 years, more job profiles include masters degrees, and you should expect to compete with people who have them, even for entry level positions.

I’ve been debating this recently with a good friend, who has been working in the sector for 7 years, and is doing very well. He’s imensely capable, and already the Country Director in a small international NGO here. He’s thinking about doing an MA when he leaves next year. He acknowledges that it won’t really change his career trajectory – the job he gets afterwards will probably be one he could get now, but he is looking on it as an opportunity to reflect on the past 7 years of some fairly intense experiences.

I am pretty biased, but I think the value of an MA will be much greater if you have a bit of work experience under your belt.  It’s a valuable opportunity to compare theory and practice and try to develop an understanding about why some things work and some don’t, and your ability to engage in that debate will be much greater, if you have personal experience of the practicalities.  And once you’ve worked in the sector for a while, you’ll probably make more informed choices about what you want to specialise in and choose your modules accordingly.

2.  Getting experience

Getting a foot in the door is tougher than ever.  Few organisations send young european volunteers into developing countries these days.  The emphasis now (rightly) is on hiring local staff wherever possible.  So there are fewer expatriate jobs, and to get one you need to have skills that are not available in the local job market.  It’s also a very global job market… even in UK NGO offices, you will find a lot of Brits, but also people of other nationalities who have worked with these organisations overseas and are now doing a stint in HQ.

With the global financial crisis, a lot of internships that were around when I was graduating have disappeared over the past few years.  The best place to look for opportunities are the NGOs’ own websites, esp for the entry level positions and training schemes which are advertised less widely (and yet still heavily oversubscribed).  Christian Aid used to do an internship scheme which targeted new graduates but I think that is closed now. The only one I have seen in the past 12 months is Save the Children, who had training schemes to get new people into different specialisms including child protection and logistics.  Both MERLIN and GOAL hold information/recruitment evenings, which would be a good opportunity to find out more.

In terms of volunteer/intern and entry level positions, a lot of the work is very similar to other jobs in the public or private sector and therefore, the skills you need can be picked up outside of the NGO world and you probably already have some of them to put on your CV.  You need to be organised, good at drafting clear reports (of meetings, to document ongoing processes, or research), you need good interpersonal skills to work with lots of different types of people, esp where not everyone is from the same cultural background or organisational culture.  You need to be self-motivated and adaptable… at the lower levels, a lot tends to get dumped on you… It doesn’t all make a coherent job in all cases, so helps to be able to multi-task and have patience.  There’s an excellent post on this over at Blood and Milk.

It pays to be open-minded and flexible to get your foot in the door.  And much as I hate this… once you’re in, it gets so much easier… whilst recruitment is much more transparent than I think it used to be (say 20 years ago!) building up a network of contacts is important.  I still meet people that I worked with in past organisations, even from my first job, from time to time, and use them to get information etc.

More in-depth advice and helpful links have also been provided on Road to the Horizon, a post well worth looking at if you want to become an aid worker.  There are lots of ways in, and lots of different career paths once you have joined the sector.   Reader feedback would be especially welcome on this post.

[For just $16, this could be yours, click here.]

I’m not really paying much attention to the degrees in Development Studies, the attendance at training courses on information management.  I’m trying to breath life into these CVs and find clues as to their author’s manner, approach, inter-personal skills…  as to what they’d be like working under pressure, and how self-sufficient they are.

My dream candidate’s t-shirt would say something like:

√  Arch negotiator

√  Arm twister

√  Optimist

√  Chaos analyst

√  Good email ettiquette

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