The Business of Voluntary Work

By Yasmine Ayari

If it can be shocking to link the words “business” and “voluntary”, it’s still less shocking than the real facts it refers to. I decided to gather these contradictory words together under an oxymoron to reveal the paradox and show the absurdity it implies. In effect, what I mean by “business of voluntary work” is the fact that some so-called organizations (such as Projects Abroad, ProWorld and many others) make volunteers pay a lot more than they should to get the opportunity to intervene abroad.

Projects Abroad is an “international volunteer organization” (but it is a company, not an NGO) which allows people to volunteer for charities around the world, but more particularly in developing countries. The organization makes them pay a certain amount per month in order to cover the food and accommodation fees and for other services such as individual counseling and support during the whole mission, an insurance policy and the transportation from the airport to the project’s place. The price does not include however the transportation fees from the departing country to the arriving country. This can be appealing for people who don’t want to be left to their own devices when they go abroad and find it reassuring to benefit from an individual counseling and support, or who don’t want to organize by themselves their mission, because they don’t have to worry about accommodation and finding an NGO to volunteer.

I myself have already been interested in the volunteering opportunities that Projects Abroad offers, and I’ve even already benefited from this kind of services where you “pay to volunteer”, but through another structure (which is an NGO and where the prices are ten times lower). Indeed, the rates applied by Projects Abroad are really prohibitive, but also very questionable considering the living cost in the countries where they send volunteers. For example, in India, a volunteer must pay from 1500 to 1800 Euros just for one month. To have already been in this country as a volunteer and as an intern, I can testify that it’s way too much for the services provided.

What I find more shocking in these practices is not so much the fact of making profit from people’s gullibility by making them pay huge amounts of money but the fact of generating profits from voluntary work. It also raises the paradox of investing money in these “organizations”, or let’s say companies, rather than in the NGOs which would be more useful for the projects they develop.

The Virtue of Selfishness

By Johnny Zakhia

The vVrtue of Selfishness is a book of ethics written by Ayn Rand.  She is the creator of a philosophical system called "Objectivism" that supports rational and ethical egoism, and rejects altruism. I will try to relate her concepts to the humanitarian world.

For Rand, “ethics is a code of values that guide man’s choices and action”, that is important because “nature does not provide man with an automatic form of survival”, therefore man must support his life on his own.

Understanding ethics sets the foundation for understanding why selfishness, the concern with one’s own interests, is virtuous and an objective necessity. Altruism is to value others above one's own self, which means to sacrifice oneself to others and is ultimately a form of slavery.

Ayn Rand is for rational egoism therefore she does not place a judgment on what we value, thus why I can relate this philosophy to humanitarian activities.  If we are helping someone it should be a trade where we are gaining something; for instance, satisfaction. The aid should not be a duty but a selfish choice. I think people that do not adopt this ethics in the humanitarian world are exposing themselves to mental fragilities and psychological difficulties in the face of the harsh reality of existence.

I urge everyone, especially those who do not agree with the selfish concept, to read this book and discover the ideas in greater depth. I don’t think that humanitarian motivation can be reduced to the binary thinking of selfishness versus altruism. I think that unconsciousness and emotions can play a significant role. For instance the desire to help can be the desire for dominance and for power seeking.

Of Mice And Men

The 8th of April or the World Rroma Day
By Adrian Spirchez 

There are nowadays, in Europe, between 12-15 millions Rroma people. They represent the largest ethnic minority of the European Union and the most neglected, by member states and societies, institutions and public opinion, by us. During my internship at Médecins du Monde – Mission Banlieu, I had the chance to meet a lot of Rroma families, of Romanian nationality, that chose to come to France in search of a better life. My job was to accompany the doctors on the field as a translator and a social & sanitary mediator for the Rroma patients that live in the slums located in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis – slums they were built without the permission of the local authorities. The miserable conditions they accept to live in – squalid barracks with no running water and improvised central heating, invaded by parasites and rats made me think, in a rather strange way, of the title and the plot of Steinbeck’s famous short story about the two solitary friends roving together in search of a better life. The 8th of April has been celebrated since 1990 as the International Rroma Day.  

The first World Rroma Congress was held on April 8th, 1971 near London, Great Britain, and funded by the World Council of Churches and the Government of India. The International Romani Union was created during the 2nd Romnai Congress, held in Prague seven years later in 1978.

This year an official announcement encouraged all Rromas to “gather at noon to cast flowers into our nearest river, sea, ocean. Let the spirit of the International Roma Day unite us!” And unity is exactly what is needed during this time of trouble, especially for the members of the European Rroma communities which after the famous Grenoble discourse of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, have been more than once abused by the forces of order – forces as confused as the institutions they are representing, when it comes to tackle the Rroma issue that is the needs and complains of a people who cherishes freedom more than anything. What do Rroma people understand by the virtues of freedom, a topic so much romanticized by artists of all kinds, is another matter, far more tricky which will consequently require far more space than the one allocated here. Let’s just mention that their understanding of freedom translates the need to rather disobey the establish order, either in Romania or in France for example, because culturally and socially they feel, and in many cases they are indeed, discriminated against by the majority. But the irony is that nobody can really say, in Romania or in Europe, if they are excluded because of the way they choose to live their life or if they live the way they do exactly because they are differentiated and thus marginalized. A vicious circle!

How to Find Your Way Through a Minefield?

By Armelle Septiers

1- Watch where you step

2- If you walk on one, stay still

3- Examine the floor around you, so you can find electric cables, detonators, or other threatening things

4- Avoid like the plague these suspect things and go back slowly the same way you came

5- Keep doing it until you know you’re safe

But anyway, the best way is to avoid being in this situation. So, how identifying and avoiding minefields?

The simplest way to avoid the mines is to avoid risk zones. If you are already in a risk zone, follow these tips:

• Gather information from local people, mines clearance technicians, the women and the children are the best sources of information in the dangerous zones.
• Observe the animals. They often serve to clear off mines.  A high quantity of mutilated animals that the population don’t approach can indicate a minefield.
• Observe the movements of the local people, if people don’t take perfectly identifiable paths that mean that they are avoiding a mined zone. Locate and remember these places and avoid them the same way.
• Watch if the ground was moved. Ground movement or discoloration of fields may indicate a hasty mines installation.
• Watch out for tight cables in the middle of the way.  It is probably a detonator linked to a mine or to another explosive.
• Beware of recent destroyed vehicles or abandoned ones on the side of the road.  Burnt cars and craters are the most evident proofs of a recent explosion of one or more mines. Never think that the path is safe because a mine already exploded.
• Stay away from the bushes, fields and ways paths invaded with vegetation. The probable  mine clearing couldn’t be clearly signaled and it will be more difficult to find your way.

You are now warned:

• A lot of mines are indefinitely active. Don’t hesitate to take a guide in the risky zones.
• There are four types of antipersonnel mines:
• 1- Cable trap mines: a traction on the cable link to the detonator by a person detonates the explosion.
• 2 Direct pressure mines: A foot pressing on this mine is sufficient to detonate the explosion.
• 3- Time-mines: the explosion is automatically triggered by a detonator. It can be an electronic alarm clock or a chemical corroder product or a simple timer.
• 4- Remote-control mines: the detonator can be activated by an electric charge in a wire, a radio signal or a heat or sound captor.

The 6th World Water Forum: Time for Solutions

By Morgane Guérot

After a week of conferences, events and discussions, the 6th World Water Forum which took place in Marseilles just ended. Ministerial delegations, experts, NGOs gathered to explain their solutions for water. This forum represents a key step to the resolution of water related problems in the world, from sanitation and access to clean water for all populations, to energy questions, including water resources management in light of climate change and food security[1][2].

"The right to water and sanitation ensures everyone the right to access safe drinking water in sufficient and acceptable quantities, physically accessible and affordable as well as sanitation", stated Corinne Schuster-Wallace[3] during the session organised by WHO on the subject. Unfortunately, this statement is pure utopia at the moment. Since 1990, 1.8 billion people have had access to improved sanitation facilities but 2.5 billion people still lack sanitation. 1.1 billion human beings, or 15% of the world’s population practice open defecation. More than 900 million people lack access to drinking water from improved sources[4].

During the forum, lots of solutions were discussed. If there are different approaches, there is only one objective: the resolution of water related problems.

According to Piers Cross, from the Water and Sanitation for All organisation, one solution is the cooperation between education and the health sector. For some people, the answer to resolve water problems will come from women. "In Africa, the water issue belongs to women: they go to get water and bring it back in a bucket" says Courtès Ketcha, mayor of Bangangté, Cameroon. Experts and high-level female political officials supported this idea by providing concrete answers based on real-world contexts. Education appeared to be the main

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[1] http://www.worldwaterforum6.org

[2] It was a preparatory step for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Rio +20, which will be held from 20th to 22nd June 2012.

[3] Programme Officer for Water Nexus Health

[4] Source: Unicef, http://volunteers.unicefusa.org/assets/pdf/unicef-usf-intro-notes.pdf

What is an extreme environment?

By Lucile Hoarau

Review: When Bamboo Bloom, An Anthropologist in Taliban’s Afghanistan, by Patrica A. Omidian

In the book When Bamboo Bloom, Patricia A. Omidian recounts her experiences in Afghanistan during the timme when the Taliban controlled over 90% of the country. She wans in Afghanistan for a research and training assignment as an applied anthropologist working with various NGOs. All her work experiences took place from the time of her arrival in Afghanistan in 1997 until she was forced to depart in 2007 due to security issues.

I decided to read Ms. Omidian’s book for a few reasons.  First of all, I wanted to read something true, something that could give me an idea of how hard it is to conduct training work and have to deal with many obstacles daily.  I wanted to get the point of view of someone who spent fourteen years of her life working in a context of war far away from her family. I wanted to know what difficulties NGOs can face on the ground and what challenges staff might face in an extreme environment where people are oppressed because of their ethnicity or their religious affiliation.

Upon first reading this book, I was not clear about the degree of impartiality and neutrality, being that these values are highly regarded in humanitarian intervention. I first felt that Patricia was not taking any clear position in regard to the local population or the Taliban. I got the impression that she was keeping a neutral stance. I was wrong. Humanitarian intervention is not neutral at all. When you get hired to work with an NGO in Afghanistan, you pick your camp and you are working for those who want to make “good things” happen.  As a consequence, you are not totally neutral.

At first glance, the title is the main element that draws my attention to a book. When Bamboo Bloom does not reveal much about Afghanistan, but the subtitle does. My first thought was to establish a relation between Afghanistan and Bamboo. Later on, I figured out that Bamboo does not grow in Afghanistan. Then, I found out that Bamboo could symbolize hope—hope for justice and peace to someday come. What struck me the most in the book is how Afghans are so patient and hopeful even after all these years of war. Despite having endured decades of war, suffering, loss of family members, material loss, on-going violence, and pressure from their “government”, they are still hopeful.  ‘Bloom’ should symbolize the growth toward peace.  Is peace really likely to happen in Afghanistan? I do not know the answer.

I think humanitarian action is either not well defined enough or is represented in an overly positive manner, as if it is a good thing simply because aid workers are helping countries that need help. I agree with this suggestion, however my question is: what is the real relationship between the helper and the beneficiaries? To me, there is an imbalance of power between the two that can prevent the beneficiaries from saying no to a program in their country. I also think the helper tries to keep poor countries dependent in order to force acceptance of their presence on the territory or to justify their actions.

When America was under attack in 2001, the Bush government and NATO decided to invade Afghanistan, and the reason why they did it was to run after the Taliban and to get those who planned and funded the attacks. But soon it was clear that this was not the only reason…soon the U.S., NATO, and many Western NGOs arrived to push their culture and way of living on the Afghan people. So no matter what Patricia did in Afghanistan with her collaborators, the goal of humanitarian actions was in essence to change a particular society, and make this society become “like ours”. By helping Afghan people, the US, NATO and foreign NGOs changed Afghanistan and exported their point of view, imposing their ideas about the best way to run the country.

Aside from these aspects, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the generosity of Afghan culture, about their resiliency in the face of the many difficulties they have faced and those they have still yet to overcome. Finally, their capacity to maintain their cultural values in spite of the pressure imposed by the Taliban at the time is a remarkable testimony of the Afghan people’s bravery and courage.

Sex-Selective Abortions Lead China and India to Gender Imbalance

By Kseniya Kotlyarova

During the past few decades the number of newborn boys has largely overcome the number of newborn girls in many Asian countries. This fact is largely due to the practice of sex-selective abortion. Scientists estimate the normal male to female sex ratio at birth to be 105 to 100, however, it can vary up to 104 and 106, which is still considered to be normal.  Higher imbalance in the birth range is considered to be unnatural.

According to U.N. statistics, China counts 120 boys born for every 100 girls. Many Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. This means that in the next 20 years the gender balance will exceed by 10 to 20 percent. A similar trend can be traced in India, where 108 boys are born for every 100 girls. Other statistical sources state that nowadays India has 112 boys born for every 100 girls. Comparing these numbers to those of other Asian countries, we discover that in Vietnam the ratio is of 110 to 100. In South Korea the sex ratio at birth is regaining its balance, but the number of newborn boys still exceeds the number of girls. This situation is equally common for some parts of western Asia and Caucasian countries, where the gender imbalance is related to religious and cultural factors. Taking into account the fact that China and India are the most densely populated countries in the world, we arrive at the conclusion that their gender imbalances tilt the whole world gender ratio to an unnatural level – 107. Since the late 1970s, 163 million female babies have been aborted on a sex-selection basis.

The reason for this biologically impossible ratio cannot solely be blamed on the preference for boys in more traditional Asian societies. It is also due to the misuse of ultrasound technology for fetal sex recognition and the sex-selective abortions that follow that stand behind the gender disproportion. Introduction of sonogram technology made the birth-sex ratio reach the mark of 130:100 in some parts of China in 1992. In Northern India the gender disparity grew up to 125:100. Originally, the decision in favor of sex-selective abortions was predominantly made by those at the top of the socio-economic ladder who were able to afford early access to ultrasound technology. Later on, this behaviour became common in other social strata in developing countries. China’s birth control policy is often blamed as a key factor motivating women to have abortions in order to increase opportunities for having boys. But the reality is that the One-Child Policy is not the main reason for the gender imbalance. For example, India, a country without such a policy, faces the problem of sex-selective abortions at the same scale. In both countries people continue trying to ensure that their second or third baby is a boy if their first or second is a girl.

Evidently, the high gender disparity leads to social concerns in the long term. If we take a deeper look into the problem, we will see that choosing boys over girls and the consequent overabundance of men causes a whole range of social problems. Experts believe that the excess of men having difficulties getting married leads to an increase of violence and crime. Single men may become psychologically vulnerable. Generally, they accumulate in the lower social classes where the crime rate is already rather high. Chinese provinces with particularly high indices of gender disparities prove to demonstrate a high crime level. An imbalanced sex ratio is equally a predictor of violence and crime in India.

According to economists, the gender imbalance will also influence China and India’s economic growth. The preference for boys may have an impact on families’ consumption patterns and bolster some industries such as the property market in China. Families with sons tend to have a higher savings rate than families with daughters. Families with sons need to save up to secure brides for their sons, and so they feel it necessary to buy a house, in spite of the high housing prices.

Today the Indian and Chinese governments are undertaking measures aimed at reducing the gender imbalance. The banning of fetal sex determination is one of these steps. Still, recovery of the natural gender balance requires a great deal of time. The traditional preference for boys is still rather strong in Asian countries, and the most efficient way to overcome it is by strengthening education to reduce the deeply rooted cultural preference for boys.

A positive shift can already be seen in South Korea, a country with a strong patriarchal tradition. This represents a promising sign for other Asian countries. And still, although attitudes toward sex-selective abortions have been recently evolving, the high gender disparity created in the 1990s is believed to have caused around a two-decades long gender imbalance in China and India. According to expert analysis, people in these countries will have to wait for several decades to regain a natural gender ratio.

Severe weather: Tornadoes cripple the Southern and Midwestern United States

By Lucile Hoarau

As we have all seen in the news, states throughout Southern and Midwestern United States have been affected by deadly tornadoes over the last few days. State emergency management officials in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee have reported tornadoes in several areas. The massive outbreak began on March 2nd and extended into the next day, affecting about 17 million people from Indiana to Georgia. Thirty-nine were killed: twenty in Kentucky, fourteen in Indiana, three in Ohio and one each in Alabama and Georgia.

The center of West Liberty, Kentucky, was transformed into a ghost town after a tornado struck at 6:45 Friday night and continued overnight on March 2nd. The tornado ripped through buildings and flipped police cars along Main Street.

"There ain't nothing left of this town. It's just a tragedy," resident David Wilson said.

Kentucky’s governor declared it looked like a bomb that hit downtown West Liberty.  The tornado left a trail, 120 mph winds took down buildings, crashed cars, and torn off trees. Five people died in West Liberty, Kentucky. The police said the tornado left a disaster scene so dangerous they had to close off access to downtown.

One of the hardest hit towns is Henryville, Indiana where a baby girl is reported in critical condition after being found alone in a field near her home.  Hospital officials said her entire family, mother, father, brother and sister were all killed in the storm. Most residents lost everything they owned in the storm. “We have worked all our lives to have what we have, and it is all gone in 15 seconds”.

President Barack Obama offered his condolences and federal assistance if needed to the governors of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

Why so many tornadoes?

According to a few weather consultants and meteorologists, large amounts of warm air are responsible for the formation of tornadoes and then a powerful jet-stream splitting, one part of the jet-stream is going to the north, another one is going to the south, and in between that split, there is an incredible amount of air raising in the atmosphere and that can lead to some very large storms. 

How should the U.S. government respond to the severe weather and what can be done after this week’s tornadoes?

The administration, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is closely monitoring the storms and their impacts. FEMA has teams on the ground in hard hit areas like in Henryville, Indiana and is prepared to deploy additional teams and resources, if needed by the states. Teams have to identify the damages and to help the governor of each state and the leaders of each county to determine if additional federal support will be required.

FEMA maintains commodities, including millions of liters of water, millions of meals and hundreds of thousands of blankets located at distribution centers.  FEMA is also able to bring in thousands of mobile homes (trailers) where those without housing can stay while the towns rebuild.  The U.S. government in partnership with state and local officials will pay for the clean-up and rebuilding efforts.

An Incident Management Assistance Team and eleven community relations teams have also been deployed to Indiana to assist with situational awareness following the storms and to support the state as requested.

A national Incident Support Base has been established in Kentucky to stage commodities in strategic locations close to the impacted areas, if needed and requested by the state. More than 98,000 meals and 146,000 liters of water are sent to the Incident Support Base.

Local governments and voluntary agencies, such as the American Red Cross and Salvation Army, are providing shelter to disaster survivors who have been displaced from the storms. They have also set up a way people can donate money to help the families impacted by the storms.

New Index Measures Women’s Empowerment through Agricultural Practices

By India Meshack

Photo credit adapted from "Ngurumo Village-Takira (Kenya),"courtesy of 
Flickr user CGIAR Climate

In a big move towards the further mainstreaming of the global women’s empowerment movement, the United States government’s Feed the Future Initiative (IFPRI), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and Oxford University’s Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI) teamed up to create the recently launched Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, a new index which measures women’s empowerment in developing countries by evaluating their level of involvement in agricultural practices. The index is a response to research establishing a link between a woman’s involvement in agricultural practices and her level of emancipation in other areas of daily life. According to Sara Immenschuh of the IFPRI, who took part in the development of the index, “’Agriculture is the most effective way to drive inclusive economic growth of the poorest communities’, which too often include women and children.” The index assesses five criteria, amongst them: degree of engagement in decision-making about agricultural production, level of access to resources and level of involvement in resource-related decision-making; extent of control over use of income; ability to have a leadership role in the community; and use of time.

In 2011 pilot programs were launched in Bangladesh, Guatemala and Uganda, with results—the extent to which women were deemed empowered—based on how they fared in relation to the five criteria. A woman who scores a 4 out of the 5 is deemed empowered. According to the IFPRI, although they make up 43 percent of the agricultural labor force, women in developing countries own less land, are limited in their ability to hire farm workers and have less access to credit. In Immenschuh’s opinion, “Without addressing those inequities, women will be unable to effectively contribute to reducing global poverty and hunger.” IFPRI Senior Research Fellow Agnes Quisumbing adds, “We want to improve gender parity not by disempowering men but by bringing women up to the level of men.” This index is certainly a step in the right direction towards achieving that goal.

Source: http://gantdaily.com/2012/02/28/measuring-womens-empowerment-in-agriculture/

Want A Good Laugh?

By Astrid Vachette

Then read First Comes Love. Then Comes Malaria, by Eve Brown-Waite.

“If you go to Latin America, you'll come back fomenting revolution, if you go to Asia, you'll come back spiritually enlightened, and if you go to Africa, you'll come back laughing”. (Old saying in the Peace Corps)

First Comes Love. Then Comes Malaria,is not focused on war issues or ethical dilemmas of volunteers who are face to face with major human rights violations in host countries.

Rather it is simply the story of an everyday woman who started with the desire to help people in need, but not really knowing where or how to start. Eve Brown-Waite tells about her unforgettable years in humanitarian aid, first in Ecuador with Peace Corps and then in Uganda with her “do-gooder” husband.

Typical northen Ugandan houses

The author writes with lots of humor about those difficulties all volunteers have to face: difficulty of coping field trip with private life, gender and culture issues during the missions, the come-back to “normal life”.

Eve Brown-Waite's book is an easy-read book that simply shows how an everyday woman handled to live through several humanitarian adventures in spite of her fears and needs of western comforts. She got to find ways to get involved in many people's life and help them achieve their individual objectives. It is refreshing to read a simple human scale experience, which we, as beginners in the humanitarian world, can refer ourselves to.

The Ambivalence Of Internet In Human Trafficking

By Jeremy Frerelopez

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Those activities had been facilitated by the introduction of the internet in our society. By different means, it is used by traffickers to extend their networks. It is a tool, like any technology, that definitely helps human traffickers.

However, on the other hand, even if the internet is increasingly used for crime, it also contributes to help states and human rights organisations to fight against human trafficking by giving them new instruments to respond. Internet is definitely a Double-Edged Sword.  It offers new opportunities to traffickers to extend their influence. However it also provides to the global anti-trafficking community new ways to investigate, to fight, to cooperate and to prosecute trafficking.

It is obvious that traffickers take advantage from globalization. They are clearly benefiting in their criminal activities from advances in new technologies, especially the internet, which makes it more profitable, faster, easier to conduct and organize all kinds of transactions. Internet is certainly the most powerful weapon and useful tool for them. Internet, by contrast to the old school methods, enables criminals to distance themselves more efficiently and easily from the crime they commit. Emails, for instance, can be routed through different countries and different time zones. It is easy to create an email box in a cyber coffee, with false names and change every day. It is also easy to create a web site hosted in another country than the traffickers. Internet is used as well in order to exploit victims, particularly for sexual exploitation. It is used as a commercial tool in order to generate profit by selling pornographic images or services. Traffickers in this particular case are using chat rooms, websites, newsgroups, File Transfer Protocol, Peer to Peer networks (transmissions are not logged or traceable), bulletin boards or web message (spams etc...). For instance, the UNODC revealed that in 2000, Japanese women were trafficked in Hawaii for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Nevertheless, new technologies and, particularly this very one, have influenced the fight against human trafficking lately. The Convention on Cybercrime has been crucial for that issue: it was signed in November 2001 and came into force in July 2004. Its purpose was not just to fight human trafficking, but it was part of it and especially because of its link with the Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. It mainly focuses on child pornography as far as human traffic is concerned. It is actually the first international treaty on crime that took effect on the internet. Traffickers can use internet to communicate information to each other very easily and rapidly so that the mainly concerned countries can investigate and arrest traffickers but also help victims. In addition, a European program named “SAFER INTERNET PLUS” has been created in order to prohibit abusive contents. It is the case for well-known and very often used websites such as “Youtube”, “Facebook”, “Myspace” or many others. When entering or trying to upload a video, users are told that any hateful or sexual content will be deleted or reported. This can be very dissuasive. However, we can wonder what the limit between abusive and non-abusive is.

In conclusion, Internet has positive and negative effects. It increases human trafficking by helping traffickers to coordinate their actions, to seek victims, to exploit them or to ensure their transactions. But, at the same time, it erases boarders between states in the fight against cybercrime, it allows information to be easily and quickly located, it provides new traps, it increases prevention tools and helps people sharing information.

The only solution for the fighters of human trafficking is to cooperate, and to hire competent people, able to think like traffickers.The fight in the field of human trafficking, between traffickers and states and NGOs is definitely affected by the technological power of each actor. The fight against human trafficking would lead to a more secure world only if anti-traffickers develop new forms of technologies, able to stop the escalation of human traffick.

Rainy Season Caused Floods In Bolivia

By Mercedes Aguerre

Bolivia’s rainy season is causing great havoc in many regions of the country. The burst of the Acre River have caused floods and also landslides affecting around 11.458 families and leaving five deaths in La Paz when a minibus fell into a raging river in the south of the city after a bridge collapsed.

The most affected municipality was Cobija, located about 600 km north of La Paz in the Amazon Basin on the border of Brazil and Peru. On this matter, the State authority indicated that a Coordination Plan is going to be executed with the help of the national government, the departmental government and the municipal one in order to reconstruct Cobija. It has also been considered to incorporate of a new drain system.

Man trying to catch dead animals after the floods (Reuters)

Morales Government has declared a state of emergency in five of the nine Bolivians departments allowing local authorities to have access to satisfy the needs of the victims of natural disasters.

So far, the Ministry of Defense delivered 160 tons of humanitarian aid to the affected families, including 115 tents, 500 mattresses, 106 kg of flour, 40 kg of sugar and rice, 87 sacks of noodles, 500 unities of water and 34 boxes of oil to distribute between the nine accommodations established to shelter the victims of the floods. Three water purification stations were also delivered on Friday by a C-130 Hercules Aircraft to counteract the diseases which threaten the health of the affected families as consequences of the consumption of contaminated water.

By the end of this week, Civil Defense carried out a report which quantified the damage caused by La Niña ocean-atmosphere phenomenon from December 2011 to February 2012. So far, 107 municipalities and 912 houses have been affected and nine persons were found dead.

Teaching Humanitarian Aid Students: "Closed Encounters of The Third Kind"

By Clémentine Tholas-Disset

On December 14th, 2011, I received my schedule for spring semester. As my colleague Mrs. Henderson-Peal would be on sabbatical semester, I was to be in charge of two groups of master’s degree students majoring in humanitarian aid; I started panicking as I thought “What the hell am I going to do with these revolutionary hippies?” As a Doctor in American studies with a minor in communication and media, I was scared we would really have nothing to share… I spent hours and hours trying to figure out how to please them and to make them discover things I mastered and liked.

I have been a teacher for six years now and the first thing I have learned is never to judge a book by its cover. First, when I met them, these students were no hippies or revolutionaries, so I realized I totally made up the wrong cover. Moreover, after a few hours with them, the content of the book seemed both entertaining and thrilling. Actually, I discovered a group of strong-willed and open-minded young people with very pleasant personalities.

Teaching this course is actually quite a challenge for me because I need to reinvent and adapt my professional habits. After four years in the AEI department, making freshmen and sophomore students work, I now have to collaborate with graduate students who have high academic standards. I have the feeling I traded my role of “youth tamer” for a new part as a “partner in learning”. My main goal has always been to bring satisfaction to my students no matter their age or skills in English and I’m learning to do so with a new type of student population, older, more mature (maybe not every day), more active and definitely not impressed by my teacher position. As a result, I think I have to make sure I’m offering creative and unusual courses or activities to keep them interested and I’m in tune with their expectations.

After being so afraid and worried, I must admit I am fulfilled because the moments I spend with the humanitarian aid students are synonymous of exchange. They may not have turned me into a relief work aficionada, willing to spend all her spare time volunteering all over the world, but I feel more concerned than before. I also became aware of some connections between professorship and aid work: you do both because you care about people, and, in both cases, it’s some kind of calling.

My conclusion will be simple: I don’t know if the humanitarian aid students are having a good time with me, but I am! So I guess it may be reciprocal…and if not they are very good at pretending!

Brigitte Piquard's Interview

By Fatim Hien, Kseniya Kotlyarova, Violette Moutard & Jeannette Nguyen

Brigitte Piquard is an anthropologist and holds a PhD in International Relations from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She is currently Co-Director of the Master’s degree in International Humanitarian Aid at Paris-Est Creteil University in France and a senior lecturer in International Humanitarism at Oxford Brookes University in England.

Q: What made you want to work in the humanitarian field?

Brigitte Piquard: Originally, working in humanitarian field meant two things for me. My first idea about humanitarian activities was idealistic. We can put it this way: I wanted to make things change, to make the world full of problems and injustice a little bit better, and working on humanitarian issues presented a good opportunity for me to do it. The second reason why I decided to turn to humanitarian work was more pragmatic: this kind of professional experience gave me some interesting career opportunities, so I decided to grasp them.

Q: What was your first humanitarian work experience?

BP: My first humanitarian work experience was a volunteer experience with a French NGO in Pakistan in 1987. At that time I was a 21-year-old student majoring in sociology and anthropology. My task was to make an assessment of the situation. This first experience was followed by many other humanitarian missions in the following 20 years.

Q: Are there times when you have doubts about your commitment? For example, when you appear to be in a difficult situation, or when you have to work in some hard conditions where humanitarian intervention is extremely difficult to do. Do you feel weary sometimes? Have you ever thought of giving up?

BP: Naturally, it happens to everyone working on humanitarian issues to feel helpless or weary not only in the field but outside the field as well. Humanitarian work is a very challenging kind of work. At times you have a feeling that your personal work input can’t make a difference to the global situation. But, certainly, it is very important not to give up. Every working process has its difficulties and hard moments.

Q: In which regions do you prefer working?

BP: I enjoy working in Asia, namely in Central Asia and South Asia. Besides, the Middle East is a very interesting region for me. I did my second 4-year university degree in Islamic studies, so working in this region is directly related to my university major.

Q: Why have you chosen to teach this master’s degree course?

BP: When I was proposed to administer this course, a similar course existed already in Belgium. Besides, I had a part-time teaching position in England. When I was offered to start an International Humanitarian Aid Master’s course here in Paris, it presented a very interesting and a challenging task for me, I was motivated to develop a new full-time course. It was an opportunity to step outside the routine and to come to France. This is the fifth year I administer this master’s course. And it is always interesting to train people, to be at the beginning of students’ career in humanitarian field. The humanitarian needs to have qualified humanitarian workers.

Q: Has this decision affected the vision that you have of the humanitarian world?

BP: Of course it did. Today we can observe a real shift in the global humanitarian activity, many things are changing. There is a huge need to accumulate already existing humanitarian experience, to capitalize experience, and to make a further research in this field.

Q: What do you think when you look at your students?

BP: It is always a pleasure for me to see the results of our work, when I meet my former students who graduated from this Master’s course a couple of years or a year ago. I keep in touch with many of them and regularly meet some of them at the conferences or meetings on humanitarian issues. It is always interesting to learn how they apply the knowledge they received while studying here, and what questions they ask themselves and what challenges they meet in their work. Sometimes they even suggest some changes or new directions in the programme.

Thank you!