Becoming a humanitarian, where to start?

How do you become a humanitarian, medic or otherwise?

How do you find jobs? Do you need experience? Where to start?

Many questions a lot of you ask me. Eventhough we have the internet, it seems this only makes it even harder sometimes. You can definitely lose yourself in the world wide web, and there is not such a things as a database for medical jobs in the humanitarian field.

For non-medical, there is Reliefweb, with general information about humanitarian work and news updates, but also vacancies: https://reliefweb.int/jobs.

To start with, I did make a list with organisations I know of, see my other blog: https://www.humanitarianmedicine.com/post/humanitarian-organisations.

So how to start?

1. What do you want? Think about what kind of project your hearts starts pumping faster for. It doesn't have to be extraordinary to begin with. What group of people do you want to help? Does it has to be medical or not per se?

2. Where do you want to work? Closer to home (also many needs!), the Netherlands, Europe, another continent? If you search in google on a region, for instance: Calais (FR) and NGO, you will find the NGO's that work there and can search on their websites. You might not always find these organisations if you search on job offers and NGO's.

3. Look on the website for vacancies and requirements for the jobs.

4. Sometimes there are many requirements asked, sometimes fewer. It can be demotivating to see the long list. Then decide to begin with a job that maybe isn't your end goal, but does give you an idea of the work in the field and helps for your end goal.

   For instance; you want to work as a doctor for Medecins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders, but you don't have your degree yet or enough other qualifications. Then maybe start with a job for an organisation in Calais that does help refugees, but where you might not work in a medical position (or paid) but a general volunteering position. You can still help refugees, learn about the humanitarian field and maybe see medical problems. Remember; you have to start somewhere!

5. Another skill that helps a lot and might be easier to accomplish is learning (multiple) languages. Especially within Medecins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders this is an asset; French en Arabic mainly at the moment. So download DuoLingo now! ;) (https://www.artsenzondergrenzen.nl/work-in-the-field/frequently-asked-questions/)

6. If there isn't a vacancy published, don't stop there! Lots of very recent vacancies aren't published online. So if you are interested, ALWAYS send an email and ask for an open job applying procedure. If there isn't any, ask if they know other organisations that seek people. And secondly follow the NGO on their social media channels, for new job offers being posted of referrals to other NGO's.

7. Lastly: never give up!

   
   

   Good luck!