News of Our Collaborating Partners
The University of Hawai‘i’s Certificate Program:
Preparing the Professionals
By James White

Your supply convoy comes to a roadblock: how do you deal with the drunken 14-year-old clutching a rusty AK-47 who is “in charge?” In an emergency situation in a foreign land, what legal mandate do you have to be there? What are the differences —and what are the similarities—in humanitarian response to a natural catastrophe or a man-made disaster? How do you coordinate the numerous NGOs at the site of an earthquake? What laws apply to a refugee? Are we all capable of committing acts of genocide?

The questions are tough, and the answers not easy, reflecting the complexity of the subject, “Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance,” a graduate-level seminar which has been running at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa since January 2000, and which will constitute the foundation course for a certificate in the subject.

The questions also indicate the unusual level of interest in the program. Among the students, several have direct field experience dealing with disaster situations and all take the course seriously as a “beacon” learning experience. Already, one Ph.D. candidate has changed his graduation date in order to finish the certificate and another is switching his dissertation research to focus on complex emergencies.

Former UN field officer John Robert Egan, finishing a master’s in geography and a juris doctor in law, sees the course as a remarkable opportunity. “Prior to this class I had attempted to identify and participate in a variety of courses in the university curriculum which contribute to the understanding of disasters and relief and the developing-world setting in which these are often found…the certificate program ties it all together.”

The instructors—an equal mix of Center of Excellence staffers, Center adjunct faculty and University of Hawai‘i faculty from a variety of disciplines—are unusually well prepared and involved in the subject. The result is an intense three hours of presentation, analysis and debate each week of the 16-week course. “I have been most impressed with the caliber of people we have been given the chance to hear lecture,” Erin Ring, a doctoral student in psychology said. “Every week, we are exposed to someone who has detailed first-hand knowledge about the issues.”

At a time when natural and man-made disasters seem to be rising exponentially, as does the number of refugees and dislocated persons, there is a clear need for an educational program designed to respond to what has become a major humanitarian and public health challenge. The DMHA Certificate Program was developed to increase the level of understanding of the issues involved, and provide the kind of background education that thoughtful professionals have called for. “This course brings reality into focus,” said Tom Peterman, part-time student and full-time staffer at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. Joyce Liu, in her first year of the doctoral program in clinical psychology added, “It’s a great combination in which theory is grounded by the real world.”

Determined to develop the program at the highest professional level, the Center linked up with the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i. The College provides a base for networking teachers across the campus who have a strong interest in humanitarian assistance and disaster management. The foundation course faculty alone is drawn from disciplines as diverse as communications, food sciences and nutrition, geography, law, medicine, meteorology, peace studies, political science, psychology, and public health.

This represents a unique level of multidisciplinary collaboration. Joie Acosta, a first-year graduate student in community psychology, said “…this broad range of exposure from various viewpoints on such important global issues. I have never taken a class like it at UH and hope that it spurs interest enough to provoke more classes of this nature.” Already, the seminar is being seen as an indicator of future direction for other courses at the university.

The faculty provides the basic course work for the certificate program. Each of them has agreed to offer a graduate seminar within their department at least once every two years. The seminar addresses a topic of special interest to each faculty member (e.g. genocide, refugee mental health, bioterrorism) and offers the student the chance to focus the certificate to reflect her or his special interest in this diverse subject. Award of the certificate requires completion of the foundation course, plus three of the seminars or other courses chosen from a relevant university-wide list. In addition, there is a practicum requirement, which may range from students “shadowing” some of the Center’s professionals in their work, to actual fieldwork. “I am just glad to have been exposed to these issues early enough in my career to concentrate my energies in the most effective manner to achieve my goals,” Acosta said.

The students are a diverse group. They include future psychologists, political scientists, lawyers, an administrator from Child and Family Service in the local state government, an NOAA official, a Center of Excellence staff member, a staff member of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, and a former UNHCR field officer. This cross section “…makes the course interesting—we have both young and old, as well as psychology and political science students, who all approach the subject from different perspectives,” Peterman said. Interest in the program runs high, with a number of out-of-state queries asking about the next step in the development of certificate—offering the certificate through distance education.

Plans for the future of the course are ambitious. They include: developing it as a full-fledged graduate major, offering it in whole or in part as a distance-learning option, and running highly intensive summer sessions aimed at government officials and senior executives who have an interest in the subject, but not the time that a traditional classroom setting requires.

Perhaps the most significant impact the program will have in the future is on how the university develops its role in the new century. The DMHA foundation course rests upon collaboration between no fewer than 16 different departments on campus; this represents a level of interdisciplinary cooperation much talked about but rarely realized. The success of the course is also built on a cooperative foundation between the Center of Excellence and University of Hawai‘i, which, again, is a highly unusual and significant accomplishment. As academia looks to redefine its role and its mode of operation in the new century, collaborative programs such as this are more than experiments: they are models for others to follow and to learn from.

Perspectives
So you think you want to make
a career of disaster response?
By Robin Hayden
(Tess Black and Jeff Lewis contributed to this story)

One day soon the field of humanitarian assistance may become a formal profession with well-defined career paths. It may not be as exotic or out-of-the-mainstream a choice as it seems today. Because of its multi-disciplinary nature, the field is not a pure science, like quantum physics. Most people do not get into humanitarian relief to discuss theory. It is applied learning: it is doing, learning, and doing some more. The impact it has on your life will likely be profound and long-term.

When contemplating a future in humanitarian relief, disaster management and other related fields, there are several important aspects to consider. How will your decision affect family and friends, your education plans, your time and personal space? Perhaps most fundamentally you must consider why you want to get into the field in the first place.

What is your motivation?

Understanding the source of your motivation is a key to knowing how to move forward. Is this a permanent or temporary endeavor? Do you wish to work full time or part-time? Are you inspired by a current love-interest? Is it a major career move to what is now recognized as a new growth industry? Is it a desire to see or save the world? Could it be a combination of these motives?

A thorough understanding of what motivates you will help you devise a plan for learning what most closely aligns with your real interests, thus ensuring that your time spent is personally rewarding and productive. Your ability to articulate your motivations will also benefit those around you—fellow responders as well as the recipients of your efforts—because your interactions will be clearly focused.

Where and when did these motivations originate?

Often, people have a personal experience—it could be deliberately planned, accidental, or a by-product of performing their work—that results in a desire to pursue more of the same kind of experience. Soldiers may become interested in relief work as a result of a deployment on a humanitarian mission or a doctor may feel he or she needs the stimulus of the greater challenge that an austere environment presents. It’s possible that the first seed may be planted by seeing news coverage of an overwhelming disaster and how it affects a large, vulnerable population. It could even be an introductory college course that has made a profound impression on you. (See “Preparing the professionals”.) Perhaps you received aid in a humanitarian crisis or you gave aid to your neighbors. Being aware of these experiences is important because it will help guide you in making your selection of the educational tools that provide the greatest and most appropriate assistance.

How much time and effort are you willing
to commit now in order to learn more
about this field?

Keep in mind that in this business both respect and knowledge most frequently come from field service. To that end, you must go into the field properly prepared. Education can mean the difference between life and death, or of being effective or a nuisance to those who are properly educated and knowledgeable. When it comes to preparing for the field you must explore what aspects of humanitarian relief appeals to you most and then focus your efforts.

What is it you know now about this field?

Taking a realistic view of what you know now will help you seek out educational and field experiences that will be most beneficial for the long run. It will also help you to understand what you don't know. For example, a domestic response is very different from an international response—and likewise from place to place overseas. While techniques common to emergency medicine will not vary considerably from one patient to the next, the environment in which you are performing medicine will. Having experience assisting in a domestic response effort may lead to a false sense of security when those same skills are applied within a more challenging or threatening environment.

You must also make an honest appraisal of yourself. You bring a unique combination of skills, personality and experiences to the table. Are you a doctor, homemaker, lawyer, engineer? Do you thrive on chaos, order, or making order out of chaos? Do you prefer to work in your local community or are you open to participating in events that take place far away?

How will your decision affect family, friends and associates? Your life?

Family, friends and associates are important factors in your decision. You must consider the reactions and effects your desires to pursue relief work might have on them. You may be spending less time with family or your participation in relief efforts may allow you to involve the entire family. You and your family must also be aware that in some conflict areas you or your agency may be perceived as a threat to individuals or groups in power. In-country political situations can change rapidly and your association with certain relief agencies could lead to your death.

How flexible are you?

You may be asked to do things and participate in activities that are far outside your scope of knowledge and experience. You may be asked to help move and bury the dead or spoon-feed starving disease-ridden babies. Imagine this and then consider your likely responses. Be honest here. While you would like to think you would respond heroically, are you willing to forgive yourself if that doesn’t happen? If you should respond conservatively, isn’t it possible you might accomplish more, by saving yourself or others? Are you able to let go of your personal beliefs in order to fulfill an ethic of neutrality, such as giving medical treatment to a known war criminal? Can you find something positive even in the midst of the most horrific circumstances? How comfortable are you doing things differently from what you feel might be the ‘correct’ way?

How attached are you to your personal
time and space?

How important is your personal time? Are you being realistic about how it will be spent? Like it or not, humanitarian assistance is a full-time, round-the-clock job. You will often be identified as the only person able to resolve all medical, financial, and logistical problems, no matter what your skill in these areas. Someone may knock on your door at 2:00 a.m. They are not being rude; it’s likely they will have just walked 35 miles to ask for help. Are you willing to give this amount of intense time—even for a three-month stint?

Due to conditions defined by the work and location, most of the time your job is all you can do. Count on there being no radio, television, social life or opportunity to exercise. The environment in which you work may be extremely hazardous—snipers and landmines may be a normal part of the landscape, and landmines do not discriminate.

As to personal space, you may be sharing a single room with a half-dozen strangers in less-than-luxurious accommodations.

At what point would you consider changing roles or doing something else?

There are many ways to participate in the humanitarian relief field. Perhaps you will decide that fieldwork is not for you, and that you would be more at ease in a headquarters ‘desk-job.’ Humanitarian organizations, particularly the larger ones, need a full complement of financial, administrative and human resources support. They also need development professionals. After several years of working in an operational capacity you will have acquired many skills and may want to share that knowledge with others by functioning as a mentor or teacher.

Burnout is always a risk. The warning signs are easy to ignore when you’re caught up in the rush of fieldwork or the emotional highs that come from helping others. The toll can mount without your knowing and then a single incident may tip the balance past what you are able to handle.

While there may be some support available from the organization you work with, ultimately only you are responsible for your own health and well being. Accepting that responsibility early on, and determining along the way how well you are doing mentally and physically, will help you keep a balance that is productive and rewarding.

Summary: Know Thyself

Humanitarian relief work can be personally and professionally rewarding, but it’s not a suitable path for everyone. Along the way you will meet people you admire and others you may detest. People who are drawn to the humanitarian field carry within them the same range of human traits and foibles as do those drawn to any other profession. If you have high expectations for ‘making a difference,’ expect to be frustrated. You will need a high tolerance for ambiguity: some days your most heroic efforts will seem futile; other days, you will find the simplest accomplishment can deliver great personal satisfaction.

It is most important for you to examine your own nature as deeply as possible before committing yourself to this field. Compassion and the intensely meaningful interactions elicited by extreme situations in complex humanitarian emergencies may be the true motivators for your seeking this type of work. However, the effort required of an individual working for years on the operational level is exhausting. Beyond the outer, broad-based material resources that are required to sustain your work, perhaps more important, you will need deep inner resources. In your search for the training and knowledge to prepare yourself for this kind of career, include in it a way of balancing and renewing both your vision and your spirit. With these tools in hand, you can make a difference and live to tell the tale.

Reflections on the “Seminar in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance,”
taught at the University of Hawai‘i, in Spring 2000

Edward Suarez and Renee Galbavy, graduate students in clinical psychology and community psychology respectively, are neophytes to the humanitarian relief world, so to learn more, they are attending the University of Hawai‘i seminar. They have agreed to share their perspectives on how the course has affected their lives. Their comments reflect well on what the course would hope to draw out of students: a new perspective on disaster management and humanitarian assistance and, perhaps more important, exploring the role of the world citizen when faced with the challenge of deciding on a career in the field.

Edward Suarez

“I am grateful for the realistic perspective of the challenges and opportunities that would await me in the field of international humanitarian aid, but I am actually now less inclined to endeavor in this work than I was previously. I have a better appreciation of the complexity of the situation and with that a more tempered enthusiasm; there is so much historical and political background [needed] to perform conscientiously.

“My response would be much more optimistic if I were in a profession that could provide basic resources, like food and medical care. As I research scientific literature on emergency mental health interventions—which would be my forte in this arena—it is becoming apparent that short-term mental health interventions may be unnecessary, and perhaps even damaging, particularly if they do not respect the potential for an indigenous response to human distress. After studying the issues, I may be more inclined and better equipped than ever to endeavor into humanitarian aid, but the course has helped me to realize that I am not ready to make that decision.

“I have not lost interest in a career in international humanitarian aid; I have gained a better appreciation of the sensitivity and circumspection with which someone in my profession should approach this area. I am now more interested in continuing to learn about the conditions that give rise to and ameliorate international disasters and accompanying human suffering so that I can make a better informed decision about how and where to best apply my professional knowledge and skills. Knowing the salient historical, moral, social, geopolitical and economic currents that are thrusting us into greater and greater global interdependence and conflict provides an appropriate analytical perspective for choosing what, if any, course of individual or organized action should be taken.”

Renee Galbavy

“I am glad to have this opportunity to speak…this class has had a profound effect on my life: I have had an epiphany. With the realization that this type of work exists and that I have the opportunity to be a part of it, I have changed the objective of my future career path. My knowledge of the disaster management and humanitarian relief field was incredibly limited. Now a door has been opened revealing a world in which there is an abundance of opportunity offered for making a much-needed difference on both a local and global level.

“I am particularly drawn to peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance in complex emergency situations. The topics have brought me feelings of sadness, horror, and disbelief, but also hope, faith and understanding. It has opened my eyes to the world around me and has forced me to see it with more clarity. As Americans, we can easily get caught up focusing only on our local problems and the security of this nation, ignoring the intense pain and suffering that is being experienced elsewhere.

“I am drawn to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief above and beyond any other interests I have had in pursuit of my doctorate in community psychology. I have always wanted to be a part of something where I could make a difference and feel fulfillment; I believe that this field is where I will find it.”

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