Rabih Omar is a proud citizen of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, and has worked there on humanitarian and peacebuilding challenges for his whole career.We talk in depth about his experience working for different international organisations that have come to his city, what foreign “experts” tend to get wrong, and how he keeps his motivation up d ...…

Roshan is co-founder of the Amani Institute, which supports talent development for the social sector. Over the last seven years it has graduated some 450 students from its hubs in Nairobi, Bangalore, and Sao Paolo.We talk about the merits of coming from an emerging market perspective when talking about social innovation, the gaps that Amani see ...…

A short one to share some reflections on the first year of the podcast, and talk about where we're going next. (Including a name change!)We've had a wide range of people on so far -- human rights defenders, community organisers, clinicians, aid workers, and more. I share some of the moments that have really stuck with me, and talk about what I ...…

Nick van Praag founded and runs an organisation called Ground Truth Solutions. They work with people affected by crises to get their feedback and perspectives on emergency response.In practice this means door-to-door surveys, over time, of how people feel about the timeliness, quality and fairness of humanitarian service provision. This is shar ...…

Hani al Rstum is a Syrian living in Lebanon’s second city of Tripoli, and the conductor for the SADA playback theatre troupe. They engage with communities affected by serious conflict, with the goal of recognising and affirming life experiences, and opening dialogue.Playback draws on psychodrama therapy, and Hani himself is a psychotherapist. H ...…

Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, has experienced considerable violence ever since the end of the national civil war in 1990.But this escalated dramatically with the onset of the Syrian civil war. Pitched neighbourhood-level fighting led up to the shock car-bombing of the al-Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in 2013.The central government responded with ...…

Christine Williamson runs a consultancy firm called Duty of Care International, and has spent twenty years in human resources management in the aid world.It’s well-known that this is a very difficult area. The sector puts large numbers of people into tough operating environments, with a tiny fraction of the support that’s available for diplomat ...…

Jean-Paul is part of the generation that was fundamentally shaped by the Lebanese civil war, but had no responsibility for it. In his words, when he left the country in 2006 after the brief and calamitous war with Israel, he never wanted to come back.While abroad, however, he found a sense of agency and possibility. He did come back, and founde ...…

Assaad is best-known in Lebanon for an open letter in 2000, in which he apologised for what he’d done with the Lebanese Forces, a prominent Christian militia responsible for its share of atrocities.This has been followed by nearly twenty years of philanthropic work. Much of it has been in partnership with other former combatants, through the or ...…

Dete is a researcher and activist whose work revolves around in-depth, interview-based research with people detained for terrorism offences, and their families. This includes special focus on women as both partners and protagonists.The results are used to inform dialogue with the Indonesian government and its international partners, along with ...…

Rufa Cagoco-Guiam is an anthropologist based in General Santos City, and has worked on dozens of peacebuilding and development initiatives in the wider southern Philippines.Her background includes a long academic CV; stints as a newspaper editor-in-chief and columnist; and a wide range of consultancies with international institutions.She shares ...…

#009: Helping the most marginalised to access key services in Nigeria | Ochonye Bartholomew Boniface by Ian D. QuickBy Ian D. Quick.

Marie-Rose founded ESPWA not long after the 2010 earthquake which killed some 200,000 people. This led into eight years of intensive support to community-driven planning, with particular focus on the Grand ‘Anse region.It has not always been a happy story, and certainly not a straightforward one. Amongst other things, we discuss:* what it’s lik ...…

Teame teaches at the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, and has consulted on education policy in a range of different countries.He is an Eritrean who obtained political asylum in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, completed his PhD there, and has been extraordinarily active in supporting refugees and international stu ...…

Alex is an independent researcher who strives to build better bridges between the global North and South, promoting constructive dialogue and putting power imbalances higher on the agenda than they currently sit.This is a tough ask in a sector that is pretty much defined by imbalances — between those who pay, and those who are supposed to benef ...…

Mario is a clinician and psychotherapist, who first started working with Guatemalan immigrants to the USA in the early 1990s.These days he’s clinical supervisor at the Marjorie Kovler Centre in Chicago, a part of the Heartland Alliance. He works with people claiming political asylum, and helps on initiatives elsewhere around the world.Over the ...…

Farai works to empower communities for whom an abundance of natural resources has brought nothing but trouble, including some extraordinarily grave human rights violations.In a wide-ranging conversation we touch on:* The limitations of the “conflict minerals” movement, and how to think more broadly about good governance for natural resources.* ...…

Dan spent several years with the “Group of Experts” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These are people tasked by the UN Security Council to work out what is really going on with sanctions, armed groups, and smuggling.That’s a job with an incredibly interesting day-to-day, and we unpack it from several different directions:* What does goo ...…

Lewis is a researcher and advocate who’s worked in some of the toughest environments around over the last decade, often in the immediate aftermath of war crimes and crimes against humanity.This interview touches on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, and Burundi.We get into both the practicalities of “doi ...…

Tariq has led teams on the ground in most of the major disasters of the last decade, with agencies including Oxfam, Médecins sans frontières, AfghanAid and the International Rescue Committee.These are the highest-pressure management environments one can imagine, and this is a pretty wide-ranging conversation on professional practice and ethics ...…

A short introduction to the 100 Voices project. I explain why I think it’s needed, the kind of practitioner we’re getting involved, and what the process will look like.By Ian D. Quick.