Author: Helena Frid

An overview of my previous blogposts and reflections on the blogging experience

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Phots: neONBRAND/Unsplash

During these last six weeks I have, together with four my fellow students, been posting weekly blogposts. It has been a part of an assignment in our studies in communication for development. It was a very different assignment from what I am used to, and it has been both challenging and a learning experience. With this blog we wanted to create a platform for a younger audience with an interest in, but none or very little experience of, the aid industry and volunteering. Our hope was to be a positive influence for young people who are thinking of embarking on the volunteering path.

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The Code Blue Campaign – bringing accountability to the aid industry

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My previous post was about sexual exploitation in the aid industry. If you didn’t read it, I very briefly related the long history of scandals of sexual exploitation and abuse of power in the industry, leaving many cases out in an attempt to limit the word count. I painted a very dire picture of the state of things and I questioned the idea of ICT as a tool to fight the wide spread occurrence of sexual abuse in the aid industry. The conclusion Continue reading

Can ICT tackle sexual exploitation in the aid industry?

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UN Peacekeepers Photo: UN

On September 29th this year the news broke that more than 50 women accused aid workers for sexual abuse in the Congo Ebola crisis response efforts during 2018-2020. It was the nonprofit news organization The New Humanitarian that after a yearlong investigation into the matter released their findings. The claims that were put forward accused unnamed male workers from mainly the WHO, but also other leading NGOs and UN agencies as well as the  Congolese health ministry, for demanding sex in change for employment. Women shared stories of being pressured to have sexual relations with men to be considered for employment and of contracts being terminated when refusing to engage with the men. The practice was so widely spread that it became known as a “passport to employment” ¹.

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Menstruation – Fighting the taboo

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Periods. Statistically speaking, half the people reading this have them (don’t fact check me on this one, please). Even though my previous statement might not be one hundred percent factually correct, a large part of the population has first hand experience with menstruation. Still, the mentioning of menstruation and all things related (I’m thinking about sanitary pads, menstrual cups, tampons, stained clothes etcetera.) is uncomfortable for many and it is considered a private issue. Growing up in Sweden, I was fully aware that I one day would get my period and I was in some ways looking forward to it, thinking that would be that I was a proper grown-up then. That of course changed as soon as I got my period and the anticipation transformed in to a feeling of injustice and having been wronged in some way. And don’t get me started on the uncomfortable pads and the fear of staining my pants and the following (mainly imagined) public ridicule. Continue reading

Thinking about taking a gap year to volunteer? – Read this first

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Taking a gap year and going abroad to a developing country to volunteer has for a long time been a vital and character forming rite of passage for many conscious and well-meaning youths of the Global North (the term mainly refers to the developed countries of Europe and North America but also Australia and New Zeeland). The desire to be of service and to make a difference in the life of those less fortunate is admirable and should be encouraged. But in our endeavor to do good and help others, we often convince ourselves that we need to travel to a remote village in the Global South – you guessed it, the term refers broadly to low income, less developed regions of South America, Asia and Africa – to build a school or teach English, even though we might not be native English speakers ourselves.

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