John Geoghegan joined me today to have a great discussion around humanitarian and development activities through the lens of long term solutions, reflecting on lessons learned from past experiences, and programs that work best.
During our short talk, we explored the following topics:
Experience working with the IFRC during the Bosnian war and collapse of the former Soviet Union, and investing in local economy and local volunteer structures.
Then, working alongside the Vietnamese Red Cross faced with cyclical disasters looking at long term solutions with housing projects, investing in local strutures and local volunteers, and working with local communities to find out what the fundamental problems were.
Energising the global scout movement through new approaches to ‘capacity building’: investing in capacity building and developing local leaders, launching the ‘challenge’ of the Messengers of Peace program encouraging volunteers to -proactively and in a shared way- address problems in their own communities, and hosting online digital ‘Jamboree’ events of 5 million participants to share solutions -and more- between their counterparts.
And finally, discussing personal experiences as a young scout leader in Ireland early 1980s, faced with real issues and success in organic bottom up changes.
Ultimately and very much essentially: “you’ve got to believe in people” .
John Geoghegan
In his early years, John was active with the 73rd Dublin scout unit, before becoming National Training Officer for the Scout Association of Ireland while also supporting the Venture Scout section.
He went on to become Head of the Youth Department of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in 1990, Deputy Director of its European Department in 1995, appointed Head of Red Cross operations in Vietnam in 1998. Before joining the World Scout Foundation as Director in 2001
Many thanks to John for taking the time to engage with this conversation, and to the listeners for your attention.
If any of the topics resonate with you, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments bellow!
