In this episode we speak to Marina Kobveza, is the Director of Programmes and Partnerships at MapAction. She is a humanitarian leader with 20 years of experience, here on the show to discuss everything from the impact of George Floyd’s murder to the need for data to be evidenced with empathetic narratives.
Marina introduces you to her own career in humanitarian aid through her lived experience. As a child in Azerbaijan, that first encounter with humanitarian aid, inspired her to put her energies into one of her first career choices, The Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. She has seen first-hand, how large international agencies have failed to support those most in-need with ineffective leadership and bloated internal structures.
On the show, she gets to the heart of decolonising narratives in aid and supporting narratives that use data, to inform and persuade, keeping human experience at the centre of aid. Some of the areas we’ll cover on the episode are:
· The challenges in humanitarian aid and its ethical considerations
· The decolonisation process in humanitarian aid
· The impact of identity and keeping immigrant influences at the centre of her work
· What solutions we have when aid budgets are cut in traditional supporting countries
· How the humanitarian system needs to become leaner to benefit from diaspora funding
· How there has been a growing recognition for mental health support among aid workers
As the international humanitarian aid sector is rocked by shockwaves from the US and across the western world, what solutions are there? How do you lead with empathy? Continue to humanize communities? Lead with dignity that promotes sustained support? Marina tackles this and more on Diaspora in Development.
The opinions shared on this forum are the opinions of the individuals and are not the opinions of the organizations and institutes that they work for
