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Humanitarians have a “burnout culture”, experts say.
They work long hours in difficult environments – often separated from family, while facing serious safety risks. They’re trying to help people in the worst moments of their lives. In the middle of today’s funding crisis, they’re also deciding who gets aid and who does not.
Burnout is an urgent problem: A paper published in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry showed a link between risk-taking behaviour, and suicide, among aid workers.
“You lose that sense of being able to empathise,” says Javid Abdelmoneim, the international president for Médecins Sans Frontières. “I'd feel myself getting irritable, short, less inclined to stop and listen, and that's just not fair.”
In this episode, Abdelmoneim is joined by two experts on humanitarian mental health and wellbeing: Nancy Nyambura, staff counsellor for MSF’s Eastern Africa region, and Gemma Houldey, the author of a book on aid worker burnout, The Vulnerable Humanitarian.
They talk about what’s driving high rates of burnout, how people can identify it and take action, and what organisations must do to better help their staff.
If you are in crisis, click here to find a helpline near you (via the International Association for Suicide Prevention).
Guests:
Javid Abdelmoneim, president of Médecins Sans Frontières
Nancy Nyambura, regional staff counsellor at Médecins Sans Frontières
Gemma Houldey, author of The Vulnerable Humanitarian: Ending Burnout Culture in the Aid Sector
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