Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

Humanitarian development isn’t for the lighthearted.

Every type of job is based on specific rules of conduct and in international development adherence to strong values and commitments leads not only to acceptance, but also to easy interaction and partial inclusion in the local culture. In order to create closeness and a relationship based on understanding, it is vital to respect local practices and uphold the rules of neutrality. Read more »

Check out this You Tube video by Yolanda Dominguez. Read more »

It is allegedly admitted that Human Rights are the work of three main countries: England, France and the United States of America.

And yet, my dear Westerners, the truth comes from another place!

We can indeed go back to the Code of Hammourabi (Babylon, 1700 BC) to find the first written sign testifying of the will to set superior norms which would protect the individual against an arbitrary power. In the following century, in Iran – a country which has been condemned Read more »

The principle of community-based interventions stems from anthropological theory and became refined through sociologic field research during the last three decades. About a century ago, even renowned Oxford professors of anthropology would commonly denigrate the lives of ‘savages’ in their books without offering much insight into the culture or customs of aboriginals. To give a vivid example, one of the most influential social studies that paved the way for modern anthropology and psychoanalysis in the 1930s, Frazer’s “The Golden Bough”—which Freud used as reference for his essay “Totem and Taboo”—was compiled in the library. However, with the field-based work of Bronisaw Malinovski, anthropological methodologies metamorphosed the ‘savage’ community into diverse groups differentiated through their culture, ethnicity, and other traits examined from an empathetic, comprehensive, and thoroughly holistic perspective. Read more »

Translated from the original French by Katherine Liakos and Charlotte Park.

Picture courtesy International Committee of the Red Cross

Humanitarian aid is a form of solidarity or charity, generally intended for poor, disaster stricken populations, or those confronted with war, which are trying to meet the diverse Read more »

I am reproducing an excellent post today by Emma Fanning, Oxfam’s protection manager in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which first appeared on Duncan Green’s From Poverty to Power blog today at http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=42

Picture : Oxfam International

If you’ve been following the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) recently – and given its unchanging, grim headlines, it’s not surprising if you haven’t – the story has probably been about rape. Large scale, brutal, dehumanising rape. The Congo has been dubbed the « rape capital » ; in just one Read more »

Translated from Las Maras, ou l’apogée des gangs centroaméricains by Pamela Paterson.

Maras, gangs which originate in both North America and Salvador are currently causing damage in Central America and especially in El Salvador and Honduras. They have also started to reach Mexico and Latin America and there is equally evidence of the presence of their members in Europe, particularly in Spain. So what is the severity of the phenomenon and

Translated from Le Chili: pays de stupeurs et tremblements by Pamela Paterson.

When a natural catastrophe reveals a country’s soul.

Chile is a country of intense seismic activity, whose inhabitants usually experience up to three earthquakes in their lives. Therefore, the earthquake is a tangible ghost and sooner or later, it becomes an inescapable reality which must be