"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
Security
So I private messaged my group of friends about my concern with safety when traveling abroad to unstable regions. Since then I have had a number of interesting replies and done a bit more research on the subject. I was asked by John Tsangaris to make this a more open discussion so here we go.
This is my original post.
As most of you know now I am planning on building a network of people who will eventually create ECO villages in Africa. My question is this. At what stage should I consider safety. If the team decides to drop into south Africa, safety won't be as much of a concern. What if we decide that we could do the most good by dropping into sub-Sahara Africa? I wouldn't want to lead a team into a politically hostile environment without being prepared for it, but humanitarians with machine guns seem to me an oxymoron.
Should unstable regions be avoided even though they are often the most in need of aid?
Responses
"ALWAYS consider security, man. Always. Humanitarians with Machineguns; That's not an oxymoron. Trigger happy thrill seekers with Machineguns are the ones you want to avoid. What you need is a
tight cell of individuals skilled in humanitarian operations, and at least a few that are skilled in making threats go away. All members of the team have to be on the same page when it comes down to
violence, though. ONLY as a last resort." - Claude Raines
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"This is a response to your email question about security. The following may be of interest.
Relief Web Safety and Security
NGO Safety & Security Manuals
Private security contracting in humanitarian operations
-Fiacre O'Duinn
--------------------------
"It is very important that you do a risk a****sment before sanding anyone anywhere. It might be that you have to get permission from there
government before you go? You should really find this information out
from charity's that already exist."
-Hannah Peratopoullos
--------------------------
Thanks to Claude, Fiacre and Hannah for starting the discussion, (check those links out--pretty eye opening) So since its an open table discussion. What do you all think? If you had to choose a location to drop a team of humanitarians would you play it safe or take some calculable risk, seriously consider it because you might be asked to come on a mission.
This is my original post.
As most of you know now I am planning on building a network of people who will eventually create ECO villages in Africa. My question is this. At what stage should I consider safety. If the team decides to drop into south Africa, safety won't be as much of a concern. What if we decide that we could do the most good by dropping into sub-Sahara Africa? I wouldn't want to lead a team into a politically hostile environment without being prepared for it, but humanitarians with machine guns seem to me an oxymoron.
Should unstable regions be avoided even though they are often the most in need of aid?
Responses
"ALWAYS consider security, man. Always. Humanitarians with Machineguns; That's not an oxymoron. Trigger happy thrill seekers with Machineguns are the ones you want to avoid. What you need is a
tight cell of individuals skilled in humanitarian operations, and at least a few that are skilled in making threats go away. All members of the team have to be on the same page when it comes down to
violence, though. ONLY as a last resort." - Claude Raines
-------------------------
"This is a response to your email question about security. The following may be of interest.
Relief Web Safety and Security
NGO Safety & Security Manuals
Private security contracting in humanitarian operations
-Fiacre O'Duinn
--------------------------
"It is very important that you do a risk a****sment before sanding anyone anywhere. It might be that you have to get permission from there
government before you go? You should really find this information out
from charity's that already exist."
-Hannah Peratopoullos
--------------------------
Thanks to Claude, Fiacre and Hannah for starting the discussion, (check those links out--pretty eye opening) So since its an open table discussion. What do you all think? If you had to choose a location to drop a team of humanitarians would you play it safe or take some calculable risk, seriously consider it because you might be asked to come on a mission.
Views: 21
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Comment by John Tsangaris on March 12, 2010 at 7:58pm
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Thanks for putting this up, Geoff!
It comes down to two questions:
1) Will we risk other people's lives to help more other people? (Usually, the answer is no. We tend to not send other people into danger, humanitarian wise).
2) Do we deny people who live in dangerous areas aid, innovation, and solutions? No.
The only solution being that we each have to make our own decision going forward, knowing before hand what the task and dangers are ahead of us. I agree with Claude Raines in that you have to qualify people, not their security skills as those can be taught, but their personalities. While most people who are "humanitarian" do not like guns, and even more probably do not consider humanitarian and guns to EVER go together, I think that there will be situations in which having your team provide their own security may be necessary to get to those places where the government may welcome you (so, you are not breaking any laws being there), but is not going to protect you from any local situations. It is on each of us individually to determine what commitment we will accept to help and what level of sacrifice we make.
Everyone gets a piece of the solution. Everyone.
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Comment by Wintermute on March 12, 2010 at 9:07pm
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I think I wouldn't want to go into a hostile region as a greenhorn, but I think after I have created one or two eco farms I will considering jumping in the fire. Obvious parallels in these two maps.
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Comment by MoE on March 15, 2010 at 6:27am
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Actually I'm one of those who do not consider humanitarian and guns to EVER go together.
I do believe that, wherever possible, education and deep communication should be chosen instead. Maybe a longer time would be needed to prepare the terrain for a mission, but I think it would be paying in the long period.
Going and helping someone is to be safe, it is to be understood, it is to be accepted. When people REALLY understand what you're doing, they don't shoot you
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That's a good point. But what do you do when some people want help, and another group doesn't want them to be help?
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Good question. I'd answer: "you choose the way of the Internet, first".
I'm not saying it is easy, but if you have an idea of what happened with Iranian elections and Twitter (the I4P initiative I'm trying to spread, with my ACTX blog post, was inspired by that, also), or with Google China, you can figure out how the net is powerful in conveying "good" principles, awakinging the public opinion and sensitizing people worldwide. I wouldn't underestimate the power that such medium has, in protecting the interests of small groups by making them issues of global interest.
And I do believe that EVOKE is going to be another huge example for that.
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Comment by Brian Ballsun-Stanton on March 16, 2010 at 12:55pm
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I'd recommend starting a dialog with Kevin DiVico about this. I've spoken with him on the subject and he has some experiences from the army that ... are actually pretty useful on topic.
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Comment by Kevin DiVico on March 16, 2010 at 8:41pm
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Hello everyone,
This is a timely and much needed topic to be explored. There is a reason in our game reality that Alchemy and the agents are shrouded in secrecy. We all want to make the world a better place, thats good but first you need to accept the reality that the world, it can be a dark and dangerous place.
About me- eight years US Army intelligence(90-98) - 3 years private security after that. I am sure there are others with similar and even more experience on the network as well and I encourage them to post to this discussion as well.
I first will respond to some of the comments -
@Stefano - People who you can help and increase there lot in life understand you, bad guys who your cutting into there bottom line (black market food, Human trafficking, child trafficking, drugs, etc) want you gone bought off first( cause you can use a humanitarian organization to cover lots of illegal activity) , and if you don't buy easily then they want you gone (left the country -threats, rape as a weapon, assault) and if your still making waves then they want you dead.
it is that easy.
Now thats people who have criminal enterprises going. Regular people are smart, mobs are not and if you get caught in the middle of mass of people who become a mob what you did for them yesterday doesn't mean a wh*** lot. Look at the US army presence in Somalia back in the Nineties, They where first welcomed as humanitarian saviors, by the time operation Gothic Serpent occurred (Battle for Mogadishu in the press) they where an enemy occupier. public perception can change quickly and leave you out in the cold.
@Wintermute - thanks for the invite to your blog here. as far as your question - there is no simple answer... all depends on the specific operation - best scenario is you help in a way that the opposition does not become aware of. If that cannot happen then the answer depends on the group that comprises the opposition -, what the goal of the operation is, and the resources and skills you and your group can bring to the table. For example, if you have unlimited resources you outsource your security to the best private contractors you can find. However most NGO's or NPO's don't have those type of resources.
You can throw aid at a disaster and be quite effective in saving lives (ie Haiti ) but thats a short term solution. To make a difference over time, you need to empower the people through education, training, and resources to take responsibility for there own security. If you don't do this, then they will get taken advantage of again in the future.
If your going to travel to help out a problem, then first check with your country's state department or consulate on security concerns of the location your going to, then read everything you can about the situation in country - awareness can save your life far more readily then a weapon. Finally look at what successful NGO's have done in war torn locations and study there failures. You will learn more from someone else's mistake then there successes. If you can work for a larger organization who has aid work ongoing in a location, cause until your on the ground facing the situation and all it variables, you don't know how the stress will effect you.or if you can do the job. Large organizations watch out for Newbies and can pull you out if you can't preform.
I'll post more later...
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Thanks for the great post. It makes sense that the Moral Law (Sun Tzu's AOW) is so valuable in situations like the ones you described above. Winning the Moral Law is relatively easy, maintaining it is where you run into issues. The group that I am working with is looking at Sierra Leone as a possible location for our efforts. Three years ago you couldn't have paid me to go there, now the country is on the mend but it has a long way to go. I have sent an email to the embassy asking for information regarding humanitarian efforts in the area, still waiting on an answer.
Look forward to hearing more.
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some info sites for
CIA World Fact book - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sl...
US State Department - http://www.state.gov/p/af/ci/sl/
US State Department travel & security - http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1016.html
global policy - http://www.globalpolicy.org/security-council/index-of-countries-on-...
there you go - all open source...
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