New York, N.Y. — One of the primary challenges of running a global relief operation from New York is assuring local staff are doing their jobs properly without the ability to have full-time, in-person oversight. One measure to counter this has been to place staff from New York in our international projects for coordination, cooperation and supervision.

This leads rise to another challenge: placing and monitoring NYC-based staff to projects across Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Personnel Issues Gone Wrong

Indonesia

The U.S. director of our project there was a Peruvian American from New York. He trained with us in New York for about a year, and did field work with us in Peru, before being sent to Indonesia to coordinate our project after the Tsunami there.

He fell in love with a local woman and almost had our orphanage burned down when, against our rules, he invited her to spend the night on our campus. The young men in the village were so repulsed by this affront to sharia law, they marched on our orphanage with torches in the middle of the night. The mayor of the village interceded and saved our facility.

He then left our project with his girlfriend to move to the capital, at which point we lost track of him. We heard through the grapevine that he had become drug addicted.

An additional problem was that he was the son of one of our then-board members. When this young man resurfaced in Jakarta after six months, he expected us to fly him back to New York. I refused as he had been terminated two weeks after he left the project, and his mother resigned from our board in protest.

Haiti

While exploring project options in French speaking Togo in West Africa, I came across a young man with tremendous potential. I thought he would be ideal to direct our project there, but after corrupt demands from the government-for-life, that project did not come into fruition.

This young man requested placement at our project in French-speaking Haiti. I explained to him that our people on the ground in Haiti spoke Creole more than French, and that the conditions in Haiti were extremely challenging. He assured me that being from West Africa, he could deal with difficult situations.

So I agreed to see and he flew to Paris, and then onto New York, for four weeks of in-house training – then on to Port-au-Prince. He was shocked by the challenges in Haiti, from hygiene to nutrition.

Unhappy with about everything, he survived three months before he crashed. He had a nervous breakdown. We had to send him back to Togo on a special Air France medical flight, which cost us a fortune. We understand that he had a complete recovery upon his return.

Sri Lanka

A wonderful volunteer, a freshly graduated liberal arts major, wanted to see the world and be of service. He signed up to work with us in Sri Lanka. There, we had a house and a ‘housemother,’ a Sri Lankan mother whose children had grown and left home, taking care of our kids there. As housemothers often do in South Asia, more so twenty years ago, she took care of the house. Helping to cook, clean, and care for our children. She did not like Americans, and especially American men, to be in ‘her’ kitchen or laundry room.

Being a good liberal, and unfamiliar with local cultural mores, our volunteer wanted to erase gender roles and help cook in the kitchen and do her own laundry. His intentions were honorable. But she would complain to us in New York that she did not want him to assist her. We spoke to him again and again about this situation, but he decided we were ‘taking advantage of her and wanted no part of it.’

Our housemother finally called us, in tears, and said he was hiding his dirty laundry under his mattress so he could wash his clothes himself. She said if she could not manage our home there without interference, she would resign. We had to balance a senior staff member with years of experience with a young volunteer from Minnesota. So we had to fly him home. And he went on to complain through social media how he was victimized when he ‘stood up for women.’

These experiences highlight the complex challenges faced
by humanitarian organizations operating on a global scale.

Cultural misunderstandings, personal relationships, and differing expectations can lead to significant disruptions in project operations. It’s crucial for organizations to develop comprehensive training programs that address cultural sensitivity, clear communication protocols, and strategies for adapting to diverse environments.

Additionally, implementing robust vetting processes for both local and international staff, along with regular check-ins and support systems, can help mitigate potential issues before they escalate. Ultimately, successful global humanitarian work requires a delicate balance of cultural awareness, flexibility, and adherence to organizational guidelines to ensure the effective delivery of aid and support to those in need.

Hidden Complexities of Running Global Relief Operations (March 3, 2025)

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