A doctor prepares to respond to insurgent violence in Nigeria
Benjamin Aiwonodagbon, MPH ’18, took the course as a Harvard Chan School student and returned in 2019 and 2023 as a volunteer. A physician and global health expert in Nigeria, he wanted to be able to respond to crises such as insurgent violence in his country. “It resonated strongly with me that I should take the course and then do some humanitarian work to give back to the community and society,” he says.
Aiwonodagbon notes that his experience as a student during the simulation gave him a greater appreciation for the struggles of displaced people—in addition to new skills that served him in his postgraduation job with the World Health Organization, specializing in emergency response, trauma, injuries, and mental health. In that position, he supported programs in Nigeria’s conflict zones and worked with survivors.
He tapped into these experiences as a volunteer refugee role player, and says that students had to earn his character’s trust before he’d open up about his experiences. “I needed them to treat me as a human being, not a data point.”
Aiwonodagbon is applying for an emergency medicine residency in the U.S. and hopes to find a position that combines clinical practice, research, and global health. He says of the simulation, “If you want to mentor global health workers in the field,” he says, “this experience is very useful.”
A teacher and development worker gains insight into the logistics of humanitarian aid
Cora Neudeck first volunteered in 2019 as a Harvard College senior while she was taking a course in disaster and refugee crisis response. That year, she role-played a refugee. She’d already had some experience with international development work, having interned in Nicaragua and Kosovo, but noted that she came away from the simulation with a greater appreciation for the complex logistics required when humanitarian aid organizations combine their resources in the field.
After graduation, Neudeck worked as a teacher at a boarding school in Somalia, and later joined a Bangladesh-based international nongovernmental organization that works with refugees. She returned to the simulation this year as a volunteer, serving as a member of a group in conflict. It was an experience to which she brough personal insight, having experienced a similar encounter with real-life armed men on a bus in Ethiopia.
Neudeck is deeply interested in seeing humanitarian aid become more localized. She says this year’s simulation and the conversations she had with other professional volunteers gave her more food for thought about how best to provide aid sustainably.
An NGO coordinator builds his network along with his skills
Moses Namanya was working as an economic security delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Central African Republic in 2017 when he decided to take the humanitarian response course and participate in the simulation. He says that it gave a boost to his professional development on multiple levels. The course taught him skills around designing aid projects and pitching them to funders, in addition to the expertise and mental mindset to tackle serious challenges in the field. “The situations that were simulated were ones that we were meeting in the field,” says Namanya, who shared what he’d learned with his colleagues.
Namanya joined the UN World Food Program the following year as a resilience coordinator in complex environments, including conflict zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His experiences inspired a member of the Humanitarian Academy’s staff to recruit him to return as an alumni volunteer. This year, he guided students through a skills station.
Namanya appreciated the opportunity to make professional connections at the simulation. He noted that he met several eminent leaders whose books he had read.
A humanitarian response leader takes pride in training students
Kenny Rasool had more than 20 years of experience as a humanitarian response and development professional—including on the front lines in Iraq and Syria—when he signed up for the course in 2018. “There comes a moment when you’re submerged in the aid work bubble when you need to reset,” he says. “I needed to step away and reflect.”
Working with less-experienced students provided Rasool with both challenge and opportunity, he says. During the simulation, his teammates often looked to him for answers, and he tried to find ways to share his experiences without dominating the conversation. Rasool believes that practitioners always need to be open to new ideas, and that training programs like the Humanitarian Academy are vital for preparing students for a world in which conflicts are on the rise and resources are limited. He became an instructor in 2019.
At this year’s simulation, he role-played a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees leader. He says he was happy to be back among a professional family that’s shared similar experiences. “You don’t have to explain yourself. They understand,” he says. “I think the simulation’s best testimony is that people keep coming back.”