Interview with Nathan Reyes - Protection Delegate with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

When Nathan Reyes decided to continue his undergraduate degree in the French language, he barely spoke it. It was a big gamble, but it paid off for Nathan, who now speaks four languages and travels to conflict zones around the world. He talks to us about landing a job with a 1% success rate, meeting with leaders of armed rebel groups, and the one skill he's commended on the most - and suggests you start working on, right now!

Read the interview below.  You can also watch his series of videos here.

Tell us about the organization you work for and your role there.

The organization that I currently work for is called the International Committee of the Red Cross—I'll refer to it as the ICRC from now on. What the United Nations to human rights, the ICRC is to the international law of armed conflict: it is the parent and guardian, and kind of enforcer, on an international level, of the law of armed conflict. Basically, when you see a medic in battle in a war movie who runs out onto the field with a Red Cross on his shoulder showing that he's protected, that's the law of armed conflict in action. If you hear of weapons—biochemical or other weapons that are not allowed to be used—or the captured soldier who is not allowed to be executed on the battlefield, that is the law of war in action.

The organization that I work for is the one that monitors and promotes and enforces that law. My role in that organization is what we in the humanitarian sphere call “protection”. I’m a protection delegate. Protection takes its roots, takes its essence, from the law I just described; it is more the application, on a case-by-case basis, to individuals affected by the conflict, whether they're civilians or detained, captured soldiers, or wounded or others. It can also apply at a more general kind of level to civilian populations at large or medical personnel at large.

How did you get to where you are now? Tell us about your career trajectory.

At the age of probably most people who will listen to this, I had no idea of the existence of the ICRC and this kind of work. I kind of ended up here through a little bit of a happenstance, and serendipity. I was also always interested in doing something international, and something where I could go out and discover new realities and help people, but had no idea what that would be.

I wandered into an undergraduate degree in general human sciences at the University of Toronto; I had applied to journalism and been rejected. Then, I had a vague desire as well to learn a second language—I grew up speaking English and nothing else. At 19, I travelled a little bit, and I travelled in France for a little bit and I stayed and studied French for a few months. I had done the basic kind of grade four French, and knew how to count to 10. And from there—kind of impossibly—applied to study in Quebec. Without really having a full grasp of the language, I was nonetheless accepted and went to university in French.
I think that was the beginning of what led me to where I am today. It was the beginning of opening my world—at least linguistically, to more than one language—and that opened my world in so many more ways. I studied at Université de Laval in Quebec. In those studies, I also ended up going to Russia—more to follow a girl than due to any kind of inspiration of my own! But, I made the best of it and stayed there a year, and learned a good basis in Russian. I came back also having spent the year among French-speaking exchange students, so kind of not having lost anything in French either.

I came back, and again, I travelled. So first thing, every opportunity I have had—whether it was to study in my undergrad or to take a year off and travel or then to go and do an internship or whatever—I have managed, at first through luck and then through conscious decision, to incorporate language into that. And I think that's really gotten me far. I grew up speaking just one language to the age of nearly 20, and now I speak four languages at near enough to fluency, if not full fluency, that I am able to work efficiently in them.

Wow, so you decided to study in French, while not really speaking French all that well. What happened after that? How did that lead to the ICRC?

I began a Master's in International Development at the University of Ottawa and did a full year's curriculum in this master's, but wasn't entirely in love with it, and wasn't entirely convinced with what I was being taught in terms of the approach to solving problems internationally. And actually, I heard of the ICRC for the first time in that master's program, while doing a conflict mediation course, and learned about the kind of action that the ICRC and human rights agencies do— a very tangible, specific kind of protection, human rights, and trying to help a person based on a given right basis. So, I switched programs.
Without having a degree in law, I applied to an LLM—a master's in law program—at the same university. I wrote them a very carefully elegantly-written letter justifying why I could be admitted, justifying the kind of background I could bring to the program, and the question I wanted to explore in my thesis. I did so with a professor who was already interested in the kind of things that I wanted to bring to the table, and in that way, I got into a program that didn't wouldn’t normally allow non-law students.

That gave me valuable diversification in my education. During that master's, I did an internship at the Department of Justice Canada. For those who decide to do their graduate studies in Ottawa, it's it's not too difficult to get an internship in some agency in the federal government More importantly for the career that I have since I got into, I did a lot of extracurricular things. I wrote papers on a given human rights topic, or something that I was learning about in my studies. I knew people who were organizing a conference on different human rights issues at a more theoretical, abstract level, but I talked to them, interested them in what I was interested in, and I managed to get to spot on a panel speaking about it. I worked as a research assistant and teaching assistant to a professor, and in that way, I was also able to delve more into issues of constitutional law, Indigenous law, things that ultimately gave me valuable experience to put on a CV. I that this, more than my studies themselves, more than my work at the Department of Justice, really highlighted an interest of mine that was ultimately flagged by my first real job.

Talk to us about that “first real job.”

As far as I could tell at the time, it was almost a miracle, it fell from the sky. But looking back, it was all these things that I've described that kind of got me there. I applied to a program called UNV, or UN Volunteers. They call them volunteers; in reality, it's actually much better paid and involves much more responsibility than internships, for example. Basically, you go onto a roster of tens of thousands of people internationally, that the UN will pick and choose from, for placements, particularly in peacekeeping missions, but all over the world.

I was, meanwhile, applying to all sorts of NGOs, etc. But, getting your foot in the door in the humanitarian world was, and is, an extremely difficult thing—and one that I didn't know if I was going to really manage. But then, I got an offer from the United Nations, the UNV program, asking if I was interested in being shortlisted for the position of human rights officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And I was!
I did the interview, which was part in French and part in English, and tested my knowledge of human rights and also just my openness of mind and all sorts of kind of qualities that they look for. Ultimately, a couple of months later, I was deployed in the northeast Congo as basically an investigator of human rights violations—which I didn't fully become until probably about a year later, after being really mentored and trained by my colleagues out there. But, it was the beginning. It was a world that I discovered at that time that I had not known existed, a world that I fell in love with that I found myself to be quite probably motivated therefore good at and that I am still into it.

What was the interview process like with UN Volunteers?

UNV... When you apply, you're put on a huge roster. If you have a master's degree, or if your interest is apparent in your experiences, you will at some point be contacted to be shortlisted. When you accept a place on the shortlist, then you and two to three other candidates will be interviewed for a given position. It's a single interview that determines your candidacy.

In my case, I was actually contacted for a position in sexual violence in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I passed the interview. Again, it was a panel of four different people. Half the questions were asked in English, and half the questions were asked in French; I was expected to be completely at ease in both. There were many questions about my general experience—for example, resolving conflicts in the workplace, experience in a multicultural setting, and very general things that I think most people with life experience can draw on their experiences to answer. A few questions were more specifically about either the situation in the DRC, which I had researched a bit in preparation, or human rights, which I had studied.

I was not given the position that I was interviewed for, which shows me that although three or four people may be shortlisted for a given position, candidates who they find interesting but not ideal for the position may be simply reassigned without further notice.

When I actually received a job offer, it was a much better one in my opinion. I was placed in the field, in the middle of the Northeast Congo where a paved road can't be seen for hundreds of kilometres. It was an extremely operational context, with armed groups and military and police all around us; we were really kind the only unit or entity in the area that did the investigative work.

How did this all lead to the ICRC?

I had heard about the ICRC in my studies as the authority, the guardian if you will, of this law of war, the law of armed conflict. But it's very hard to know about the details and the kind of day-to-day work. My work in the DR Congo introduced me to the work of monitoring and documenting which is another term, basically, for investigating violations of different rights or laws.

Working in the field, in Africa, in the DR Congo with the UN, I heard more and more about the ICRC. The key difference between the UN's Human Rights Office, for example, and the ICRC is the neutrality of the ICRC. While the UN is a highly political and militarized kind of machine, the ICRC is the most neutral entity that exists. That is their entire approach, their entire reason for being. In any given conflict, even organizations like Doctors Without Borders, or INGOs may or may not be funded by, or sided with, a certain party to the conflict—ideologically, or in some other way.

The ICRC's entire approach is that it will monitor the respect of law in a conflict, but it will do so without any preference for either side; it will do so with an open dialogue with the parties considered terrorists, and the government forces, and whomever else is involved. Dialogue is transparent, so each group is aware of the fact that we're doing it with the others, but conversations with each one are done confidentially.

For example, if I learned a group of soldiers tortured an individual—a civilian—I may be asked to go and take that up with the group of soldiers—or combatants, armed men. The fact that I speak about that kind of thing to each party in the conflict, everybody will know. But the very details of the case that I learned about, and brought to the actor presumably responsible—only they will know that. And, I will expect them, or go up their hierarchy, to take action based on that.

So, it's a different approach and it's an approach that allowed me—through the ICRC—to have access to the entire territory. In Colombia, we have access to territory controlled by the FARC, a designated terrorist group that is currently demobilizing; to the ELM, another designated terrorist group. We have access to the armed forces, to the police, to even kinda gang style criminal organizations. It's quite incredible actually, and that was a big factor that attracted me to the ICRC in the first place. In the Congo, when I was with the UN, I didn't have access to half the territory because we were allied with, and did military excursions, with the government. I used that in my letter and my discourse with the ICRC when I was applying, and I think that also helped—I think they liked that.

How does one go about getting in their foot in the door at the ICRC?

This is another thing that I really like about the ICRC. For those of you who are considering this kind of maybe one day, after your masters but not necessarily in 20 years, the ICRC—as opposed to most other NGOs and organizations in the humanitarian world—recruits largely based on motivation and potential.

They will look for somebody to have two years of general experience, even if that experience is I don't know, delivering magazines or whatever in Canada. They are very unspecific or undemanding in terms of work experience. But they will look for motivation, and in looking for motivation and potential of a candidate, it's an extremely long process.

From the moment of applying—which anybody can do from any background, as long as they have a master's degree, two years of experience, and they speak a couple of languages—from the moment of applying, a person is generally referred to their national Red Cross Society. This group will screen them in a way, and give them a preliminary interview to basically see if the candidate is suitable at all. Then, there is an online interview with somebody from Geneva in the ICRC. That leads to language tests, which may come before or after a full "recruitment day" in Geneva, of individual tests, written essays, kind of surprise role-playing situations, interviews by a panel, and group activities with other candidates.

Tell us about how you, specifically, got your position with the ICRC.

I actually applied to an internship there—before I was ever in the field with the UN—and was flat-out rejected. But, I heard about it and also came across them in my work in the field. I applied—and from the moment I applied to the moment I was hired, over a year passed. Then I was called. When I applied, I had put Spanish down as a spoken language; it was a spoken language for me, at a high-intermediate level. So, I was called in Spanish, and my Spanish was tested—and found to be wanting. But, they told me, "You're close enough. Work on it for six months, let us know and we'll call you back and try again." So, I worked on it. I studied, and I went to Spain a couple of times, and I did my best—and I let them know. They called me back, and this time, although still not superb, I got by their screening requirements (just barely, I think).

I was contacted by the Canadian Red Cross. They did an hour-long interview with me, and asked me all sorts of questions in terms of, again, challenges I'd had in the past and how I dealt with them; my approach to security; my approach to multicultural clashes amongst colleagues, etc. They were testing the kind of personality and drive as well that I had. About two months later, I was contacted by somebody in Geneva, who requested an interview; that lasted about two hours, and was sort of similar in nature, but with more specific questions regarding my knowledge of the ICRC and what they do concretely in the field, the different kinds of protection and assistance activities. But they focused very much as well on my drive, and my ability to deal with difficult circumstances, multicultural challenges, etc. This interview lasted about two hours and I was immediately informed at the end that I had passed except that they recommended I study, or strengthen a few points for the "recruitment day" as they called it, in Geneva.
That was the next step. About three months later, I was invited to a day in Geneva. Now, I hear that there are actually financial aid programs for this; but I just went there on my own because I didn't really look into it, and I wanted to show them how eager I was (I'm not sure that actually helped!)

Recruitment day in Geneva was about 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a lunch that was informal in appearance, but I'm pretty sure it was all part of it—I think everything is a test. It started in a group, with four other candidates, five of us in total—introductions, explaining a little something about our past, choosing an object on our table and describing a meaning it had for you, with a link to your past etc. Then, we jumped right into a role-playing situation: we had crashed the plane in the north of Canada or something, with a certain amount of objects, and the group has 15 minutes to confer and choose what objects they'll bring, and where they will go or whatever—this kind of situation.

That was followed by—I can’t remember the exact chronological order—but we were given a picture, from which we had to write a three- to four-page essay, basically, with no other guidance, but to interpret the picture and write your report or essay as it were.

We were interrupted in that, taken out of the room, and given a page, basically describing an imaginary situation trying to deal with a partner and a humanitarian delivery. We were given three minutes exactly, to read that and were told to knock on a door. Inside the door there was a man waiting with a camera, playing the role of, I suppose, the writer of the letter—the partner in this humanitarian assistance, that was renegotiating a series of things. I had five minutes to do my best in that negotiation.

I was put back, continued writing my essay, and was interrupted again. I was given a pile of, like, 100 emails with a little list, basically, and told to prioritize them. There were emails from my imaginary wife, there were emails about work, there were emails about angry colleagues at work, there were emails about kind of operations at work and were three about my sick son in school. It was kind of everything you can imagine—and how does a person prioritize from one to 100? I got to about 35, I think, in 20 minutes. Then, back to writing the essays, then to an interview in front of a panel of four people—again, every time, interrupted from this essay, which should have taken an hour but took three hours to write because you are taken out every 15 minutes. I think all of this is so they can see how one reacts and adapts to sudden changes, stressful situations, and situations in which you have very little information—and, obviously, how one works in a team and things like that too.

So, the same kind of teamwork that we started with on this day, we ended with as well. After a lunch, and a couple more similar things in the afternoon, there was another group scenario. It was a different sort of scenario, I don't remember this one exactly, but we had to kind of organize some sort of field trip or mission, in some kind of imaginary humanitarian operation. But, that had us working together, sometimes clashing together, in very similar ways.

The following day, I had language tests for every language that I had claimed to know. So French, English and Spanish at the time. (I didn't put Russian, being that my Russian was too weak.) But that test was written, spoken, reading and writing—about 10 minutes or so on each part. The whole thing was not very long, but it was a rather demanding language test. I learned about a week later that I had been approved.

Looking back, what do you think got you the position?

So there are over 10,000 people who apply for that position per year, and just under 100 were recruited. That's like a 1% kind of chance, but just getting the first interview is more than half of that. I think getting that first interview was not so much the fact that I had worked in Africa in the Congo— although it helped, the person who replaced me after I finished my first mission with the ICRC had never worked in anything similar. In fact, he had just finished his studies, and had worked a bit during his studies, and was 26 years old. It doesn't take that.

A lot of what helped was my general attitude I think: my general open-mindedness, my general curiosity, my general humbleness, perhaps, going into the interview process. I also spoke with friends later—one particular friend who had worked his way up to Head of Office within the United Nations in Congo. He worked in that position for three and a half years, and was really kind of a star in the UN circle in the Congo. I think he took that attitude to the ICRC, and didn't make the process, where he had much more experience than I did. So, I think they are looking for a certain attitude.

They're looking for people who can go on to the field, into all sorts of various and challenging cultural situations, who can basically kind of be set in front of a rather short-tempered, annoyed colonel of a military brigade, who we're trying to bring alleged violations of law to, and trying to ask for understanding. Or, where we're trying to say that their tactic of setting up inside of schools is endangering civilians, please don't do that—despite the fact that not doing that is going to put your soldiers in more danger, and you're already losing them every day. They're looking for people who can be put in this kind of situation, and get out of it, without making this military commander your worst enemy for the rest of your life! Somebody who has a certain diplomacy, a certain humbleness, a certain openness to them. I’m repeating myself, but I think it really is key.

And, somebody who is highly motivated. I had learned about the ICRC in the past, and I have learned a lot and taught myself a lot about it. So, I was able to really express my understanding, and how kind of aligned I was, how much the values of the ICRC—that neutrality and impartiality, and the independence in their work—spoke to me. For an organization like the ICRC, which really defines itself by its principles, that helped a lot.

The general just motivation of "humanity." It's not something that I would recommend necessarily phrasing that way when you're expressing motivations, but if you are perceived by the ICRC as really being motivated by a want to help, that—as much as anything else that I've said—will be huge. And I think those factors—arriving kind of humble, open, really truly motivated by the purpose of the work, to help, and by the values of the organization itself which defines it, will get you ahead of 9,000 of those applicants.

What’s an average week like at the ICRC?

This kind of work is very field-oriented, but there's a little bit of office work too. So, I used to live in Saravena, a small town in the countryside of Colombia, near the Venezuelan border. I would go to work at about eight o'clock, and for the first couple days of the week, I would have meetings with my team. We would go over the security situation in the area, and any major developments, especially if there had been bombings or clashes or anything that might have affected civilians, or resulted in wounded etc, given that this is our mandate. Then, we would also go over the news, any events reported in the news that had relevance to us. I would go over any reporting that I had to do from the previous week—so minutes of meetings that I'd had. Unfortunately, as with anything, there is a fair amount of reporting. I'd go over field trip reports, the logistics, the people met, and where I went. I'd do updates on cases; we would have individual cases—for example, an individual whose life has been threatened and who's been displaced, and then we help try to get them settled, integrated into a program that helps with vocational training, or some such. And so, for any development on a case, I would make a little write-up about it—anything that I did, so much as a phone call or a meeting, or meeting with a person who is affected or, for example, going to meet a state partner who helps with integration into a workplace, or in their new home, or whatever it is.

I would spend two days in the office like that. We were also receiving individual cases; people would actually just come to our office and say, "Yesterday, there was fighting near my farm, and it caught fire and half of it burned down, and we had to flee, and now we're here and we have nowhere to sleep and can you please help us?" We would talk, and explain what we can do, and what we can’t do, and open a new case. So, we had many walk-ins like that, or at least a few.

Imagine that on that given week, I had an outing from Wednesday to Friday. Sometimes outings would be one to two days, sometimes, outings or field trips could be two weeks—it really depended where I went, and why I went, and what I was trying to follow up on. The team would get together, we would make a quick checklist of where we were going, and submit it to our security colleagues because they would do radio call-ins as we went, based on a code that we would determine ahead of time so as not to be tracked, to the best of our ability. We would talk about any priorities, any cases we had to address, any visits to the police that we were going to make, or to the United Nations office in the area. Whatever our objectives were, we would go over them together as a team.

Then, we'd pile into a land cruiser—which is the kind-of four-by-four vehicle that we use in the field, both the UN and the ICRC use them—and off we'd go. We'd go through very rural areas; sometimes, the stops would be a house in the middle of a field, to talk to somebody who had come to us with one of these specific cases. Sometimes it would be a health post, like a little health clinic for a village; or a school that had reported that children were being recruited nearby, or inside the school premises, and who wanted to speak with us to see if we could intervene. We would go to different towns and speak with members of the armed forces and the police as it was relevant to us.

As in most countries, Colombia has state mechanisms for victims of the conflict; that is to say, somebody who is affected or displaced because of the conflict can go to the state and say, "I am a victim. I was displaced. I need help." The state has laws and mechanisms to help these people. So, we would actually help people access these mechanisms—because sometimes people couldn't get there, they didn't have the resources. Or, they got there and nobody was there, after having travelled half the day. Or, they were just kind of ignored or, I don't know, not really received well by a given person from the state, and we can try and help them gain a more attentive ear. All of these are examples of things that we could do at a given moment on a field trip.

Can you tell us about the challenges of this job? You must have some stories.

So, Sunday at seven o'clock in the morning, I receive a call from a colleague who says, "Nathan, get up. We were just contacted by one of our "partners"— we don't speak about specific things on the phone, not details that could compromise or endanger somebody.

Sunday morning, 7:30, I get to the office and we take off in a land cruiser to meet somebody waiting for us in a village two hours away. That person, on a motorcycle, leads us to another person waiting for us on a horse. And that person takes us on foot 20 minutes into the bush, and then we're left there.

Twenty minutes later, a bunch of armed combatants and the commander of a given rebel armed force appear because we had, at some point in the past, requested through contacts— informants—a meeting with this person. Again, this kind of meeting only the ICRC has, and this kind of meeting, which thankfully in my experience has gone very well, is not as scary as it sounds. It's actually quite memorable.
The meeting is spent speaking about respecting children, or the civilian population because they were affected and several of them were killed because of a certain behavior in a certain combat. Or, the use of certain weapons in the area could have collateral damage, which is really unnecessary, or which creates fear and doesn't allow ambulances to enter into an area, which means that the population does not receive the medical care that they need. And we find that the group could change—improve the situation, change their behaviour without it really affecting their ability to combat. That is important—that is another key difference with the ICRC —is that we are not against parties fighting. We're not "against war", per se, we're not "for peace". We are for limits in war, we are for humanity in war. That meeting could last an hour, it could last four. At some point in the middle of the afternoon, I'm back at home and I'm going over it my head, writing out a little report so I don't forget what was spoken of and what the answers were, and resting for what time I have left.

What about some more common, everyday challenges?

A big one is definitely the language. As much as the language opens doors, anyone who finds themselves working in a language that is their second language—a language that they did not grow up with, but learned as an adult— at some points you will find yourself, or feel yourself, to be handicapped by this.

Despite having worked on my Spanish and having got to a point where the ICRC thought was good enough, it was a challenge getting to a village in Colombia and working only with pure Spanish speakers, being expected to speak on a cell phone with cruddy connections, with people whose Spanish accent is, by the way, nothing like the learned-in-school Spanish. Then having to go write reports, having to speak Spanish from dawn to dusk every day with your colleagues, with your beneficiaries, with the general people who are just around you, your neighbours, whatever. It is exhausting, and limiting in some ways; sometimes it creates a filter that others perceive you through, and that filter also can make you feel less intelligent, less yourself, less natural, less... whatever it is. You can’t make a joke... you try to and everybody just kind of looks at you weirdly, and you end up thinking, "My colleagues think I’m a little bit slow, because I keep saying these things that don’t make sense to them, and they just look at me weird, and then I don’t understand what they are saying." Anyway, it's definitely a challenge, as much professionally as personally, in the kinds of contexts that you will find yourself working in this kind of field.
Personally, another challenge—and this really depends on where you end up being—but just having a social life on a day-to-day basis. Although ultimately you can end up making friends, sometimes the social, the cultural, or even more so, the economic disparity between you and the people around you can take time to overcome. If just walking down the street in what you would normally wear in Toronto, or Canada, or at home—a T-shirt and jeans and shoes—makes people look at you like an alien, like somebody who comes from another land and has completely different financial "powers", things that they would only dream of, then it's hard to overcome that perception. At times, you are "the rich guy" to a population that makes a dollar a day, no matter how much you want to just go and grab a beer with them. They might not be able to pay for a beer on a daily basis, frankly, and even if they can, it's just hard to get over that difference—more so, I think, than the culture or language, in terms of making friends.

But then there's also the length of your friendships or relationships. When you leave your country, you will have a strong group of friends, as I still do, five years later. But that friendship will eventually start to be more based on a memory of friendship. That's not to say that you and your friends, or that my friends and I love each other any less. But every time I expressed that worry, they say, "Oh, don't worry! Every time you come back, it's like you're never gone. It's like the good old days." And, that's very true. But, meanwhile, my friends—between them—they're creating new memories, and they're creating and sharing new experiences, and I'm not part of that. And once you're away for a long time, you feel that.

What tips do you have for someone who is about to undertake this work?

Use your group of friends, your family—or whoever you feel is close to you and you can really kind of communicate to—even if they're living a completely different reality.

In my first year and a half of this work, when I worked in Africa, in the Congo, with the United Nations, at times I was having to kind of investigate and document attacks, events, the use of... genocide practices? I guess I'm translating from French... Basically, the practices of not only killing not only the men, or the adults in a given battle or massacre, but then killing their children, and even so much as cutting out fetuses, or killing children in gruesome ways while the parents watched. These kinds of really horrifying things—things that we learn about whether we like it or not, by watching TV and watching movies, etc. But, having somebody who personally lived here, and personally witnessed his family being killed, and who tells you that in a very intimate kind of almost emotional setting, and who in many cases, may well break out crying or shouting or something like that in front of you, the person who is trying to somehow investigate, or help, or maybe he came to you before this happened and you weren't able to prevent it.
These are not things that one can deal with alone, I think, or at least not easily. And so, having friends at home, even if they have no real idea of the kind of the day-to-day reality you're living, but who you can still reach out to—even if it's completely confidential stuff—just reach out about the impact it made on you, about the fact that it is a horrible thing that you were exposed to, that this person lost everything and how it affected you.

For me, I was able to reach out to my friends and receive a huge amount of support, even though I was in that kind of reality and situation alone. I did not know anybody—or was not close to anybody—who shared that kind of experience with me. So that's a big thing.

It’s a fine line. I did I have, and continue to see, colleagues who I think have crossed the line and to kind of de-sensitivity towards this kind of thing— people who have seen it too often, and their way of dealing with it has become to just stop caring. And, I think the ICRC is right to really investigate your motivation about helping people and caring. I think for those who have stopped caring, there's no more reason to work in this field of work, and they shouldn't, and I don't think it's healthy. But, on the other hand, there are those who are unable to create or take the emotional distance necessary to become a professional—as you would hope your doctor is professional—towards this kind of case. And so, it's a fine line— taking the distance necessary, while not becoming completely uncaring.

Can you talk to us about getting your foot in the door in this sector?

The humanitarian field in general—whether it's the legal documentation of violations, economic, security assistance, or medical—no matter what side of humanitarian work, it is notoriously difficult to get your foot in the door, and with good reason.

Anybody who has gone to the point of having of pursuing and completing graduate studies, or even just being in the process of completing graduate studies, when once you get there, I would definitely recommend signing up for what I did, which is UNV—United Nations Volunteers. It's one of the best chances you have of getting an interesting position, and kind of a little bit of a jumpstart, but it's not guaranteed.

The parody of the field is that every starting-level, junior position requires at least two to three years of relevant experience—with the ICRC being basically the only exception. Relevant experience will be interpreted as something that puts you in the middle of nowhere, where you really have to kind of tough it out and prove yourself in the field. But, without being able to get a job in the field in the first place, it seems to be a bit of a contradiction.

I think you can be strategic and follow what I did in terms of when doing a lot of extracurricular in school and trying to give yourself a profile that shows motivation—because that is key, no matter what organization it is. And then, throwing yourself out there. There are things like UNV, and there are UN internships; they don't pay, but if you have the financial comfort to be able to do it, it can get your foot in the field, which will get your foot in the door. And, there are internships with other organizations.

The ICRC doesn't do internships—it is more of a safety thing. ICRC is very field-oriented, and in war situations, it doesn't have many opportunities that are kind of safe for younger, less-trained staff. The ICRC in recruiting, trains extensively.

Many organizations and NGOs do internships. Some people have spoken about having good experiences from just showing up somewhere. Again, this requires one to have their own money, which coming out of school, I know it's not always realistic. But, showing up somewhere where the cost of living isn't too high anyway, and making friends and expressing interest and eventually getting involved—probably as a volunteer, if you're very lucky, as a low-paid position. This is good foot-in-the-door stuff. But, if you want to get a real position afterwards, with whatever experience or education you think makes you qualified, positions with any responsibility aren't recruited locally. They're recruited through centralized—usually headquarters or whatever it is.

I'd say, those are the two best: internship programs, and programs in UNV. Otherwise, as I said, motivation and general knowledge of the field definitely do help. So, if you're able to get involved locally with NGOs, with a nonprofit or Red Cross, for example. Red Cross, recruit volunteers all the time, it's not particularly difficult with the right kind of availability and ambition or motivation to become a Red Cross volunteer, responding to disasters or doing first aid in events or whatever it may be. And, that kind of gesture or involvement has a lot of impact, I think. It is very significant in drawing the attention of NGOs particularly, or members of the Red Cross. The Red Cross is a movement, with Red Cross societies around the world. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is kind of the grandfather, specializes in war and the International Federation of the Red Cross, which supports National Red Cross societies that exist in every country, Red Cross or Red Crescent. Getting your foot into one as a volunteer in your home can then, by extension, get your foot into all the rest or at least some of the rest—and even if it doesn't, that kind of involvement is definitely a good first step. And, yeah, and then finding people like me and talking to them.

You have an LLM, and legal background. Do you think it helped you? Are there certain subjects that will serve someone better in this field?

Education-wise, it's true that I have a law background, in that I have a master's in law. But, I am not a lawyer: I could not practice domestic law. I don't have the necessary knowledge. I didn't do a law degree or a bar. At first, when I was doing it, I thought that might handicap me—having done a master's in law, but without reading all the practice law, this could put me kind of in between worlds, maybe. As it turned out, it worked out well.

But, during my time with the ICRC, I have worked alongside or under people who directly before their involvement in the ICRC were working delivering parcels with FedEx or DHL, or were accountants, or working for petrol companies, or were coming out of civil society or activist movements, or government jobs in their home countries. It's really quite diverse.

Do I think of graduate studies as being necessary? Yes, at least for the work that I do, involvement in the ICRC period, or work in the United Nations in any substantive and rewarding way. And, for that matter, I think it is necessary even with the more respected and known NGOs, such as Doctors Without Borders, or Norwegian Refugee Council—having a master's degree is a minimum. Unless you have perhaps a decade or two of very relevant experience, the door will be closed to the majority of really interesting positions in the humanitarian sphere, at least internationally. So, a master's degree is a start.

Having a couple of languages, whether you were born with them or whether like me you just decided to somehow learn them through an exchange, through doing your studies abroad, through taking time off and travelling and making a point of learning while travelling, is helpful. I know somebody who's just been recruited by the ICRC, who never really lived in immersion, but who was able to be hired based on the fact that they speak French and learned French through self-study and, I kid you not, Skype sessions—going online and finding people all over the world and chatting people with people on Skype, two hours a day, religiously. So, it's not easy. But there are ways, and languages are definitely a must-have.

What kind of degree should you get? It does make a difference, but it is not the be-all and end-all. My law degree helped draw attention—and I think kind of orient me, without me necessarily doing that—into the human rights and international humanitarian law sphere that I now I'm in, and that I really enjoy. That being said, the job I do does not require one to be a legal expert. There is training involved in becoming able to do this job, and the ICRC gives that training—and, like the examples I gave of people working for DHL or for petrol companies—they are examples of people who are now doing the same work that I do. The only thing is that if you do study commerce, business, economics, philosophy, or whatever it may be, you will have to show why you decided and are truly, sincerely motivated to go into the humanitarian sphere. If you're going more into the health side, more into the law side, or more into the assistance side, you can definitely link your studies to it. But if not, I mean, if you have a real motivation and something about your life choices and paths led you through a master's that is not necessarily related, and then to the decision that you want to work in this sphere, in the humanitarian sphere, I think just communicating that in written form through your letters, very clearly and very sincerely, will get you there.

Are there any common mistakes you see people make when trying to get into this sector?

Basically, in every stage I've been in—while I was interning in the Department of Justice, when studying, when I was in my first job in the Congo, and even prior to that, during my studies—many people will decide that chances of success in something are very slim. The risk is too great. And, well, that's an evaluation for every person to make.

I think I never would have achieved half of what I have achieved if I hadn't taken a chance or thrown myself into a situation that was, according to some around me, unrealistic. Going to study in French without really a proper foundation in the language is one example. Going into law school without a law degree. Even applying to the ICRC, I was kind of warned off—like, "Nothing to lose in applying, right, but the ICRC, they're really not hiring that much. It's a really difficult process, and they really look for people who speak like five languages and have 10 years of field experience."

And these are people, I think, who have told themselves the same story. Maybe I'm objectifying them a bit, but I think there's a lesson there. Really, work to get into a sphere even if it is difficult to get into, and grow in that sphere in a way that you feel good about—so that you're not stuck somewhere that you don't want to be, or stuck in a position feeling that you can't progress, or can't evolve. The only way that can be avoided is by taking the risks that sometimes could feel that they might have bad consequences, or that it's really not realistic that you succeed in them. But, you'll never know if you don't try.
So, for me, that's been a big thing because I've seen it around me. I've done the improbable and it's worked out really well. So, it’s part luck, but part attitude.

Can you talk to us about networking and how it applies to this sector?

The good news and bad news is that networking—while it is omnipresent in every sector—in the humanitarian sector, it is less important, I think, than in most private sectors. That's because in the past couple of decades, and particularly the past decade, the UN, the ICRC, Doctors Without Borders—many of the big players, and I think even the smaller ones—have put a lot of effort and reform into streamlining and centralizing their recruitment processes. I personally haven't met anybody in the ICRC who got in through contacts or through a buddy.

But what people will get through contacts, and through a buddy, is they'll get put onto the right track with the right advice. That is where networking will really help you, at least in my experience in this sphere of work, as opposed to blindly kind of throwing yourself at a process such as the ICRC's recruitment process, which is long and rigorous, and really has very specific things that they look for. Being able to have somebody, to find somebody—a friend of a friend or whatever—who is familiar with the organization, familiar with the process, and who can really walk you through it, almost like I did in this video, but even in greater detail, and say, "This is what they're looking for. This is what really is going to be asked of you, what you can expect. And, and I think it's it's easy to underestimate how much that really increases the chances of somebody going through that process.

So, I think networking is basically a fancy word for kind of saying: talk to people, meet people, and talk to people who work in an interesting field, in a similar field. It doesn't necessarily mean trying to get a favour kind of under the table... "Here's my CV, pass it to the right guy," etc. I know that can happen. I think it's very rare. If you want to work for the ICRC, don't expect it—and if you really try too hard to get it, it'll probably work against you. The attitude that I recommend going to a recruitment process in the first place. and I think the attitude that I would recommend going about networking, is one of sincerity of openness, and just a sincere, open desire and interest in the work and in how people got into the work, and what they recommend. And then, just take whatever you get.

Any last tips?

A random tip that I think is not necessary—not a prerequisite for this kind of work, but which definitely helped me a lot—is just learning to write really well. Write clearly and concisely, and communicate your ideas in a very structured, legible, and comprehensible way.

The number of times I've been commended on my writing—where it has not been necessarily outstanding writing, but just writing that is clear, without too many mistakes and structured in a logical way—I can't count them. And, I know that has got me as far as anything else I have to offer, in terms of education and languages, and qualifications that are on paper. Just the fact that what I put on paper is written in a certain way goes a huge, huge distance. And, it affects not only your recruitment but also gaining recognition and acclaim for your work, once you've got past the recruitment phase. Whatever your native language is, it doesn't matter—learn to write really well in that language, and to express yourself in a very clear and concise way.