A Retiring Aid Worker Reflects On How To Repair The World — Without Wearing A Halo
Joel Charny, who worked in humanitarian aid for 40 years, speaks candidly about how humanitarianism has changed — and why people shouldn't treat aid workers as if they wear haloes.
Joel Charny has been a humanitarian aid worker for 40 years — but one of the first valuable lessons he learned about the job was as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1970s.
At 21, he was assigned to work as a sixth grade English teacher in a remote part of the Central African Republic. The students didn't have textbooks. Some kids had to walk 5 miles to school and back. And many did their homework under a streetlamp because there was no electricity at home.
"The devotion those kids had to learning was absolutely phenomenal. You don't leave that and say, 'I'm so great, look at all the amazing things I did.' You come away with empathy and respect for people."
That empathy and respect for others, says Charny, has stayed with him throughout
