Today is World Humanitarian Day, and we celebrate the lifesaving work of humanitarians around the world who dedicate their lives to saving others.
Our work at the Connecting Business initiative (CBi) resonates with this year’s campaign, which shines a light on the role of local communities coming together during an emergency. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a whole community to help people in need.
In an emergency, the first people to respond are always crisis-affected communities themselves. Local businesses are part and parcel of these communities and therefore among the first to be affected as well as the first to respond, alongside local volunteers, emergency services, NGOs, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and many others.
At CBi, a joint initiative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), we work with local private sector networks to mobilize businesses before, during and after emergencies.
This is ever more important at a time when the world is grappling with mega crises and complex emergencies which have caused the number of people who need humanitarian assistance to reach a record 303 million in 2022.
On World Humanitarian Day, we celebrate the diversity of the humanitarian community and the contribution that business can offer to humanitarian action in the face of crises. We talked with private sector volunteers from Fiji to Guatemala who shared with us their life stories and what it means for them to be humanitarians.
Learn about their lifesaving work and share their stories with your friends and colleagues.
Building climate resilience in Fiji
Ever since Patricia was a little child, she wanted to be Captain Planet. Little did she know that her country, Fiji, was on the frontline of the climate crisis, affected by more frequent and severe disasters.
“Every time a cyclone happened in our neighborhood, my parents would open their doors to families who had lost water or power in their house”, she recalls. “I’d see people coming together and sharing food. This taught me the value of helping others without expecting anything in return.”
As the Vice-Chair of the Fiji Business Disaster Resilience Council (FBDRC), a CBi Member Network, Patricia Mallam works in close collaboration with the Fijian Government, humanitarian partners and local businesses to improve disaster resilience in her country. “My priority is to put back the “human” in humanitarian action.”
Read Patricia’s story here.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with people in need in Peru
Hombro a Hombro is CBi’s newest Member Network in Peru. In Spanish, it means “Shoulder to Shoulder”.
“My work with Hombro a Hombro has allowed me to feel like I am really standing shoulder to shoulder with people in need, hand in hand with the message that they are not alone in their moments of greatest vulnerability”, said Jaime Chavez, the Head of Operations for Hombro a Hombro.
A retired pilot, Jaime thrives in helping communities around him: “I’ve dedicated my life to the service of others. I think everyone has it in them to help others, one way or the other. I’ve been fortunate to do so by providing support to people in some of the most difficult moments of their lives, and to be able to alleviate their suffering somewhat. That’s incredibly powerful.”
During the pandemic, Hombro a Hombro was part of efforts to bring the first one million vaccines to Peru, accelerating the national vaccination programme by at least two months.
Read Jaime’s story here.
Volunteering to deliver during disasters
Cesar and Ade both work for the global logistics company Deutsche Post DHL Group. Cesar Caceres is a pilot in Guatemala, while Ade Lestari Tobing is a logistics expert in Indonesia. Both are volunteers with the DHL GoHelp Programme, bringing DHL expertise in airport logistics to support humanitarian operations.
“Whatever I do, I do it to bring positive change around me. I believe that if you do something good to someone, that person will continue that act of goodwill, and that will create a better world for us and our children”, says Ade.
Read Cesar and Ade’s story here.
The experiences of Ade, Patricia, Cesar, Jaime, and hundreds of volunteers like them from CBi Member Networks and businesses across the world inspire us, today and every day. The world may feel fractured right now, but the dedication of humanitarian workers shows us that solidarity is still alive and strong. #ItTakesAVillage!
World Humanitarian Day is a campaign by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and humanitarian partners. It commemorates the attack against the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq on 19 August 2003 which killed 22 humanitarian aid workers, including the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. Each year, World Humanitarian Day celebrates humanitarian work and advocates for the well-being and dignity of people affected by crises as well as the safety and security of aid workers.
At the Connecting Business initiative, we work in some of the world’s most disaster-prone countries to improve community resilience to disasters and climate change. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can sign up for our mailing list here or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook.