at work in the last days i have been in and out of many, many, many meetings and my mind is being stretched quite a bit. i just got out of my last meeting for the day, and i'm allowing myself 15 minutes to vent my mind so it will be clearer to tackle the afternoon's work at my desk. you see the further i get into it, the more i am realizing that my job at unicef is actually quite hard.
it's hard to be in meetings and walk the halls and be surrounded by people who are all so well-read in poverty reduction literature and best practices, who are exceptionally well-traveled, who themselves come from nearly every country on earth [awesome multinationalism - for real. based on staff, this is not a "western" organization], and still wonder how all these intelligent people i'm in intelligent conversations and meetings with are actually improving the lives of the world's children.
it's hard to realize that somedays, me and everyone else can only think about our personal lives and issues and simply count the hours until we're out of the office where we simply couldn't concentrate on work, for all too human and natural reasons of course.
it's hard to walk to the elevators and through the lobby past huge pictures of adorable children from around the world and think of how you're paid to concentrate on them all day, paid to make their lives better, but wonder what you have just spent the last 10 hours doing.
it's hard to stream out of this massive building with hundreds of employees and realize that we are all supposed to be making the lives of the world's children better, it is literally our job, but poverty, abuse, and war persist to a pernicious degree.
it's hard to read reports, attend meeting and realize that poverty and abuse and war have multifarious actors and are so complex and overwhelming that i cannot wrap my head around how best to move forward against them aside from simply continuing as a cog in this "development/child rights/humanitarian" wheel.
the bottom line is everyone here is incredibly intelligent... i have a great deal of respect for my colleagues - they are from all around the world, it is not one nationality "saving" the world's children - it really is the world working together.... but still. what is being done? what do we do everyday? what are these conversations good for? we - and i do include all people around the world at local levels too, in country offices, civil society groups etc, all who are enlisted in the fight for child protection - we all are simply too human and weak to not fail again and again - even though so much is at stake. not to say all is up to me, or up to us. but still. if we don't take some responsibility, what are we even working for?
...................but. then i remember ana paula. the woman who ran that amazing childrne's home in mozambique i worked with 5 years ago. unicef supplies her with a car to get around: to visit villages and give children homes and help build communities. there we go. there is a direct thing that unicef has done that i have seen with my own eyes. i just wish it was all more apparent, that change happened more quickly, that the disconnect wasn't so strong, and that i didn't so often feel that working on a global level is utterly pointless.
*i put this picture on this post because yes there are photos of audrey hepburn - and even a dedicatory statue to her in the courtyard! - all over the unicef house. i get verklempt everytime i walk past :)
everyone (and i do mean EVERYONE) must see this film. i tell you, there is no movie/documentary about rwanda (or maybe even africa in general, or war), that compares to this film. it was beyond belief. i really cannot explain how much i feel or felt after seeing it except by sighing and weeping. see it.
everyone (and again, i do include everyone here) must read this book. yes it is in german. yes there is an english translation. yes it is out of print. but yes, that is what amazon is for.
aah! ever since i saw this on matthew's blog this morning and subsequently made it my desktop background i CANNOT stop staring at it. oh my goodness. SO CUTE. it makes me (AND my coworkers who keep commenting on the cuteness as well) ridiculously happy. since i have my coworkers' testimonials of the cuteness of the 3rd generation of our family, i can hereby claim that we are not just influenced by familial bias. all 14 of the p fam's grandkid generation (who are all represented on my cubicle/desktop walls) are just really stinkin' cute.
at work in the last days i have been in and out of many, many, many meetings and my mind is being stretched quite a bit. i just got out of my last meeting for the day, and i'm allowing myself 15 minutes to vent my mind so it will be clearer to tackle the afternoon's work at my desk. you see the further i get into it, the more i am realizing that my job at unicef is actually quite hard.
