4 Humanitarians Who Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity
Meet four courageous First Responders who represent our many staff members saving lives and building self-reliance every day in some of the world’s most difficult environments.
From war in the Central African Republic to the drought in Ethiopia, International Medical Corps’ First Responders brave war, natural disaster, and disease to bring medical care and other services to people in need.
Ethiopia: Daniel Hadgu Takea
Daniel joined International Medical Corps in 2003 when the organization was just entering his home country of Ethiopia to respond to a drought that wiped out families’ crops and left children at-risk of malnutrition.
What was meant to be a six-month position as a field site manager led to 13 years with International Medical Corps responding to humanitarian crises, including the catastrophic floods that hit Pakistan in 2010, the Horn of Africa food crisis in 2011, and the 2012 drought in northern Nigeria.
Today, he travels the world as a community nutrition and behavior change specialist as part of the TECH-Rapid Response Team, which aims to improve responses to nutrition crises across the world. He is currently in Mozambique, which is facing severe drought in parts of the country due to the strongest El Niño in 30 years.
For Daniel, being a humanitarian means saving lives, which he credits to keeping him going over the past decade. “As a First Responder, when I see people’s lives and hope being saved, particularly children, I feel incredibly proud.”
Nigeria: Sarah Oteri
Sarah Oteri manages International Medical Corps’ nutrition programs in Nigeria. Much of her work focuses on reaching communities that were heavily impacted by the war with Boko Haram, including those who had to flee their homes to escape attacks.
“Sometimes they target markets, leaving people too afraid to carry out their normal activities,” she said. “Many households have not been able to go back to their farms because of insecurity, reducing food production in the state. This leaves children extremely vulnerable to malnutrition.”
Sarah manages hundreds of community volunteers who go door-to-door, screening children for malnutrition and then providing treatment and referrals as needed. Most of the volunteers were displaced by Boko Haram themselves and were recruited and trained by Sarah so that the skills to prevent, identify, and treat malnutrition are embedded within the community.
Already in Borno State, the area hardest hit by Boko Haram, the team has admitted nearly 700 malnutrition children for treatment. Meanwhile in the northwest in Sokoto, the community health volunteers have treated more than 6,000 malnourished children.
“When I see a severely malnourished child and give him or her Plumpy’ Nut, I can start seeing their health change quickly,” Sarah said. “This makes me feel so happy. That is why we are here.”
Central African Republic: Patrick Bonazoui
A nurse by training, Patrick works in some of the most dangerous, hard-to reach areas of the Central African Republic. A father of two daughters and one son, Patrick is often separated from his family for long periods of time, a tremendous sacrifice he makes to provide health care to communities that otherwise would be left without.
“I see myself as a servant,” said Patrick. “I am a servant of the poor.”
He remembers one day in 2012 when he was at the landing strip to take a plane home to see his family. Just an hour before his plane was scheduled to come, he received a call that a woman needed an emergency c-section. The only medical staff qualified to perform the procedure, Patrick rushed to the operating room, where he performed the surgery and delivered a healthy baby. He then got on a motorcycle and made his plane within minutes of it leaving.
“This is the day that I saved lives and got to go to Bangui to see my family,” he said.
He credits his mother for teaching him to never give up, even in the face of great challenges. “I am an orphan by birth,” said Patrick. “She has done everything for me so I could become what I am today.”
Cameroon: Yolande Longang
Yolande began working with International Medical Corps in 2014 as a social worker in camps housing Central Africans who fled civil war to Cameroon. She quickly found how conflict and displacement could leave women and girls vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation.
“Most of them have arrived without anything,” she said. “Some used to be traders. Now they are dependent on men. Some are forced to sell themselves or be married at a very young age.”
Her passion for working with women and girls led Yolande to serve today as International Medical Corps’ gender-based violence (GBV) program manager. She spends her days investigating and following up on cases, while also working to slowly change cultural attitudes around rape, assault, and early marriage. She is also establishing livelihood activities to give women another way to earn money and leave commercial sex work.
“When we first started working in the camps, some people said that International Medical Corps came to ‘take away their wives,’” Yolande said. “Now they see us as educators and seek us out. I can see the attitudes changing.”
Learn more about International Medical Corps’ exceptional humanitarians
