So there's an American woman who came to visit today from an NGO. Working with an NGO you would expect them to be extremely sensitive to the cases that we're working with here. Instead she asked things like "when you were trained by the LRA, did you ever fight in a battle?" Here that question would be comparable to asking a soldier you don't know if he killed people during the war. Or maybe even worse because the people the child soldiers were forced to kill here were from their own communities. That's not a question for the general public to know.
I was embarrassed after that one but it got worse when she requested to have one more testimony "from the one girl with HIV/AIDS" She asked plenty loud enough for everyone, including the only girl here who has AIDS to hear clearly. Everybody looked at her at which point she had to leave the room because she was crying from being labeled as "that one girl with AIDS." It took her 5 weeks to tell me her story, she wasn't about to do it for completely strangers.
If you're ever in a situation like this, in the States or elsewhere, talk with people beforehand and find out what's appropriate in the culture before humiliating whoever you are talking with.
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That behavior simply shows a fundamental lack of common sense. Unfortunate that you had to experience that.
ReplyDeleteKevin
Sounds like she missed the class in tactful interviewing, certainly a basic in all social work.
ReplyDeleteHey Megan,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog post this morning, and wanted to apologize for the embarrassing interaction you had with the "American woman". I'm on staff with FH in the Phoenix office (used to work with GoED. actually!), and it is frustrating to hear that the women of the NLC were shamed or upset by this person. As you even said, it definitely would have been helpful to run questions by someone like yourself first. What else, from your perspective, could we do to better prepare staff for scenarios like this? There are, of course, no excuses for the upsetting nature of the interviewing that took place, and, I think, your perspective would help us learn and grow.
I hope your time there is winding down smoothly! Do you head home next week?
Peace,
Mark
mark.kaech@fh.org