It is not weak to feel guilty approximately leaving local people to struggle on when we as aid workers can just walk absent. The first step to healing is admitting the pain‘I was afraid they would consider I couldn’t handle it’It takes courage to share the other side of aid work: the pain,the burnout, the tears. The feeling that you cannot cope any more, and the sense of failure because you consider everyone else is doing fine in the same circumstances.
This is the start of my sharing journey”. My current job will be my final position in the international development/humanitarian sector. I am sad it has come to this but after 15 years of aid work,including placements in Afghanistan, the Americas (in volatile countries), and the Middle East and Sudan,I feel that I may not recover from experiencing another security incident. Staying on would be a risk that I cannot take: for my sake, for the sake of my employers, and for the sake of my family and friends.
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Source: theguardian.com