Ireland’s Rapid Response Unit
Andy Needham, from Dublin has been working with UNHCR since March 2008 as a member of Irish Aid’s Rapid Response Corps.
The Rapid Response Corps is a register of highly-skilled individuals, from the public and private sectors, including from the Defence Forces, for deployment at short notice to assist in an emergency relief effort. Many individuals from the Rapid Response Corps have worked with and supported UNHCR global operations.
"At the end of a long week, I commented to a protection colleague that we had done a ‘good week’s work’. ‘Yes we have,’ she replied, ‘but it’s never enough. It’s never enough.'"
“I was deployed to UNHCR Kenya as a reporting officer covering the violence that swept the country in early 2008 after the contested elections in December 2007. Almost 1,500 people were killed in the violence and nearly 500,000 people were displaced, seeking refuge in makeshift camps across Central and Western Kenya. My job was office based but I visited the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps which sprang up all across central and western Kenya as people fled their homes in search of safety. UNHCR was the lead agency for protection, shelter and camp management and I reported on these activities and those of our partners on the ground. I also organised media trips, bringing local and international journalists to visit the camps and talk to the displaced. Media interest peaked again around the first anniversary of the election, December 27th 2008, and I spent St Stephen’s Day and New Year’s Eve that year bringing international media around IDP camps in the Rift Valley. Not a Christmas to be forgotten easily.
Facilitating international media coverage of Dadaab and the wider Somali situation as well as advocating for greater donor support was hugely rewarding.
After a year working with IDPs, I transferred to Dadaab refugee camp in North-eastern Kenya, as UNHCR’s External Relations Officer. Dadaab is the world’s largest refugee camp and home to almost 350,000 refugees. The majority are from Somalia, having fled the conflict raging in their country since 1991. Everyone seemed to want to visit Dadaab: UN colleagues, donors, media, researchers, celebrities. Among other things, it was my job to bring them around the camps when they came. These ‘missions’ as they were known could be for one or three days, sometimes longer. Facilitating international media coverage of Dadaab and the wider Somali situation as well as advocating for greater donor support was hugely rewarding. When the Somalia piracy issue was all over the news in 2009, I brought a London Independent journalist around the camps and his article on ‘Somalia’s forgotten crisis’, i.e. Dadaab, ran on the entire front page and three more inside. That was a good day.
After over a year in Dadaab, I moved to UNHCR Somalia, where I’m Executive Assistant to the Representative and Public Information Officer. In July 2010, hundreds of IDPs were being deported by the authorities on security grounds. Many long days and nights were spent dealing with the situation and at the end of a long week, I commented to a protection colleague that we had done a ‘good week’s work’. ‘Yes we have,’ she replied, ‘but it’s never enough. It’s never enough.
