Issue 4 | Recovery and Closure
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Cover Image: One Step at a Time
Two people walk through fog, uncertain where the path will lead. Some steps ahead are clear, others fade into uncertainty. Each may perceive different shades of colour. Their walking sticks suggest support is needed. Birds appear briefly, offering guidance before flying away. To me, this is what recovery and the search for closure looks like: moving one step at a time, until the fog begins to lift.
Concept by Steve Dennis
September 2025
Editorial | Fourth issue of the Phoenix
They say time heals.
I know it erases nothing.
Since 2001, the field still breathes within me: its scents, its sounds, its ghosts.
And what of Recovery and Closure?
Not endings, not promises.
Rather chimeras to be tamed, burdens to be learned and borne.
This issue offers no recipe.
It opens a space for truth-telling:
for those who rebuild, and for those who keep walking with their shadows.
Sébastien Couturier
Recovery, and yearnings for conclusion from our pains, burnouts, injuries, trauma and general life experiences are basic to our life as an humanitarian aidworkers. We are all on this path, in one way or another. I approach it as a philosopher, others as artists, activists, social workers or any other activity by which we are trying to make a change – for ourselves and others.
Being part of a community includes a give and take. Not just by means of skills and time, but also money. Hence we have decided to include calls for funding of projects in this issue. Money doesn’t flow as freely to the humanitarian sector anymore, and it has never been abundant when it comes to psychosocial support for aidworkers. If you find projects that support wellbeing, recovery and closure, please reach out and donate what you can!
For many, the path of recovery is a solitary and lonely journey, but it shouldn’t be. Closures, and milestones toward it, should be celebrated within a circle of community who walks with you.
Christoph Hensch
Glossary
Disbelief
A mental fog that often follows trauma, where the mind struggles to understand what has happened. Disbelief can delay healing, as the body and emotions react to events the brain has not yet fully processed. It is a natural survival response, and one that must give way to belief in order to move forward.
Disorientation
A state of emotional and cognitive confusion that can follow a traumatic event. It often feels like being disconnected from time, place, and purpose. For many recovering aid workers, disorientation is not just physical, but existential; a sense of being lost in career and relationships.
Recovery
More than just physical healing, recovery is the active process of rebuilding a life, identity, and sense of meaning after trauma. It’s a personal project requiring support, intention, and pacing. Through experiencing setbacks as well as breakthroughs, one learns more about themselves.
Closure
Not an endpoint, but a direction. Closure involves coming to terms with what happened, finding meaning, and integrating the experience into one’s life. It can include accountability, validation, or simply the acceptance that some questions will remain unanswered, and moving forward anyway.
Wellbeing
The holistic state of physical, mental, social and emotional health and resilience of an individual or community affected by a crisis, with a focus on promoting dignity, safety and access to essential services and support.
(The definitions were provided by Proper Support. The term ‘wellbeing’ has been sourced from the GISF Glossary)
“The way to recover the meaning of life and the worthwhileness of life is to recover the power of experience, to have impulse voices from within, and to be able to hear these impulse voices from within — and make the point: This can be done.”
Abraham H. Maslow (1908-1970), American psychologist
Till I Am Myself Again
By Steve Dennis
To My Dearest Aid Worker Peers,
For the fourth time since the attack, I found myself again disoriented in disbelief, my psychologist just mentioned symptoms of depression. I couldn’t believe it, as I tried to explain it away, despite his trusted explanation.
My relationship with disbelief started abruptly a year and a half earlier. Thirty minutes before I was attacked and shot, I was sipping tea and laughing at a colleague’s joke, unaware that my life would soon change and a colleague would be dead within the hour. Suddenly, I was in a vehicle with three colleagues and others, racing eastward towards the Somali border, lost to what just happened. It was only when a colleague used the word “kidnapping” that I could finally begin to understand what was going on in the chaos around me.
Things then started to fall into understandable silos. They were kidnappers. I was kidnapped. My wallet doesn’t matter. Survival is the only thing.
A few days later, I was pulled from one disorienting reality into another. The sky lit up with gunfire; we were being rescued. Hours later, in a military helicopter heading home, with cheeks sore from smiling, the fog of disbelief crept in again to make me question, “is this real? Are we going home?”
As people briefed me and made requests, I began to accept my new reality and slowly adapt. My most important project became recovery and closure. A top trauma psychologist joined my team, encouraging me to find others, from specialists for my leg to others to help with insurance.
When my psychologist diagnosed me with PTSD, I rejected it. That’s for soldiers; I’m an aid worker. But I’d been shot, seen others shot, held captive and rescued in another fatal gunfight. Disbelief delayed my recovery until I came to terms with what happened.
In the months that followed, I had several setbacks in terms of understanding the circumstances of the incident and the absence of an unbiased review. Also, I was increasingly lost in the insurance processes. Doors were closing more to my questions, and then my psychologist diagnosed me with depression, despite me trying to hold on to the idea I was a very happy person to my core. This time was different though.
“Things come from things.” My psychologist would help me understand. “You don’t have to understand what caused it in the moment, but you should take comfort in knowing that later we can figure it out.”
Over time, I started getting ahead of the disorientation of disbelief when setbacks hit me. I was quicker able to orient myself to my project of recovery and closure.
I learned:
- Recovery is the most important project now.
- Get help.
- Get the fullest evaluation of your injuries by the right professionals; medical and psychological.
- Document things.
The disagreement with my former organization ended up in court and the verdict helped validate the losses I was experiencing to my career and brought transparency to the errors that were made. I am fortunate to have had that validation as part of my closure, and I see that not everybody can get there.
When asked if I’ve fully recovered or found closure, I can say yes to many things, but I don’t expect it will ever be complete. My world has a new patina to it, and new gratefulness of life too.
In an unexpected pivot, I now run a non-profit called Proper Support, striving to be the support person I once needed; someone who helps other aid workers navigate the disbelief and fog of trauma. A guiding principle of our work: beyond all the psychosocial, medical, and legal advice we summon, a focus must be on helping people take meaningful steps towards their recovery and vision of closure.
About the author:
After my own recovery journey, I founded Proper Support to walk alongside injured aid workers through their hardest chapters. We help individuals build recovery teams, navigate systems, and take meaningful steps toward healing and closure. We also bring lessons forward; shaping tools, trainings, and advocacy for better duty of care across the sector.
If this resonates and you want to hear more or support the work, visit the site, become a monthly donor, or join our expert network. If you’d like a conversation, you can contact us through the site too.
Best, Steve Dennis, Founder
www.propersupport.ca
Closer to Fine
By Sarah Giles
Emotional stability, sleep, confidence, stress tolerance, future earnings, and the ability to enjoy every day activities were all aspects of my life that were changed by PTSD. While I’m once again a fairly functional human being, I miss the old me. I’m sure others in the humanitarian sector feel similarly.
It took me a long time to believe that I had PTSD. Nothing “bad enough” had happened to me.I’m a Canadian doctor who worked in humanitarian settings on and off for six years. I was never kidnapped or shot. I heard terrible stories and saw horrific illnesses and injuries, but other than some tropical illnesses and sexual harassment, I was unscathed. Until I wasn’t.
The tipping point was an overseas assignment where I witnessed a series of incidents I felt I should have been able to prevent. I resigned from the project but left feeling culpable. From Canada, I advocated for change within the organization but, despite 18 months of obsessive effort, I had little to show for my work. Feeling completely ineffective, I could not bear continuing to live with myself. I was consumed with loathing for both myself and for a system that allowed patients to be harmed without consequences.
When I could not see a path forward, the most remarkable thing happened: I found a wonderful guide named Steve.
Steve Dennis is a name familiar to many humanitarians. After years of seeking accountability for a security incident during which he was shot and kidnapped, Steve won a landmark court case establishing that humanitarian organizations owe their employees a duty of care. Having recovered from his ordeal, Steve wanted to help others and now runs Proper Support Trust, a non-profit dedicated to helping aid workers and their families recover from complex injury and grievance, while assisting organizations to strengthen their duty of care.
Many who have PTSD feel alone. I had the good fortune of having the organization I had worked with agree to hire Steve to support me. They recognized his potential to defuse the situation and to bring us closer to our respective goals. Steve inserted himself as a buffer between the organization and me, which allowed for calmer, clearer communication in both directions. He urged me to focus on concrete goals that would allow better protection for patients while he pushed the organization to recognize their need to strengthen processes and prevent similar incidents in the future. After 16 months, the organization and I came to an understanding where we could all walk away feeling somewhat satisfied.
“There’s more than one answer to these questions
Indigo Girls
Pointing me in a crooked line.
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
Closer I am to fine.”
My concerns focused on patients, but Steve also gently pushed me to recognize how the incidents had affected my life. I worked with mental health professionals to deal with PTSD and depression arising from both my personal and professional life. With help from these sources of support, despite being in the midst of a pandemic, I was able to return to fulltime work as an emergency medicine physician. Helping people, after feeling I had badly failed patients in the past, was healing.
To me, closure and recovery mean that my hypervigilance is dampened, that I rarely cry mid-conversation, and that I no longer want to completely destroy the organization I once deeply believed in. They mean understanding the imperfect offering that is humanitarian aid while continuing to believe that we must not turn a blind eye to injustice and cruelty. They mean tryingto forgive myself for being unable to prevent harm from coming to a group of children. Finally, they mean making sure that those who come after me have proper support and do not feel alone.
For those who are struggling, I urge you to reach out and find those who have been through the experience of PTSD. Consider hiring or collaborating with a guide who can help you see through the fog and move you closer to your goals. You are not weak or too sensitive. You are human. There is a path forward to a better life and sense of wellbeing. Like a phoenix, you too can rise from the ashes of trauma.
About the author:
Sarah Giles is a Canadian rural emergency room physician who did five assignments in conflict and post-conflict zones in the Global South.
The Phoenix is for reflections, inspirations and/or any other good things you like to share with colleagues in the sector.
The Alchemy of Recovery
By Christoph Hensch
Recovery and closure are two challenging terms.
For many people who have just experienced trauma, they feel almost meaningless.
At times, I felt numb. At others, it was like being submerged underwater. Sometimes, it was as if my very self had shattered like a glass bowl—its pieces scattered, lost in clouds of fog.
The focal point remains that violent pre-dawn moment. I woke to noises in the building. Half in the dark, someone entered my room, pointed a gun at me, and fired. Somehow, my senses kept functioning, mostly registering the impact of the bullet in my chest and the sounds of carnage elsewhere in the building. Only later that morning did I learn that six of my colleagues had been murdered. And it took me days—through disbelief—to accept that nothing would ever be the same again.
At the time, my guiding thought was: “This is a bad experience, but something positive must come out of it!” Little did I realize it would take a decade before I could see any good in my own life, let alone turn it into something that might help others.
That was almost 30 years ago. Today, on my LinkedIn profile, I describe myself as “Humanitarian, Lived Experience Expert, and Philosopher.” The first I already was, and still am. The second validates what I went through. The third gave me a framework to transition—from simply a humanitarian to someone shaped by experience. I know each person’s journey is unique. What follows is my own story and reflections.
In the beginning, right after the incident, the most recent impressions were overwhelming. They shaped the way I thought about everything else. For me it was simple: there is life, and there is death. Not surprisingly, there was a gap between what I understood and what others understood. I sensed an incongruence, knew I needed something—but I couldn’t put it into words. Looking back, I see I was craving one thing above all: a small community of people who understood.
Quickly, the first trauma of the assault was joined by a second—far more insidious: the continuous lack of connection that might have led me to healing much faster. And so began my long, winding path of recovery.
Recovery
With a philosophical outlook on life, I spent countless hours searching for fragments of meaning and understanding. Today, I can define recovery in a neat sentence. But back then, I only had questions—questions I can now phrase more clearly:
- Recovery from what, to what? Does it mean going back to how it was before—or is it growth and transformation?
- How do I rebuild a sense of self that allows me to rejoin social, community, and economic life?
- To what extent is my capacity impaired? What does it mean to “function” again?
- Can recovery mean moving beyond dualities—turning opposites into integration?
- How can I reclaim my power, self-esteem, confidence, and all the lost pieces of myself?
In essence, recovery is the ongoing work of regaining wholeness and agency after trauma. It means reintegrating lost parts of the self, finding connection, and transforming pain into growth.
For me, milestones along the way mattered. One watershed moment was receiving a medal in recognition of my experience. For the first time, I felt my past was not only a liability, but also an asset—something with meaning and potential.
I often compare recovery to peeling an onion: layer by layer, I discover fresh injuries. Some are less dramatic than the first, but just as painful, still needing attention.
Over time, I also realized one way I sought safety—by clinging to the “victim” archetype. It may feel protective, but it is also a trap.
True recovery requires a balanced assessment: What have I lost? What have I gained? Physically, economically, emotionally, and spiritually. This leads to another, for some people a challenging theme: post-traumatic growth.
Closure
Closure is elusive. Does it mean that one day everything will be fine again? That life will return to “normal”? Is closure even possible—or desirable? Perhaps it is not a final destination, but a process of transformation.
We might think of closure as moving on, closing a circle, no longer being held back by the past. Yet perhaps it never fully arrives.
For some, closure is linked to justice: Who is responsible? Should someone be punished? But would that heal the scar—or deepen it?
Others imagine closure as a perfect resolution, when all problems are solved. But that is rarely reality. Perhaps closure is more like stepping out of one space into the next—freeing the mind to face what lies ahead.
On my journey, I found meaning in the Japanese art of kintsugi—the “golden joinery.” A broken cup is mended, its cracks highlighted with gold. The scars become part of the object’s story. Likewise, our flaws and wounds can be embraced as part of who we are. The bullet that was supposed to kill me has become an artefact, equally respected as the medal and the resulting story.(*)
I no longer feel like I am drowning. I have reclaimed many lost parts of myself. I continue to peel the onion. I discover deeper issues, beyond this specific trauma, and I recover from them too. Cycles within cycles. Closures leading to other closures.
The purpose of it all, I now see, is to walk my path and help others walk their path. To offer the understanding I once longed for. And in this, I find meaning.
(*) My story was published by the International Review of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in issue 901 (2016):https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/irc_97_901-17.pdf
Human family
By Maya Angelou
I note the obvious differences in the human family.
Some of us are serious, some thrive on comedy.
Some declare their lives are lived as true profundity,
and others claim they really live the real reality.
The variety of our skin tones can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple, tan and blue and white.
I’ve sailed upon the seven seas and stopped in every land,
I’ve seen the wonders of the world not yet one common man.
I know ten thousand women called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I’ve not seen any two who really were the same.
We love and lose in China, we weep on England’s moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores.
We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ, in major we’re the same.
I note the obvious differences between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
The Art of Healing
By Sophie Zermatten
02.2016
“Tonight, in the girls’ apartment, we are in a festive mood. We’re all chatting and laughing, feeling carefree, until one of us receives a message: a prisoner has been released, and a gathering is taking place in the centre of Nablus. Curious, we decide to go.
The place is packed, the atmosphere lively though tense. We don’t go unnoticed, in the middle of so many men, and a circle of onlookers quickly forms around us. We pass by several armed members of the security forces, intimidated by their presence.
A few minutes later, the crowd stirs as a line of cars pulls up: the prisoner has arrived. Celebratory gunshots ring out into the air, a common practice here. Swept up in the euphoria, we follow the massive wave of people moving toward them. Without meaning to, we get separated.
From that moment, everything shifts. I can’t pinpoint when the first shot was fired, as if my mind had already switched into automatic mode. Who was shooting at whom, I couldn’t tell. All I know is that one of the bullets seemed to land very close to me, and it was only the first in a burst of gunfire directed at us. Everyone starts running. Fuelled with adrenaline, I sprint as fast as I can until I feel safe enough to slow down and walk.
I catch my breath for a second, the immediate danger seeming to have passed. My heart pounds in my chest, my mind still too foggy to make sense of anything. Around me, people start coughing. The man beside me covers his mouth with a scarf. I understand what’s happening when the tear gas reaches me. My eyes sting, my throat burns.
Slowly, I begin to regain control of my mind and reflect on what just happened. The same thought is on repeat: ‘I will never be the same again.’”
My intuition that night was correct. As a young woman entering my twenties, I dreamed of becoming a humanitarian worker, using my limited time in this world to contribute to making it better. I decided to volunteer in Palestine, not knowing that my life would be completely turned upside down — not only because I got caught in the middle of shooting a few days into my stay. Thankfully, no one was physically hurt, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. My idealistic younger self was not quite prepared to be so brutally confronted with the gut-wrenching realities of living under occupation.
My stay in Nablus was both the most wonderful and devastating experience of my existence. I immediately felt welcome there, though I could never fully come to terms with all of the injustice surrounding me. How could I feel so at home in a place that was so different from everything I’d ever known? Of course, falling in love with someone contributed to that feeling. Numan was my first love, a love that resonated deeply beyond borders, religions and conflicts. He was the embodiment of hope, always choosing to believe in a better future despite remarkably adverse circumstances. He refused to become consumed by hate and chose to build bridges with the other side instead. Being around him made me believe that a brighter world was possible.
As time passed, however, it became increasingly painful to depend on him for my happiness, in a place where reality was much darker than the rose-coloured glasses of our love. I decided to leave, to save what remained of my sanity and optimism, knowing far too well how privileged of a position I was in to even have that choice. What I didn’t know was the much greater heartbreak that awaited me: shortly after my departure, Numan became very sick. Suddenly, this kind and talented young man, with his whole future ahead of him, was given only a few months left to live. I hadn’t even begun to process the news, let alone the unbearable circumstances that prevented him from being treated close to his friends and family, that he was already gone. He passed away without being granted the dignity of a peaceful end of life. Until the end, the occupation robbed him of some of his most fundamental human rights.
When he died, the hope he embodied seemed to vanish with him, replaced by a dark abyss in which I stayed stuck for a long time. But his light kept shining at the end of the tunnel, and I never forgot the promise we had made to each other: to never stop creating, to never give up on our dreams. He was a dancer, and I aspired to be a writer. So I slowly picked up the shattered pieces of myself, and I started writing. I eventually published my first book, knowing it was the best way I could honour his life. I understood that putting words and giving meaning to all of those experiences was the key to my recovery, even though the path to get there would be a rocky one. Beyond grief, I was also confronting years of unspoken pain. As someone who has spent my life feeling deeply ashamed of my mental health struggles, being able to externalise, understand and share those experiences was a game-changer. After years of dissociation, owning my story was a way for me to reclaim what had ‘happened’ to me and turn it into something I created, I chose.
Through this (still ongoing) process of writing, I was able to find a way back to myself. Some may paint, sing, knit or dance, among many other means of creation. Art has been recognised as an effective healing tool, for creative expression can help us grasp complex emotions and make sense of our life experiences. It can also provide us with a sense of accomplishment that can counter the feelings of helplessness and shame commonly associated with trauma. This is only a piece of the puzzle, one that might not be right for everyone. Mine also included lots of therapy, as well as meeting wonderful people whose experiences resonated deeply with me, and who taught me the importance of community.
Today, thanks to a few serendipitous encounters, I have turned to a new art-form: documentary film-making. I am proud to be directing my first feature, a film that explores mental health in the humanitarian sector. This project is not only about raising awareness and encouraging better practices, but also about creating a platform for others to share their stories of finding meaning amid the chaos. Among them are Christoph and Sébastien, the inspiring founders of the Culture of Care Initiative, whose work embodies the idea that healing can only begin once we accept the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Only by owning our stories, and by having the courage to show up in the world with all our cracks and imperfections, can we allow the light to shine through.
Turning this conviction into practice has not always been easy. I have already faced many setbacks — funding a first feature film that so openly addresses taboo and controversial topics is no simple task. Yet I remain driven by a deep conviction that this story must be told. Along the way, I have also found profound joy and healing in the connections I have made, and this is the meaning I want to keep giving to my work and my art.
About the author:
Sophie Zermatten is a writer and documentary filmmaker. She studied International Studies while travelling and documenting her experiences worldwide. This blend of academic and experiential learning shaped her unique perspective on the world. At the age of 25, she published her first travel memoir. Driven by a desire to shed light on meaningful causes, she went on to pursue a Master’s degree in International Journalism, specialising in documentary filmmaking. She now works in communications and uses her storytelling skills to raise awareness among the wider public about pressing issues such as mental health and social inequalities.
You can get in touch with Sophie via her website at: https://www.sophiezermatten.com
The award winning short ‘War At My Front Door’ can be seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zsCHgHCT7
Sophie’s book ‘En route vers d’autres mondes’ can be ordered directly from her at https://www.sowanders.com/product/en-route-vers-dautres-mondes/ (very few copies left!)
Sacrifiés — Le silence de ceux qui en ont trop vu
Wars, famines, natural disasters… At the heart of these crises, humanitarian workers face countless risks. But at what cost?
‘Sacrifiés – Le silence de ceux qui en ont trop vu’ delves into the dark corners of the humanitarian sector, where psychological suffering remains largely taboo. Alternating between testimonies, field immersion, archival footage, and animated sequences, this documentary sheds light on the invisible wounds of those who dedicate themselves to helping others, while also revealing powerful stories of reconstruction after the unthinkable. A quest for resilience and meaning, reminding us that one does not need to sacrifice oneself in order to help others.
If you would like to support this project, and to stay updated about the film, you can follow our Instagram page @sacrifies_lefilm in which we will soon be sharing news.
Reconstruction and Resolution
By Sébastien Couturier
For me, the idea is very abstract. Since 2001 I have lived every night as if still on mission, and my life here in Switzerland with my loved ones is filtered through the mask forged from those years in the field. Time does not soften it, time erases nothing. The past still dictates how I perceive both reality and the present.
Even small family joys — like an afternoon in the garden with the chickens — feel like ordeals, because I am not truly there. What I see, what I smell, is the field: the heat, the dust, the damp rot, the burnt plastic, the metal screaming in pain, the fear, the gunfire, the fragments of bodies and the animals that fed on them before we built the incinerator. That was my garden for years. Nothing new in that.
My daily life is a constant overlap of past and present, fragments of one calling up the other. It is relentless, never fixed, never forgotten. My body is here, but my mind remains there — in hypervigilance. And their carefree innocence, all around me, irritates me; everything seems focused only on their own small interests, far from the reality of the world.
These are the scars of the soul — invisible, unerasable, unlike any physical wound. So: reconstruction, resolution…? Easy words to say to others, when you’ve never had to scrub your hands raw to chase away odors and memories that never leave.
The scales of memory always tip toward the darker side. How do you find a place in a world that feels hostile? In the end, I would feel more at home back on that field that scarred me so deeply, but where I knew the codes and could survive. Therapy blew the lock off the door of my bunker. What forced me out was making peace with my ghosts. I still need them, for I must retreat there when the outside becomes too harsh.
It is hard to belong nowhere — not here, not there. My ghosts have become my protectors; they are the strength that pushes me to write, to step outside. I am closer to them than to the living. That is why, on my motorcycle, I feel Mark riding ahead of me, “opening the road” as he once did in the field. Perhaps I am mad. But I died three times out there, and each day I feel the truth of the phrase: “It is not good for the dead to return among the living.” I don’t know where I first heard it, but it is right. What happens in the field does not stay in the field. It replaces everything that was there before. Childhood, memories of a normal life — they are nothing more than a distant haze, a fading mirage. What remains is alive, aggressive, impossible to ignore. The life I had before no longer belongs to me. It died out there.
Am I the only one who lives this way? What I miss most is the ability to speak with those who would truly understand — and not always having to pretend that it is over. Because it will never be over.
For me, the word resolution is a chimera. It should not be killed or denied, but tamed. In my view, the only path is to live with it, to accept it as a companion — because it will always remain, just like the field that killed my innocent soul.
Echo
Elyën
There is nothing to resolve.
The field does not vanish: it lives beneath the skin,
in the smells, in the ghosts who still open the road.
Peace is not found in forgetting.
It lies in accepting the double world:
here, and there.
To write is to refuse to disappear.
To turn dust into light.
Feedback from our readers
We would be delighted by the feedback received from readers for the first issue of the Phoenix. It is very important to us to hear from you – about what you liked and about what we can improve!
There is no specific topic for the next issue. We are looking forward to getting your input and reflections on any important topic you like to share! Please email to phoenix@culture-of-care.org
Peer Support
We offer peer-to-peer support for humanitarian workers who wish to share their experiences. This is voluntary, free of charge, and simply about walking together through what we carry. We can offer conversations in English, French and German.
Contact: info@culture-of-care.org
International Calendar
September
21st: International Day of Peace
23rd: International Day of Sign Languages
26th: International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
October
1st: International Day of Older Persons
2nd: International Day of Non-Violence
5th: World Teachers’ Day
10th: World Mental Health Day
11th: International Day of the Girl Child
15th: International Day of Rural Women
16th: World Food Day
17th: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
24th: United Nations Day
November
2nd: International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists
14th: World Diabetes Day
16th: International Day for Tolerance
20th: Universal Children’s Day
25th: International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women
29th: International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
December
1st: World AIDS Day
3rd: International Day of Persons with Disabilities
5th: International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development
9th: International Anti-Corruption Day
10th: Human Rights Day
17th: Remembrance Day for Humanitarian Aid Workers
20th: International Human Solidarity Day
What is the Phoenix?
This publication is self-published by the Culture of Care Initiative to raise topics that should be addressed in an organizational culture of care—issues we should not be reluctant or afraid to discuss.
Topics: We aim to address topics such as recognition, the duty of care, diversity, inclusion and belonging, the balance between giving and taking, healing and being a healer, and many more. Equally important, and regardless of any particular topic, is your input and feedback. In fact, please let us know what topics interest you most or what you are currently struggling with as a humanitarian. Share your own story and memory.
Subscriptions: This publication will be made available for free to everyone. We format it in a way that is easy to distribute electronically and readable on a phone screen. You can subscribe by emailing us at phoenix@culture-of-care.org and letting us know whether you would like to receive it by email or via a messaging service (WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, etc.).
Language: We publish and welcome articles and contributions in both English and French. We are planning to make translations available on our website. Additional languages may be added in the future.
Contributions: The purpose of this initiative is to support well-being. As a platform, we aim to provide inspiration, links to resources, encourage dialogue, and offer space for your own messages and contributions. To contribute, please send us your story, image(s), or letters to phoenix@culture-of-care.org.
C.G. JUNG
The greatest and most impossible problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.”
Resources
Global Interagency Security Forum (GISF) Glossary of terms frequently used in security risk management:
https://gisf.ngo/glossary-english/
Proper Support:
https://www.propersupport.ca
Twenty Years after Novye Atagi:
https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/twenty-years-after-novye-atagi-call-care-carers
Humanitaire: un métier de dingue, avec Sébastien Couturier (podcast):
https://www.rts.ch/audio-podcast/2023/audio/humanitaire-un-metier-de-dingue-27190172.html
The Phoenix is a project by the Culture of Care Initiative. We endeavour to build a community of solidarity between all humanitarian workers globally. For suggestions, contributions, subscriptions, to give us a donation or any other message, please contact us at
phoenix@culture-of-care.org.
The Editorial Team of The Phoenix
– Christoph Hensch, Humanitarian, Lived Experience Expert, Philosopher
– Sébastien Couturier, Peer support for humanitarian workers
With contributions and the support of a dedicated small team of volunteers.
Title page image provided by Steve Dennis
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