After five months working for the International Rescue Committee in Darfur, Javier Marroquin suddenly found himself out of a job.
“Some Sudanese government’s officials came to my house and said, ‘You have to go, leave now!’” he recalled.
Marroquin, a former camp coordinator at the al-Salam camp in El-Fasher, North Darfur, was sent to Khartoum and barred from Darfur for six months. He blamed the Sudanese authorities.
“They don’t like people who work on camp coordination,” Marroquin said, adding that local authorities has regularly accused IRC workers of spying. “They like food aid and the classic assistance, but when it comes to protect people’s rights, they just don’t like it! Certainly, it is very difficult to have a regular working life in Darfur.”
Despite such obstacles, Marroquin has repeatedly ventured into the world’s most troubled, underdeveloped regions to assist a wide variety of aid and development programs, carving out a working life that might be called bold or adventurous, even admirable, but never regular.
How it started
His humanitarian work began modestly when, after an unsatisfying postgraduate year working in business, he volunteered to join a “barrio” or neighborhood group in Madrid. He enjoyed helping kids with drug problems and HIV-positive parents, but longed for something more.
“I was bored in Spain,” recalled Marroquin, who wears his accomplishments lightly. “So I thought: What can I do?”
He soon came across and accepted a yearlong stint as a food monitor in Croatia for the European Commission’s humanitarian office. So began a peripatetic career that has taken him to Bosnia and Angola, El Salvador, Sudan, and Sierra Leone through jobs with major international aid organizations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and UNICEF.
Working in Darfur
Marroquin’s most recent position at the al-Salam camp – home to 50,000 internally displaced persons – was certainly one of the more demanding.
His typical working day was spent in meetings, writing reports, registering new arrivals and noting IDP complaints, usually related to food rations provided by the World Food Program. IRC programs were well-funded, which meant a life of relative ease for the expatriate workers.
“Nobody lives in tents. Only young volunteers who join small organizations might do so,” explained Marroquin.
The foreign workers mostly lived in the cities, away from the camps along the urban periphery.
“We had proper houses, water and generators,” he said. “But not in the IDP camps.”
Despite countless practical, logistical and operational problems, Marroquin somehow found comfort in the chaos.
“I like to live in developing countries,” he said.
Unemployed the past four months, Marroquin is considering a return to Sudan.
Advice to budding aid professionals
Marroquin offered some words of wisdom for future development professionals, who he believed were heading into a buyer’s market.
“You have to be persistent, and you will find a job for sure,” he said, “even if this means sending out 400 applications!”
Leavening his optimism with a dash of realism he clarified that “of course, at the beginning one cannot expect to get the job of his or her dreams, but afterwards, you will find better positions.”
And how might this happen, he was asked.
“In these kinds of jobs,” he responded, “you can be promoted quite easily.”
About the author
Alessia Chiocchetti
Alessia Chiocchetti completed a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies and Arabic language from Cà Foscari University of Venice and a master's in human rights and humanitarian action at the University of Siena and Kingston University in London. She has interned with the U.N. Development Program in Yemen, worked with the International Volunteer Service Association in Lebanon, and served as a U.N. Children's Fund consultant. Alessia was a fellow in our Barcelona office from June to September 2007 before joining the Italian Association for Aid to Children as program coordinator in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Alessia is a native speaker of Italian and fluent in English with a working knowledge of Arabic and Spanish.
