Humanitarianism
Humanitarianism
September 18, 2012
Erin Brown
Smillie and Minear describe humanitarianism as “the act of people helping people” (pg.11a). Everyone wants to contribute some way or another to help other human beings who are less fortunate then themselves. When a natural disaster, war, or famine happens to other people it compels people to want to help in some way. There are many organizations that provide relief to people in need. They provide basic needs such as food, shelter, and security. A lot of times the countries and people in need, need more than just short term help, they need more long term. Humanitarianism is short-term compared to development but without humanitarianism people would not want to stay long term to help with the development side of humanitarian aid. My personal view of humanitarianism was people helping people in need. Do whatever job needed to be done. After reading more information on the subject I learned that there is more involved than just people helping people.
Whenever I thought about humanitarianism I always thought of it being people helping people less fortunate than themselves trying to recover from a disaster, war or famine. I knew there were non-profit organizations that would help these people. Organizations like Red Cross, Red Crescent, UNICEF, World Vision, as well as some faith based organizations. My perception of humanitarianism was simple and easy. If someone needed help than anyone who could help them should. I saw on television that whenever a disaster happened there were organizations that went into these areas and provided aid. The public was shown people working together to help out the injured, starving, homeless people that needed help. The thing that the public didn’t get told was all the politics that go on behind the scenes.
This was something that I did not start to learn about until I went down to Waveland, Mississippi in 2009 to help an organization that was
September 18, 2012
Erin Brown
Smillie and Minear describe humanitarianism as “the act of people helping people” (pg.11a). Everyone wants to contribute some way or another to help other human beings who are less fortunate then themselves. When a natural disaster, war, or famine happens to other people it compels people to want to help in some way. There are many organizations that provide relief to people in need. They provide basic needs such as food, shelter, and security. A lot of times the countries and people in need, need more than just short term help, they need more long term. Humanitarianism is short-term compared to development but without humanitarianism people would not want to stay long term to help with the development side of humanitarian aid. My personal view of humanitarianism was people helping people in need. Do whatever job needed to be done. After reading more information on the subject I learned that there is more involved than just people helping people.
Whenever I thought about humanitarianism I always thought of it being people helping people less fortunate than themselves trying to recover from a disaster, war or famine. I knew there were non-profit organizations that would help these people. Organizations like Red Cross, Red Crescent, UNICEF, World Vision, as well as some faith based organizations. My perception of humanitarianism was simple and easy. If someone needed help than anyone who could help them should. I saw on television that whenever a disaster happened there were organizations that went into these areas and provided aid. The public was shown people working together to help out the injured, starving, homeless people that needed help. The thing that the public didn’t get told was all the politics that go on behind the scenes.
This was something that I did not start to learn about until I went down to Waveland, Mississippi in 2009 to help an organization that was
Bibliography: Smillie, Ian, and Larry Minear. "The Humanitarian Enterprise Today." The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World - Chapter One. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2004. 7 to 21. Print. Smillie, Ian, and Larry Minear. "The Sudan - Aid in Conflict." The Charity of Nations: Humanitarian Action in a Calculating World. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2004. 108 to 114. Print. Vaux, Tony. "Humanitarian Trends and Dilemmas." Development in Practice 16.3-4 (2006): 240-254. Print.