Making Impact Through Humanitarian Action with Rebecca Liron

Rebecca Liron, a humanitarian response professional with 10+ years of global experience (Nairobi/Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, Abidjan/ Côte d’Ivoire, Geneva), opens this episode by sharing how seeing an exhibit as an undergraduate student at Northwestern University piqued her interest in humanitarian work and made her want to learn more.

She is a Washington DC-based humanitarian response professional with 10+ years of global experience working with UN agencies, NGOs, foundations, and research institutions as a protection expert in contexts of forced displacements.

She shares the series of impactful moments that spurred the transformation points in her career:

-Starting out as an undergraduate and working with Northwestern’s Center for Forced Migration under Professor Galya Ruffer (aka Professor Galya Ben-Arieh) and learning about asylum cases;

-Going to Nairobi, Kenya as a Princeton in Africa Fellow and working on behalf of the IRC (International Rescue Committee) to oversee $35M across 30 grants affecting 500K refugees;

-Doing field work and visiting the Kakuma Refugee Camp (in the Turkana region of Kenya) and the Dadaab Refugee Camp;

-Transitioning to being a Senior Caseworker in the Resettlement Support Center and conducting refugee interviews and preparing the necessary documentation to support the asylum claims;

-Doing field missions to Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Burundi;

-Moving to Burundi and working on resettlement advocacy with the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees);

-Returning to the US to attend the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in NYC;

-Pursuing a summer internship in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire with UNICEF;

-Becoming a Community-Based Protection (CBP) Officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC);

-Moving to Geneva, Switzerland to work with the UNHCR;

-Now working with the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and leading the CGI Humanitarian Response Portfolio as Deputy Director.

Among the themes we discuss are: Rebecca’s passion for community-based protection, the meaningful participation of people with lived experience of forced displacement and statelessness, child protection, and the experience of forced migration and lived trauma.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to learn more about being a responsible global citizen and step into being an advocate for humanitarian causes, whether as a volunteer or a career.