Out of the Classroom and into the Field

By Rebecca Sutton

During first year orientation week in September 2009, I participated in a group dinner hosted by Professor Arnold Weinrib, the Chair of Admissions at UofT law school. With a seemingly photographic memory of every new stu- dent‘s application package, Professor Weinrib turned to me and said, ―So, why aren‘t you in Afghanistan?‖ This was a fair question: up until just a few days earlier, my plan had been to take a posi- tion in Afghanistan working for War Child Canada. However, as Labour Day weekend approached — and with it the realisation that one more year of defer- ring law school had passed — I felt a strong pull to begin legal studies.

By the good graces of the administration at UofT, I was permitted to join the en- tering class. I felt quite confident about my decision, but nonetheless I quietly filed away the off-hand remark Professor Weinrib made later at dinner that I could call him if I ever needed a break from law school.

I had craved an opportunity to do field work in a conflict context since working at the Canadian headquarters for War Child, a humanitarian NGO that works with youth in conflict and post- conflict countries throughout the world. After completing 1L, I headed to South Africa on an IHRP internship and it was mid-way through this experience that I found out War Child was hiring a new Country Director in Sudan. When I saw the job posting, I remember thinking: ―Oh! Here it is!‖ quickly followed by, ―But I‘m in law school.‖ The conversa- tion with Professor Weinrib resurfaced in my mind and somehow, miraculously, after a series of emails, discussions, and interviews, I was offered the job in Dar- fur and was granted permission to take a temporary leave of absence from UofT.

I headed to Sudan in September 2009. After a few weeks of orientation in the capital (which struck me as being infi- nitely safer than Johannesburg) I flew to West Darfur on a UN Humanitarian Air Service flight to take up residence in the town of El Geneina, where War Child‘s Sudan programming is based.

When Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) began fleeing to El Geneina in the fall of 2003, the town had a population of around 100,000. While some individuals settled with relatives in the town, most moved into one of the twelve IDP camps that sprung up on its outskirts. Apart from World Food Pro- gram and Sudanese Red Crescent food distributions, outsider involvement was initially quite limited and IDPs settled with little site planning or camp management. Services and facilities in the camps increased markedly in the ensuing years, as international attention on Darfur mounted and most of the major players in international aid set up operations. The continuous growth of the humanitarian presence was reversed in March 2009, when the International Criminal Court announced its plans to arrest Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and the government responded by expelling 13 aid agencies from Darfur.

Fortunately, War Child was not expelled from Darfur, and, by virtue of being composed almost entirely of Sudanese staff (it currently employs two expats and 55 national staff) its programming has continued with relatively little interruption since 2005. The organization‘s work is based in four of the largest IDP camps surrounding El Geneina, in the town itself, and throughout rural areas of West Darfur. Programming is focused on three main areas: Youth Development, Livelihoods, and Education. Youth Development supports youth committees and builds their skills in areas such as project implementation and conflict management. Livelihoods aims to increase the self-reliance of older youth by providing them with vocational training and small business training within the urban context, as well as agricultural services within the rural context. Lastly, Education delivers accelerated learning programs to facilitate the (re-)entry of youth into the formal education system in Darfur. 

As Country Director, I am ultimately responsible for the planning, monitoring, and evaluation of our programs, as well as all operational, financial, logistical, and administrative aspects of programming. While there is no such thing as a ―typical‖ day in Darfur, I often move from the office to one of the programming sites (usually one of the camps, and sometimes a day-trip to a more remote field location), to a meeting (e.g. the International INGO forum, the UNHCR weekly Protection Working Group, or the UN Department of Safety and Security weekly security update). This routine is inter-spersed with donor visits from overseas, security con- cerns that affect my or the organization`s movement on the ground, and any number of daily ―fires that require putting out.

I have now been here for almost six months, and whenever I take stock of the experience I marvel at how little I knew or understood just several months, weeks, or days ago. The learning curve is steep and there is little time for rest. This is perhaps what makes the work so interesting. I find myself constantly grappling with prag- matic concerns relating to issues that have lain mostly in the theoretical realm for me in the past. How do you get three bids for a supply request in a small rural market? How do you get a written invoice from someone who cannot read or write? How do you get donors to be as interested in teacher training as they are in funding school construction? On the more abstract end of the spectrum lie questions relating to the nature of the con- text in which we are working. Is it still emergency/relief, or have we entered the early recovery phase, or perhaps even reached post-conflict development? While in one sense this seems to be merely a taxonomical — and thus somewhat tiring — exercise, the distinction may have important implications for the flow of funds and conse- quently the nature of programming in Darfur.

In all of this, I see my key task as understanding the communities here and making informed decisions about how to adapt our programming to the ever-shifting reality on the ground. The coming months are looking to be particularly momentous for Sudan: elections are planned for April 2010, followed by a referendum on independence for South Sudan in 2011. In addition, the hesitant and seasonal movement of individuals from the IDP camps to their communities of origin or to new communities may become more permanent, resulting in the shrinking or closing of the camps. How these events will play out and what trends will unfold remains to be seen; however, one thing is certain: Darfur is always in flux and the best anyone working here can do is watch, learn, and do, and then reflect on the doing.