An article by Hélène ROS
CoCreate Humanity (CCH) is a Swiss association that was co-founded in August 2019 in Geneva by Hélène Ros, Sébastien Couturier and Christoph Hensch, three humanitarians from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The association is a community of humanitarian peers that supports suffering aid workers and pays tribute to those who have lost their lives in the exercise of their humanitarian mission, who are or have been injured, kidnapped and imprisoned around the world.
Humanitarian workers, both local and international, need to be able to heal from traumatic situations and get on with their lives, while maintaining a balance between their humanitarian work and their personal and social lives.
For those who go abroad: working in the humanitarian sector means preparing to leave, adapting to new and difficult living conditions, and preparing to return to an environment that was familiar at the outset, and which will become foreign, abnormal and difficult on their return.
The beneficiaries of CoCreate Humanity’s peer-to-peer support are humanitarians suffering from burnout, compassion fatigue, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder and so on. The initiative is aimed at the younger generation of humanitarians, currently deployed staff, those in career transition, retirees and those left behind in the sector. It is also aimed at humanitarian organizations that do not have the budget to train and care for their staff.
For CoCreate Humanity, the challenge of mental health is threefold: pre-mission, by way of prevention; during the mission; and post-mission, in terms of the care and follow-up of humanitarian personnel.
CoCreate Humanity (CCH) provides a neutral, benevolent space for dialogue, with no ties to the employing organization. This neutral space and the associated services offer aid workers the opportunity to express themselves in confidence, without time constraints, without judgment, and without prejudice to the pursuit of their careers.
Peer support is recognized as a real skill that complements the knowledge of mental health professionals. It is being professionalized around the world, with peer-help diplomas and the peer-helper profession already existing in Canada, France and, more recently, Switzerland.
“The peer helper is a member of staff who discloses that he or she is experiencing or has experienced a mental health problem. Sharing his or her experience and recovery story is intended to restore hope, serve as a role model, and offer inspiration, support and information to others in similar situations. The legitimacy of the peer helper’s intervention derives from their experience of the disorder, their experience of care and their recovery journey. Peer support enriches mental health systems with a new type of knowledge: experiential knowledge. This knowledge does not compete with the technical and theoretical knowledge of other professionals working in the field of mental health. It facilitates the establishment of an empathetic relationship based on trust and non-judgment, which encourages commitment to care.” – Nicolas Franck and Caroline Cellard, Pair-aidance en santé mentale – Une entraide professionnalisée, 2020.
The humanitarian peer-helper uses his or her personal experience to develop trusting relationships with humanitarian colleagues. They never give advice, but answer the main questions that humanitarian workers have throughout their careers. This peer-to-peer relationship, with no hierarchical or managerial ties, is a prerequisite for providing a real breathing space.
CoCreate Humanity organizes social events to promote exchange and re-establish social ties, training and skills transfer, and carries out advocacy and memory work through the organization of concerts.
The association organizes two concerts a year: the March concert at the Rosey Concert Hall in Rolle, one of Switzerland’s most prestigious concert halls, and the December Concert du Souvenir to honor the work of humanitarians and pay tribute to those who have disappeared or been injured, kidnapped or imprisoned during their humanitarian missions.
The choice of December is based on the personal story of Christoph Hensch, who survived the attack on the ICRC hospital in Novye Atagi, Chechnya, on December 17, 1996. An armed commando burst in in the middle of the night to kill as many aid workers as possible. Christoph was shot and left for dead, while six of his colleagues were murdered. The attack was one of the Red Cross movement’s greatest tragedies.
In the future, the association hopes that Geneva, the cradle of humanitarian aid, will become a center for reflection on the mental health and psychosocial well-being of humanitarian workers. CoCreate Humanity hopes to create the first psychosocial rehabilitation center for humanitarian workers in Geneva, following the example of the Athos homes created in 2021 by the French army for psychologically wounded soldiers. France plans to create ten Athos homes by 2030. The system has proved its worth, and should be extended to humanitarian aid workers.
“Human beings have a formidable capacity to rise from anything, even the worst, if they are well supported.” – Dr. Daniel Dufour, former war surgeon and medical coordinator for the ICRC, founder of the OGE method “à l’envers de l’ego”.
Hélène ROS
Hélène was born in Lyon (France) and moved to Switzerland in 2014. She is the eldest of six siblings and the daughter of two survivors of Pol Pot’s genocidal regime.
After graduating from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne with a Diplôme d’études universitaires générales (DEUG) in law, she was forced to stop her studies when she wanted to go into international law. She discovered the world of logistics and the workings of international trade “on the job”, in various sectors such as agri-food, international moving and oil. Logistics took her to the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva in 2015 where she stayed for four years, mainly as executive assistant in private fundraising and humanitarian diplomacy.
Her family history led to her interest in the humanitarian world. First, her father’s meeting with a surgeon from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who advised her to immigrate to France for delicate surgery on a gunshot wound to the left arm. Then came the actions of Handicap International, based in Lyon, in the fight against anti-personnel mines in his home country.
The trauma of war, never mentioned within a family, can generate suffering that spans several generations. Children, victims of this “violence of silence”, become collateral damage of the post-traumatic stress disorders suffered by their elders.
By co-founding the association CoCreate Humanity (CCH) with Christoph Hensch and Sébastien Couturier, Hélène wants to emphasize the importance of the duty to remember, of testimonials and of prevention for those who are about to embark on a humanitarian career. Recovery begins with speaking out, listening and simply feeling supported and part of a community.
CoCreate Humanity wants to take up this challenge as a community of peers, and so stay as close as possible to the very essence of humanitarian work: the human being himself.
Join the CoCreate Humanity team on Saturday December 9 at 8.30pm in Provins, 80 kilometers from Paris, to pay tribute to humanitarian workers with the Orchestre à cordes de la Garde républicaine and Julie Sévilla-Fraysse, cellist and CCH Ambassador.
- Information and oneline tickets: https://www.cocreatehumanity.org/post/concert-09-12-23-julie-sévilla-fraysse-et-l-orchestre-à-cordes-de-la-garde-républicaine-à-provins
- Website: cocreatehumanity.org
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- Contact: info@cocreatehumanity.org and +41 79 369 30 60