Lire la version en français / Hier auf Deutsch lesen/ Lea la versión en español
It’s a question that comes up often from Daily Brief followers and others: how do you get a job working in human rights?
It usually comes from someone who’s younger, maybe a bit idealistic, and eager to do something useful with their life.
There are, of course, many others who get involved in human rights not because they want to but really because they have to – as a survivor, for example, connected to a cause through tragic personal experience.
But the following seven points are for the former: for those attracted to the job as a profession and who have a choice of doing something else. Beware: this may not be the advice you expect.
1) Accept you will never earn as much as you could doing something else. If you’re younger and just starting out, this may not seem very important, but you should still give some thought to how this type of work will impact your earnings negatively over the course of your lifetime. If you’re mid-career and thinking about shifting to human rights work “to give something back,” then calculate very carefully how much you’re giving back – you may be unpleasantly surprised.
2) Understand it’s not romantic. It’s many things, but it’s also a job. Yes, the issues are important, and the work can give you a sense of purpose, but that has plusses and minuses. If you go into it with self-sacrificing zeal, if you make it your whole life, you will burn out.
3) Understand it’s not glamorous. You may get to meet some truly incredible people. You will very likely be inspired by them. But fanboyism weakens over time, and you may occasionally even realize why people say, “Never meet your heroes.”
4) Realize people who work in human rights are just like everyone else – not always easy to get along with. We all share a spirit and strive together for our larger goals, but we still have disagreements. There are egos, jealousies, and frustrations. Office politics don’t magically disappear just because you’re all working for a good cause.
5) Realize it’s emotionally draining. You never get used to the daily whiplash of feelings – one moment contemplating the depths of human depravity and the next moment marveling at human resilience in the face of it. You will need to develop strategies to protect yourself, like not looking at the worst photos if you can avoid it.
6) Know you will lose often and never be satisfied. You will learn about many more horrors than you will ever be able to even try to help end. Human rights work can achieve significant wins, but honestly, losing is more common. You and your colleagues are always in an underdog’s position, fighting against governments, large corporations, and other powers that have far more resources, money, and people than human rights organizations do.
7) Realize that where you can do the most good may not be where you first think it is. Many folks want to work on the frontline, gathering evidence in challenging situations. Some may even have the language skills and cool-headed temperament for it.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll get that job. You still may not be the right person for getting survivors to feel comfortable relating their stories, nor the right messenger for convincing authorities to change their policies.
You may find you can contribute more to the cause by sitting at your laptop reviewing expense forms or coordinating a Zoom meeting about advocacy strategies. For every one person out in the field listening to victims of human rights abuses, there are 20 people doing something else somewhere else to support the work. The cause needs all sorts of people doing all sorts of jobs.
You may even find you can serve the cause best by doing something else entirely, making some money, and donating some of it to human rights causes. It’s as frontline as anything else: very little would happen in human rights work without such generous folks.
Let’s make this a conversation. These seven points will hopefully spark further questions and thoughts. Do please send themby email, Twitter, Mastodon, LinkedIn, or Bluesky. And when you contact us, please let us know if we can use your name if we publish your words in a future edition of the Daily Brief.
