Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles: Tammam Aloudat

AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

Inside Geneva’s Summer Profiles are back. In this episode we talk to Tammam Aloudat, doctor, aid worker and now journalist. 

Inside Geneva

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“I was born in Syria, and I spent most of my life there until my mid-20s. I studied there; I went to medical school there,” says the CEO of The New Humanitarian.

Was being a doctor in Syria his first choice? 

“One of the first side effects of autocratic dictatorships is that there isn’t really work outside a few private enterprises, one of which is being an engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor,” he says.

A chance meeting with a British Red Cross official led him into humanitarian work.

“And a couple of years later, when I wanted to go out and work for the Red Cross, it was him who gave me a contract with the British Red Cross and sent me to Iraq. I mean, arguably not the nicest thing to do to someone, but it was exactly what I had asked for.”

But the disastrous consequences of that conflict made him question his work, and the traditional neutrality of humanitarianism. 

“Can we afford to only put roofs over people’s heads and do nothing about the system? If your house was bombed for the first time, I understand. If it was bombed for the 17th time, and instead of a house you have a tarp, and instead of food, you have animal feed or grass to eat,” Aloudat says.

Join host Imogen Foulkes on Inside Geneva for a fascinating discussion. 

Find out more about the ‘Inside Geneva’ podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here.

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