When I pull into the lot at the Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover at 8am, the early morning fog still burning off, people in camouflage and combat boots unload boxes alongside my car. Straight ahead is a roadblock erected out of boards, its scrawled, red-painted letters ordering passerby to stop and have their papers ready.
I’ve arrived at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI)’s three-day field simulation, which provides humanitarian students and professionals the rare opportunity to fully immerse themselves in the experience of working in a humanitarian emergency. The simulation acts as a capstone for Harvard graduate students in the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Humanitarian Studies. It is also the final project for those enrolled in HHI’s two-week Humanitarian Response Intensive Course, offered annually to humanitarian professionals from around the world. SIM attendees spend two nights in the forest, learning to think on their feet as they engage in a complex conflict and disaster scenario.
The simulation has taken place yearly since its first iteration in 2004, but due to the pandemic, this is the first in-person one since 2019. It is a massive undertaking in terms of operations, coordination, and planning, explains Irini Albanti, HHI’s executive director. In addition to basic supplies such as large tents and food for hundreds of participants and volunteers, staff need to organize costuming, dozens of tents, and technological and medical supplies akin to what one would find at a real disaster site. However, HHI is greatly supported by local and international organizations, which donate supplies and space for its activities every year, and donors who support both the simulation and Harvard’s Interdisciplinary Concentration in Humanitarian Studies.
The field simulation is also supported by a large group of enthusiastic volunteers—over 130 this year—including students, doctors, and humanitarian aid workers. I spot a group of undergraduates getting into character on the side of Harold Parker’s main road. In the volunteer tent, emergency physicians hand out supplies for the weekend. Students from Newport’s US Naval War College prepare for their roles —an arrangement that not only helps the simulation participants, one explains, but also offers naval students an intensive training opportunity before they deploy to humanitarian crises. I meet two of Harvard’s Scholars at Risk, both of whom were evacuated from their home countries last year and are here to support students interested in humanitarian work. A cohort of medics from Massachusetts General Hospital runs a painstakingly organized medical tent with rows of sterile equipment hanging from the walls, ready to train students on tending wounds in the field. Most of the volunteers have participated in the simulation for years, one volunteer explains, as he shows me around the massive tent—an air-conditioned marvel recently used by FEMA in crisis response activities.
“It is the volunteers that make this experience for the students,” says Michelle Niescierenko, MD, MPH, HHI faculty member, and emergency physician at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Coming locally, nationally and internationally from more than 10 countries just to volunteer, they share their expertise and experience freely with students on topics ranging from migration and security to gender-based violence and water and sanitation. The volunteers are the heart of the simulation; without them, there would be no simulation.”
Once the students arrive, they report to a central tent for a United Nations briefing. The person playing the role of UN leader (who is also one of the event’s directors) goes over the rules. Participants have been assigned to teams representing different NGOs deployed to a fictional country. They must remain in character all weekend, relying only on what they have with them and their team members to creatively solve any problems that arise.
The simulation is designed to reflect the complex nature of real crisis zones, where there are often many players with competing interests and where exacerbating factors can tip an already-struggling region into a full-blown crisis. The fictional country in the simulation has long struggled with conflict along its borders, but recent natural disasters have exacerbated the situation and led to an influx of refugees. Students must work together to engage appropriately with local government, military, and other groups to assess the areas of greatest need and create a comprehensive service delivery plan for an international humanitarian response.
I am given a tour of the grounds and an introduction to one of the key pieces of the simulation—data collection—by Phuong Pham, assistant professor at the Harvard Medical School and T.H. Chan School of Public Health and HHI’s director of evaluation and implementation science. Phuong is also the creator of Kobo Toolbox, a free and open-source data collection platform that students will use to complete their initial data gathering and assessment. Kobo has been widely adopted for use in humanitarian aid situations by the UN and other organizations. It can run on nearly any device, can operate either online or offline, and is secure and encrypted—factors that make it an optimal choice for use in disaster zones, where supplies can be limited, internet connections unsteady or nonexistent, and where aid workers are often at risk for having their technology confiscated or stolen. This initial data gathering is critical, I learn, to understanding the scope of a crisis and where the greatest needs are so that smart recommendations can be made.
In the coming years, alumni of the simulation will be among the first to deploy into disaster zones worldwide—assessing needs, tracking data, making recommendations to policymakers and aid organizations, overcoming logistical challenges, and saving lives. The field simulation offers them the rare opportunity to gain the practical skills they’ll need in these situations, as well as the ability to operate under stressful conditions. Such preparation will make a critical impact on their ability to respond to crises and help those who are affected by them.
This is the real value of the simulation, says Stephanie Kayden, MD, MPH, HHI faculty member and an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital: “The first days after a big disaster are not a good time for thinly stretched relief teams to be training new workers. The HHI simulation is an excellent way for budding aid workers to develop the skills and grit they need to save lives when a humanitarian crisis strikes.”
- Article in the Harvard Gazette written by Jessica McCann, Communications Officer, Office of the Provost