Sasha Chanoff

2006

Sasha Chanoff

Mapendo

http://www.mapendo.org

Somerville, Massachusetts, United States

The Bold Idea:

Mapendo International’s mission is to identify, rescue, and protect people fleeing conflict and violence in Africa whose lives are in imminent danger and who fall outside existing relief efforts.  Focusing on refugees who are targets of genocide, torture survivors, rape victims, widows, orphans, and those with urgent medical needs (HIV positive refugees foremost among these), Mapendo International devises and implements short and long-term solutions for those whose struggle to survive would otherwise go unattended. The organization is responding to the plight of such people through its medical clinic in Nairobi and through its rescue initiatives program in East and Central Africa.

Biography:

While working in refugee relief and rescue operations with the International Organization for Migration and the U.N.H.C.R. (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) throughout Africa, Mapendo International’s co-founder, Sasha Chanoff, traveled into the Democratic Republic of Congo.  There he undertook a U.S.-funded emergency mission to rescue Tutsi victims of countrywide massacres, part of the ethnic violence that stemmed from the Rwandan genocide.  In the Congo he met Rose Mapendo, a Tutsi who had been jailed with her family.  Rose listened as soldiers executed her husband, gave birth to twins in prison, and managed to keep her nine children alive under appalling conditions.

The rescue team’s success in getting Rose and her family out, despite the fact that they were not on the refugee evacuation list, became the inspiration behind the organization’s name.  Mapendo means “great love” in Swahili. The advocacy organizations, Human Rights Watch and Refugees International have documented the many thousands of refugees in similarly untenable situations who have no access to aid.  For Sasha, working regularly with individuals and families in such dire circumstances created an imperative to act.  With advice and guidance from senior officials in the U.N., the State Department, and NGOs, Sasha launched this new initiative with Dr. John Wagacha Burton, Mapendo’s co-founder, to address the critical and unmet needs of those refugees whose lives are in peril. 

Sasha is a graduate of Wesleyan University and holds a master’s degree in humanitarian assistance from the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, a joint degree program run through the Feinstein International Famine Center.

Moment of Obligation: Why did you want to create your new organization?
I can certainly identify specific experiences during my refugee rescue and relief work across Africa that served as catalysts for founding Mapendo. But there’s a whole background of experience that prepared me for the moment of obligation and which highlighted the need for a new organization. My great grandparents arrived in the U.S. as refugees. An understanding of their struggles, passed down from my grandparents to my parents to me, was embedded somewhere inside me when I first began working on refugee resettlement issues with the Jewish Vocational Service in Boston (an affiliate of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - HIAS) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC). But it was in Africa, during a U.S.-funded rescue mission into the Democratic Republic of the Congo to evacuate survivors of state-sponsored violence against Congolese Tutsis, that my life changed. Our decision to include Rose Mapendo and her family on our evacuation was my moment of obligation. It was moments upon moments like this that highlighted refugees in danger to whom no other organizations attended. Dr. Burton and I found refugees who had been raped and were consequently HIV positive and dying in the streets of Nairobi. We found orphaned Sudanese girls in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp who were sold off against their will into marriage, destined for a life of abuse and servitude (there is recent documentation that some girls in refugee camps kill themselves rather than face this fate). It was our experiences with these people who have no rights, no access to help, and are on nobody’s list that necessitated Mapendo’s creation.

Gall to Think Big: What has given you the ability to take on deeply entrenched social problems?
I am often asked, “Don’t you worry that you won’t succeed? Aren’t you afraid of failure?” No is the simple answer. Fear of embarking on something new and different hasn’t in any way factored into launching Mapendo International. Of course, that shield against fear is built from experience, advice, and knowledge. After working in the field for more than a decade and learning from the inside how the U.N. and other organizations care for refugees, I went back to school to study humanitarian assistance. Dr. Burton has worked as the Kenyan country medical coordinator for the U.N.’s largest refugee medical program. Some of the top humanitarian aid officials from the U.N. and U.S. government advise us. We have built a new approach to address the dangerous situations in which many refugees find themselves, and we have guidance from some of the most respected aid experts in the world.

New and Untested: Describe what’s innovative about your new work.
Currently, there are no comprehensive programs to care for the tens of thousands of refugees who cannot live safely in refugee camps due to threats of violence, rape, and a lack of basic necessities. Witnessing the death and massacre of many refugees due to systematic inadequacies and failures in standard relief operations motivated us to create programs that address some of the most at-risk people who fall outside existing relief efforts. We’ve also thought extensively about the ethics of humanitarian aid. An African perspective must inform aid efforts in Africa and a refugee-focused NGO should also build local capacity in its country of operation. To this end, more than half the people on the board of directors, as well as the co-founder, are African. We link our operations to local capacity building not only by hiring nationals in our countries of operation, but also by exploring ways to build resources and provide training to fight poverty.

Seeing Possibilities: What do you believe are the most important qualities to do social change work?
First and foremost, belief in what you are doing, from the very core of your being. Other important qualities: passion, humility, an understanding that this is not about you, but about those whose lives you are working to change, commitment, and so many hours of work that your friends start yelling at you to at least take half a day off on Sunday.

Which musical artists/albums get you going?
Well, I’m a big a cappella person. I sang in college with an a cappella group called the Wesleyan Spirits and then helped to start the Hyannis Sound, a group that sings every summer on Cape Cod. So good a cappella music is always close by. I grew up listening to and singing the Beatles and still do. I seem to be stuck in years gone by – Joni Mitchell, U2, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Queen, Sting, the Kinks.

What books do you recommend  (pleasure, work, and anything in between)?
UNHCR the State of the World’s Refugees 1997-1998: A Humanitarian Agenda, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power, King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman, The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

Which websites do you visit often  (work and/or personal)?

• unhcr.org
• crisisgroup.org
• refugeesinternational.org
• refugees.org
• news.bbc.co.uk
• nytimes.com 

Any last words, thoughts or advice to other social change leaders?
My friends and family have been integral and essential to establishing Mapendo. Our website was designed by a top web-designer and a great programmer who also happen to be my closest friends. Friends and family have volunteered countless hours and organized ten or so fundraisers for us that have raised over $100,000 in our first year. During one concert fundraiser, I was in Sudan providing emergency assistance to Darfurians, but my father and one of my close friends both spoke to the audience of more than 500 people about the importance of Mapendo. This network of support seems to grow exponentially as friends invite their friends to engage with Mapendo. If you believe in your mission with the same kind of certainty that you have about the sun rising and setting each day, then this belief will inspire all those around you.