Designing Resilience in Humanitarian Aid with Jocelyn Wyatt

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:25:04
Gerry
Hey everyone and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Gerry Scullion. I'm delighted to have you here for another episode. In this wide ranging episode, I sit down with Jocelyn Wyatt, former CEO of Radio Dawg and now CEO of A light. We explore the groundbreaking work of Ida talk, accomplished under her own leadership and her vision for a light on her unique approach for navigating the complex political landscapes inherent in humanitarian efforts.

00:00:25:04 - 00:00:36:22
Gerry
It's a fantastic episode. Let's jump straight in.

00:00:37:00 - 00:00:45:11
Gerry
Jocelyn Wyatt maybe we'll start off how I start every conversation off. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you're from or what you do.

00:00:45:12 - 00:01:12:10
Jocelyn
Sure. I'm Jocelyn Wyatt, I'm the CEO of alight. I grew up in Massachusetts and Wisconsin in the US to, parents who are both educators and early on had a real curiosity about the world and so ended up having a career that's really taken me, all over the world with a real focus on global development and humanitarian affairs.

00:01:12:10 - 00:01:19:20
Jocelyn
And, has led me into design and really the application of design to social impact.

00:01:19:22 - 00:01:34:14
Gerry
Yeah. Nice. I'm just looking at a light's website. There's so much that we can actually speak about your background. when you come out of university, you end up joining IDL. Is that correct? For.

00:01:34:16 - 00:02:02:17
Jocelyn
No. So I ended up I ended up studying anthropology at a university and decided to move to Washington, DC to work for, contractor for the US government called come on X, that was working with funding from the US agency for International Development. So I ended up, starting a job where I had the opportunity to travel around the world and to really focus on economic development.

00:02:02:19 - 00:02:12:06
Jocelyn
in, you know, across Africa, Asia, Latin America. so I spent about five years working there, before going to business school.

00:02:12:08 - 00:02:13:05
Gerry
Okay.

00:02:13:07 - 00:02:42:00
Jocelyn
And to business school and learned about social enterprise and sort of business based approaches to poverty alleviation. and then that sort of entry into social enterprise actually led me to, to IDL and to human centered design, which at the time was really sort of looking at how to use these methodologies of human centered design and apply them to these social challenges, particularly economic inequality and poverty around the world.

00:02:42:02 - 00:03:03:16
Gerry
While and I noticed, in the bio, there's, I was reading beforehand, you have spent time overseas like, so you did a lot of work in India and Kenya and, probably probably a few of the countries that I, there's a top of my mind. So where was the interest? Because before ideal, as you mentioned, you got a couple of other roles.

00:03:03:18 - 00:03:15:23
Gerry
where do the interest and the curiosity come from? I know you studied anthropology, so you kind of give me that as the answer. There must have been something else beyond that that really guides you down that path. Tell us what that was, if you can.

00:03:16:01 - 00:03:49:10
Jocelyn
Yeah. So my parents were both educators. They had lived, and worked abroad and, my grandparents were travelers. And so I sort of got it naturally, I guess. and so I studied abroad when I was in college in Barcelona. And then as I was graduating, I said to my advisor that I really wanted to find a career path that would let me travel internationally and and do good in the world and so that's really what led me into international development and led me to starting off in Washington, DC.

00:03:49:12 - 00:03:59:01
Jocelyn
so I always sort of had that curiosity for the world and really wanted to find ways to connect, sort of that desire and interest with the work that I was doing.

00:03:59:03 - 00:04:22:12
Gerry
So it led you to, as a 2006, 2007, around that time, I'm just working backward. The date you said you were an idea. Okay. for four years and then on that idea, walk for ten years or something like that for ten years. So mid 2000 and you, you started to work with idea and after a number of years you moved across into idea.

00:04:22:12 - 00:04:33:20
Gerry
What are org and for people who weren't familiar with ideas.org how are they. There are two separate entities. Tell us what's the the differences between the two.

00:04:33:22 - 00:05:04:15
Jocelyn
Yeah. See I started off as at idle, really got hired to sort of build and lead the social impact domain, and, and to really figure out how we can apply these methodologies of human centered design to, nonprofits and foundations and social enterprises. Yeah. did that within the company and then after a few years, realized that we really needed a different business model and a different sort of operating model in order to work with social sector organizations.

00:05:04:17 - 00:05:33:18
Jocelyn
And and so we created idea.org in 2011. so I think out of IDL, and, and really the, the idea was that we would be able to reduce our operating costs, we would be able to have dedicated talent who were really knowledgeable and had experience working in these contexts and cultures and, the types of challenges that we were taking on, and that we would be able to raise philanthropic funding.

00:05:33:20 - 00:05:50:06
Jocelyn
and more easily secured grants from foundations in order to, to do the work that we were doing it. I do that work. And then the last piece was that as a nonprofit, we really wanted to be able to share the tools and methodologies, the cases, the learnings that we had from doing this type of social impact design work.

00:05:50:08 - 00:06:11:23
Jocelyn
And so we decided to really focus on making the work that we did public at Ideo Ford, which, as you know, that most design firms really have, confidentiality agreements in place with most of their clients, which makes it really difficult, to share about the work. But we really wanted to do the opposite of that. And so that was really another important piece, of the model that do not work.

00:06:12:01 - 00:06:36:21
Gerry
So with ideo.org, you're working more closely with communities. That's my understanding of it. It's much more, as I said, philanthropic. There's the Gates Foundation probably is in that space, as well as probably a number of others. Can you talk to me about any of the projects, that you were involved in that really center around the topics that I want to drill into more around resilience?

00:06:36:23 - 00:06:56:12
Gerry
I'm interested in from a perspective of a practitioner's perspective and developing self resilience, working in systems that's maybe quite triggering to research as a triggering interactions. But I guess I want to understand your framing of designing for resilience when it comes to communities. First.

00:06:56:13 - 00:07:40:17
Jocelyn
Yeah. So one example, we had a grant from the Gates Foundation, from the, their team that focuses on digital financial services. And the focus of this grant was, or the sort of name that we had for it was called Women and Money. and the idea there was to really, focus both in, South Asia as well as in East Africa on ways to, really understand women's relationship with money in those contexts, really have deep insights about, women and their participation in the financial resources within the family, and then make recommendations and develop tools in order to, help women really be able to make the

00:07:40:17 - 00:08:04:04
Jocelyn
financial decisions for their family of the financial status. of their situation and in their communities. And so, you know, then I think about resilience as, really having that sort of financial resilience, that ability to be able to, to plan to make decisions, have control over their money, to be able to, really invest in the future.

00:08:04:04 - 00:08:14:04
Jocelyn
And so, you know, that's sort of one example, of the type of topic at I thought that we were taking on that, I would say connects with resilience.

00:08:14:06 - 00:08:30:08
Gerry
You've been doing like this work for, for quite a while. Is is the work that you've been primarily focused on? Were you practicing practitioner ING, or mainly managing and kind of guiding the ship, so to speak, because you were the CEO of Idea or for a long time.

00:08:30:08 - 00:08:55:23
Jocelyn
Yeah, yeah, it's been more and my, my focus has certainly been more on sort of leading and guiding, than, than practicing at the same time. you know, well, I was I thought it was important for me to maintain connection to the project work that we were doing. And so at any given time, I was guiding at least one, of the design projects that was happening.

00:08:56:00 - 00:09:09:17
Jocelyn
I do that work. So I really it was important for me to to say connected and work with, designers, with work with our partners and really sort of maintain that connection to our work. So I didn't get too distant from it.

00:09:09:17 - 00:09:21:20
Gerry
Yeah, I love that. I think it's really important. How big would the idea of your design team be in terms of practitioners and what what was the makeup of those designers across the spread of ideas?

00:09:21:20 - 00:09:56:01
Jocelyn
Dot org yeah, so I left I did that work about three years ago, in the fall of 2021. and at that time we were about 7 or 75 people between, Nairobi, New York and San Francisco. and we had a pretty wide spread of designers. we had a, you know, a number of service designers, brand and comms folks, writers, business designers, design researchers, digital and interaction designers.

00:09:56:03 - 00:10:14:16
Jocelyn
we weren't doing as much product design work, at the time. We, you know, when we started in 2011, we did, a bit more product design work. but it moved, to, to more sort of service systems, program design. over, over the course of that ten years.

00:10:14:18 - 00:10:47:14
Gerry
Okay. So I've worked alongside Ideo, like when I was in Sydney and, people from Munich and New York and maybe Tokyo or somewhere that, and the work that, the idea. Okay. folks were working on, a lot of them spoke about human centered design and the desire to to do good in the world with ideas.org, we seeing like there was a difference in the type of designer and the reason why I'm talking about this more kind of nuanced.

00:10:47:16 - 00:11:19:09
Gerry
A lot of people ask me who are in industry or in corporate world. They want to get into that world. They want to get into the social world of making things better. but they don't have that experience. So what were you looking for when you were guiding the shape of hiring talent? What were the skills? And I'm not talking about the hard skills of being able to facilitate research, but there must have been a trace that you learned of what was going to work really well in an ideal org designer.

00:11:19:11 - 00:11:39:05
Jocelyn
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think I think that really evolved for us over time. you know, I think when we first started doing the social impact design work and then when we first started, I knew the org, we were pretty reliant on sort of the or, you know, who we were designing or bringing on.

00:11:39:05 - 00:12:17:20
Jocelyn
We're majority you know, us born and trained folks. and at the time, especially at the beginning, the majority of our work was outside of the US. Over time, that really shifted. And we both, I think we just came to a much stronger sort of commitment and understanding that people that were more proximate and that people that lived experience, in the, in the cultures and the places that we were working, were going to just have a level of understanding that those of us that were from outside of those places just want it.

00:12:17:20 - 00:12:44:09
Jocelyn
Right. And so, that's what we really we decided to open a studio in Nairobi and have, a Pan-African team really take the lead on, a lot of the work that we're doing. across, across sub-Saharan Africa, in the US, similarly, we really worked we worked to build our portfolio of business in the US because we were, you know, more proximate to those communities.

00:12:44:11 - 00:13:13:12
Jocelyn
And then we were to hire people that, were more representative of the diversity of, America. And so I think that piece of it is an important piece of that. I think another piece that was just people, you know, looking for people that really understood the sort of complexities of, the social sector understood that, you know, there's a really different dynamic when you're designing for with nonprofits, which is that nonprofits really serve two customers.

00:13:13:12 - 00:13:33:00
Jocelyn
There's the the customers that are the ones that are, you know, participating in or receiving or, you know, benefiting from or paying for whatever it is, the service or the product that you're designing. Right. And then you also have the customer who is the philanthropic customer who is actually paying for that product or service or that work to be done.

00:13:33:02 - 00:13:59:14
Jocelyn
And so, you know, I think for us, when we, we, we really, relied on a model where we both had talent from idle, as well as contractors that would rotate in and join us on projects. I idea that work. And then we also had project and then we also had designers who really came from the social impact space, that we really, taught design to and really trained them, as human centered designers.

00:13:59:16 - 00:14:21:01
Jocelyn
And so it was important for us to be able to have that balance so that we could, any project team, make sure that there were people that understood some of those nuances of what it might be like, do their work in the communities that we were working or work, in the social sector, but also complemented by people who were, you know, world class designers, who had a different set of experiences.

00:14:21:01 - 00:14:52:10
Gerry
Yeah. I'm interested in the perspective of designers who were based in Africa. And the designers are based in, in America. Now, I'm Irish. So, you know, we suffered colonialism for 800 years in our country. And when you look at it from, you know, the outside perspective. And I've done I facilitated sessions in Kenya, and Cameroon. I want to understand a little bit more and defining what is right for those communities.

00:14:52:12 - 00:15:21:23
Gerry
And how do you go about us ethically? Because it can be perceived as we are the Savior. We are the white man coming across with our, you know, double diamond approaches. And that's a bit as a chasm and another not fitting moment. But how do you reduce the chances that that can be perceived as something that's happening when you're working with those communities?

00:15:22:01 - 00:15:49:00
Jocelyn
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think for us, the the big way that we addressed that was by starting up, a studio for idea.org in Nairobi, you know, so, you know, we hired, a Kenyan designer to really lead that team. We hired, Pan-African team of designers from across the continent. and we really relied on them and their sort of expertise and experience.

00:15:49:00 - 00:16:25:09
Jocelyn
So they really built the relationships with the partners or the clients that we had there. They really led that design work. and so we really, you know, trusted their their judgment and skills and, abilities to really take that work on. So for us, that was really important, to do we also, our, the, the guy who was our managing director for Nairobi, had also started the Nairobi Design Institute and the Nairobi Design Institute was also training, you know, people that were had recently come out of design school or were interested in pursuing paths in design.

00:16:25:11 - 00:16:40:12
Jocelyn
And so we were able to both, you know, support the the sort of curriculum and teaching at Nairobi Design Institute and then also really take students from that program to serve as interns and ultimately hire a number of them. I did that work as well.

00:16:40:14 - 00:17:05:23
Gerry
Absolutely. So there was there was people on the ground, which is which is fantastic. What about the approaches? How does the approach from working, say, in industry with ideas to come? How does it shift when you're working in like the idea walk space? How do you use co-design to help? I guess bring bring the problem and bring the the solutions closer into the group.

00:17:05:23 - 00:17:36:08
Gerry
Like walk me through the scenarios because I know this is an area that you're deeply interested in, and I can feel it when you're talking. walk me through around how that can actually, both reduce the impact of kind of vicarious trauma in some of these scenarios where you're dealing with very, very, complex systems. How can those methods shift to, I guess, improve the outcome and again, reduce the chances of the colonialist mindset being thrown into the conversation?

00:17:36:10 - 00:18:02:20
Jocelyn
Yeah. I mean, again, I think having designers who are really leading the work, who bring that lived experience or come from, those cultural context, I think that's a really critical one. I think another is, you know, and I thought we really focused on, you know, principles of equity. And how do we how do we sort of uphold principles of equity through all the work that we do?

00:18:02:22 - 00:18:33:00
Jocelyn
and we certainly, you know, understood and sort of had some, focus on trauma informed design in, in certain contexts. And how do we sort of understand what people's, you know, experiences might have been and, and really, sort of account for that. And then I would say that, you know, co-design, which I sort of consider kind of a subset of tools, within Human-Centered design became increasingly important.

00:18:33:00 - 00:19:04:00
Jocelyn
And so, you know, I think it became much less this notion of like the sort of outside set of, you know, trained professional designers, you know, flying across the world and like, you know, interviewing people and doing, you know, some conversations and focus groups and then going on and designing solutions and then sort of handing it over in a deliverable, and a much more focused, you know, seeing that the answers of these solutions could come from those community members.

00:19:04:00 - 00:19:30:22
Jocelyn
So it was about facilitating these dialogs. So it was about sort of building relationships of trust. It was about, you know, sort of gathering people for prolonged periods of time to really, allow for that to come out. And so I think it became much less this sort of like, you know, consultant client relationship where like, when does the work and then hands it over to the other and much more.

00:19:31:00 - 00:19:50:12
Jocelyn
you know, a lot of the work that I needed other and started to do became more about sort of building coalitions or collectives, to really, have the people that were most deeply connected to those challenges be the ones looking to, you know, coming up with those solutions and solving. Yeah.

00:19:50:14 - 00:20:14:18
Gerry
On that point around co-design and co-creation, we were talking in the prelude about, developing systems of resilience for communities. What does a resilient community look like in In Your Eyes? Because I know the work that you're doing now, at the moment and allies is is something that I want to talk more about. And there's a lot of community work happening.

00:20:14:18 - 00:20:25:05
Gerry
And in that world as well. But I'd love to hear your thoughts before we get into that. That part of the conversation about what does a resilient community look and feel like?

00:20:25:06 - 00:21:03:01
Jocelyn
Yeah, I think for me, a resilient community, is one that, is really aware of both their assets and, and the challenges that they face. And so, you know, I think, resilient community is one where there are really deep bonds and connections between members of the community, that people are there to sort of support each other and help each other out, that they're kind of, you know, see themselves as sort of being in it together.

00:21:03:03 - 00:21:32:06
Jocelyn
I think resilient communities often have some kind of like organizing principle or structure, whether that's through, you know, sort of more, you know, whether that's through school districts or through, you know, political, or, you know, sort of elected officials or or through neighborhood alliances or co-op groups or whatever it is. I think that there are many types of sort of organizing, structures that exist to bring people together.

00:21:32:08 - 00:21:54:03
Jocelyn
and then I think the resilient communities that have the resources, whether, you know, the combination of time and expertise and financial resources that, you know, when challenging things happen, they're able to come together and, make it through. so, yeah, those are some of the things I think, you know.

00:21:54:05 - 00:22:19:19
Gerry
Definition. So as regards the methods that you're using and some of the problems, maybe you'd be able to talk to some of the the conversations and projects that you had either at or Dawg or now with allies, because we mentioned you're the CEO of allies. I'd love to hear more around some of the cases that you have to to talk to building, resilient communities.

00:22:19:21 - 00:22:48:14
Jocelyn
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can share a couple, more recent ones from, alight. So one is, you know, after, Russia's attack on Ukraine and we saw, you know, massive, sort of unprecedented levels of displacement, and Ukrainians, you know, fleeing across the border and, we decided to send, send a team of folks, from L.A. to the border between Poland and Ukraine.

00:22:48:14 - 00:23:19:01
Jocelyn
So these were and, you know, this was in February of 2022 and the earliest stages of the war. and we, I served on the board of Airbnb, airborne, the nonprofit side of Airbnb and, you know, pretty quickly connected with them. And we designed a program where we trained Ukrainians, to serve as guides and basically meet people at the border crossing point at the reception center.

00:23:19:01 - 00:23:46:03
Jocelyn
And the train set and the train stations and really sort of gather from them, you know, some of their information so that we could sort of have a sense of, sort of trends and who we were seeing coming across the border and what those needs were. and then when people said that one of their needs was, was housing or temporary housing, we had housing credits from Airbnb for to be able to book people in temporary housing for up to 30 days, days.

00:23:46:05 - 00:24:04:01
Jocelyn
And so, you know, we started doing this work and what we found was that many people were coming into Poland and they wanted to stay close to Ukraine so that, you know, at that time that they could return, they would be able to, but they didn't necessarily know where to go. They didn't necessarily have connections within Poland.

00:24:04:01 - 00:24:26:02
Jocelyn
And so we actually worked with different municipalities across the country. to determine, you know, three different towns or small cities that have the capacity to take in more Ukrainians. So we knew that Warsaw and Krakow, for instance, were really overwhelmed by new arrivals. But there were a number of second tier cities that that were able to take folks in.

00:24:26:04 - 00:24:45:00
Jocelyn
And so we ended up placing guides in each of those cities and basically, developed sort of resource materials so that, you know, we could both as we were meeting people they didn't necessarily know where to go, but we knew that they wanted to stay pretty close in Poland. We could direct them to these sort of second tier cities.

00:24:45:00 - 00:25:20:19
Jocelyn
We were helping to form communities of Ukrainians within them, so that we could gather people together and and have them meet their, their new neighbors, get them into Polish lessons and help get their kids registered for school and connected with a doctor and, and start to find, you know, more permanent housing if they needed it. so that was sort of one example of where we were able to sort of with a combination of this great, corporate partnership with Airbnb board, combined with the Ukrainian guides who really could, you know, speak language that knew their, you know, fellow Ukrainians.

00:25:20:21 - 00:25:52:19
Jocelyn
and then working really closely with municipal officials within Poland to be able to really, you know, set people up for success and help them build communities, with other Ukrainians. So that was sort of one example that I point to. another is work that we've been doing in climate displacement. So, you know, we're, we're seeing, you know, and we will continue to see sort of unprecedented numbers of people around the world who will be and have been displaced by climate, in the Horn of Africa.

00:25:52:21 - 00:26:28:02
Jocelyn
we work in Somalia, in Somaliland, and there for the past many years, we've seen really a prolonged drought, which has, meant that nomadic herders who, sort of go across the land with their, with their livestock are seeing their livestock die because they don't have access to food or water. And so many of these nomadic herding families have been through flooding into, these settlements on the outskirts of Hargeisa, which is the capital of Somaliland.

00:26:28:04 - 00:26:55:06
Jocelyn
And so we've been working with the mayor for, for the past year or two, to really redesign what those settlements look like for climate displaced, individuals and families. And so they're what we're working on is, where we focused on, on one of these settlements as a, as a starting point called the galley. And, you know, we really spent time with the community members to understand, you know, what was it that they wanted and needed?

00:26:55:08 - 00:27:13:16
Jocelyn
They said that their first the thing that they wanted first was just fencing for the livestock. They were finding that the livestock that they did, you know, come in with and that did, survive where just, you know, the goats and cows and we're just sort of roaming all around. There are lots of flies. There was lots of animal waste.

00:27:13:16 - 00:27:41:21
Jocelyn
And it was, you know, not a very healthy, or attractive situation for them. And so you know, we worked with them to basically put up a livestock fence in the community to at least, you know, contain the livestock there. We then, worked with an architecture and design firm based out of Minneapolis called RSP architects, to design housing with the communities so that they could then choose, you know, what they wanted in terms of what their ideal homes would look like in that community.

00:27:41:23 - 00:28:00:10
Jocelyn
So we designed, you know, a few different options of homes. And now people are able to select the homes that they want. We've worked with a local financial institution to be able to help people secure mortgages, to be able to build those homes. So really sort of working on and designing different elements of that community with different types of partners.

00:28:00:12 - 00:28:16:22
Jocelyn
and then, you know, the the other piece of it that we're really working on is that so many of these women in particular need new opportunities for, for work and to make money. you know, the thing that they want most of all is to be able to make an income so that they can provide for themselves and their families.

00:28:16:22 - 00:28:40:14
Jocelyn
And so we're working to sort of restored, rebuild, livelihood or a job center so we could provide training and job opportunities to people, connect them with local employers, buy them transportation to be able to get the jobs, or help them start new businesses, within those communities. So those are sort of some of the things that we're thinking about in terms of climate displacement as well.

00:28:40:14 - 00:28:50:17
Jocelyn
And, for both, you know, when when people have been displaced by climate and sort of need to rebuild those futures for themselves and their families.

00:28:50:19 - 00:29:08:06
Gerry
Where do I go with all of this? Like you've got three projects just spoken about three different areas. And I'm like going left and right. Talk to me about allies, okay? Because like, I do know there's a large amount of listeners that listen to this podcast that want to do and get involved with the work that you're talking about.

00:29:08:06 - 00:29:22:12
Gerry
And we've had the UNDp on, you know, lots of people are interested in doing this kind of work with the likes of A light. How are they funded? How does the how does a light stay allow you to have to do this meaningful work?

00:29:22:14 - 00:29:57:02
Jocelyn
Yeah. Great question. So the the majority of a light's funding, comes from a combination of the US government, UN agency is and other sort of larger donors. we also receive a pretty substantial amount, though, you know, always looking to raise more, private funding. So we receive a lot of donations from individuals. many individuals give us monthly recurring donations.

00:29:57:02 - 00:30:22:00
Jocelyn
Others give us one time gifts. but that support really allows us to respond in emergency contexts when, you know, we know the donor agencies are great in many ways, but often their funding is pretty delayed. And so in order for us to be able to respond really quickly, like in the, you know, challenges that I mentioned, when we see climate emergencies or we see conflicts, that private funding allows us to do that.

00:30:22:01 - 00:30:47:13
Jocelyn
Also the, you know, the donor funding, though, it supports the sort of service delivery. A lot of the lights work is really you know, we are running, you know, 35 health clinics and hospitals across the country of Sudan. We're delivering, you know, millions of pounds of food every day where, you know, in Sudan alone, for instance, we're serving about 5 million people, with with sort of nutrition and food support and health care.

00:30:47:15 - 00:31:10:18
Jocelyn
And so, you know, the funding, the donor funding sort of contributes, pays for that food pays for the running of those health clinics, but it does not pay for things like co-creation activities or, you know, if we say like, okay, we see a real need, what we're able to deliver is primary health care in these clinics. But we see a real need for trauma informed care, and we want to really train the health care provider to trauma informed care.

00:31:10:18 - 00:31:22:02
Jocelyn
We see a huge need for mental health support. The private funding allows us to sort of take the solutions that come out of those co-creation activities and actually invest in making them a reality.

00:31:22:04 - 00:31:44:08
Gerry
So just looking at like we we've spoken a bit about the the funding model there, but when it comes to triggering, a new project or a new initiative in a light, walk me through how that happens. So obviously you hear kind of rumors that might be, you know, a war about to kick off in X territory and something might happen in the back end.

00:31:44:08 - 00:31:48:08
Gerry
But how does new project enter the ecosystem of allies?

00:31:48:10 - 00:32:15:23
Jocelyn
Yeah. So there's a couple of ways. One is, as you said, through sort of the triggering from an emergency. So, you know, in, you know, December or January, February of, you know, 2021 into 2022. you know, we were really monitoring the situation between Russia and Ukraine. We sort of, you know, watching the news, you know, getting briefings, connecting with experts, trying to understand like what was really going to happen.

00:32:16:01 - 00:32:48:09
Jocelyn
So when Russia first attacked Ukraine, we, you know, we're paying attention and really look to see like, okay, what is the level of displacement that we're experiencing here. Yeah. And and then the other piece of it was like, and are there enough actors on the ground to respond like, are we needed or not needed? And so both what we saw in that situation was that there were these unprecedented levels of displacement, you know, people crossing borders at rates that hadn't been seen since World War two.

00:32:48:11 - 00:33:13:06
Jocelyn
and at the same time, we saw that because Eastern Europe was not a place where humanitarian organizations like ours had been based. And in decades that there though there was a robust civil society in Poland and other surrounding countries, there weren't the sort of humanitarian actors like ally that had the experience to know how to sort of handle displacement at this level.

00:33:13:08 - 00:33:33:05
Jocelyn
And so in that case, we decided really quickly within the first day, I'd say that we were needed, and then decided to send a team of folks, onto the ground to just sort of first check out the situation, you know, connect with UN agencies and other partners on the ground and get going. Similarly, we do that when we see climate disasters.

00:33:33:05 - 00:33:57:22
Jocelyn
So, you know, a couple of years ago we saw massive floods in Pakistan. We have a team of folks already. We're doing programmatic work in Pakistan. We said, let's take our team in Pakistan and, you know, work to, address some of the needs and, related to that, to the floods. And so we launched, you know, pop up health clinics and pop up schools to be able to, to be able to support families there.

00:33:58:00 - 00:34:31:16
Jocelyn
and then the other way we start initiatives is that we sort of see opportunities. So, we partnered in Uganda, for instance, with an organization called Every Shelter. that does really sort of innovative housing, work in humanitarian contexts. And so in Uganda, we're working in a number of settlements for refugees. and there we decided to, sort of use co-creation to come up with a model for what we ended up calling shelter people and sort of named that after Home Depot.

00:34:31:16 - 00:34:53:09
Jocelyn
But basically it's sort of like a home goods hardware store for people, in the home, you know, come into the settlements, to be able to either purchase or rent, or trade their, their own labor, in order to get hardware or tools or other materials to be able to make improvements to their own homes. Okay.

00:34:53:11 - 00:35:09:11
Jocelyn
And so that type of social enterprise model, is one that, you know, sort of with in this partnership, we sort of developed, and then we're able to raise money for and invest in to be able to, expand that in different locations in Uganda.

00:35:09:13 - 00:35:43:10
Gerry
So the next question is probably a little bit more contentious. Okay. But defining the opportunity is one that I'm really interested in because is there an allegiance there, an alliance to the government basically saying which side we allowed work with. So when we're talking about Ukraine, you mentioned there about the Ukrainian side of things, but when we look at what's happening in Gaza and Israel and Palestine, there's a huge need right there in Palestine at the moment from humanitarian efforts.

00:35:43:12 - 00:35:56:07
Gerry
When you look at where the US government is funding the funding, like, you know, a lot of the arms in the in the IDF, is there an opportunity there for an organization like a place to go and help the people in Palestine?

00:35:56:09 - 00:36:28:23
Jocelyn
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I would say first, as a humanitarian organization, one of the principles of humanitarian organizations is neutrality. And the idea there is really that if we can remain neutral, we can continue to serve the people that are most in need. If we take sides, right, and say we're for these people or against these people, there's a real likelihood that then when the people that we've been opposed to are in power, they just come in and kick us right out and we can no longer serve the people and we can no longer deliver on our mission.

00:36:29:01 - 00:36:56:18
Jocelyn
So we're really, conscious of that and really uphold that principle. And it has allowed us to stay in countries like Sudan and South Sudan and Somalia, you know, really some of the most difficult places in the world to, to work, because of that. So in, Gaza, for instance, we have one of our affiliate organizations is another organization based in Jordan called Wesco.

00:36:56:20 - 00:37:22:18
Jocelyn
The early days, of of that conflict now, you know, a little over a year ago, they joined an alliance of, local organizations, Palestinian organizations, and we raised some funding to really be able to deliver food aid, in particular, into Gaza. So that work continues. that has, you know, been a priority for us.

00:37:22:18 - 00:37:53:04
Jocelyn
We see a major humanitarian aid, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in the Middle East. And so our work is really, you know, because we don't have, presence on the ground in, in that region. We operate through, our affiliate organization, quest Scope and feel like they, you know, they are operational both in Syria and in, Jordan and then join sort of alliances of other organizations, local organizations who are providing that direct humanitarian support.

00:37:53:06 - 00:38:23:10
Gerry
So with that in mind, like, is there well, what are the challenges that that you face as the CEO of a light, like how how is there a risk there from a philanthropic perspective, if you are working in Gaza and, in Israel as well, is there a philanthropic investment, kind of risk there with some of the philanthropic, investors who may have taken sides where they will actually reduce their funding based on what you're actually doing on the ground.

00:38:23:11 - 00:38:27:08
Gerry
Is that a risk for an organization like a light?

00:38:27:10 - 00:38:55:20
Jocelyn
We haven't found that donors have been, opposed to providing humanitarian support. I think most people see a real need, to provide philanthropic support for humanitarian aid. And I don't think most people are really I mean, we haven't heard from folks that are, sort of opposed to the delivery of humanitarian aid, I think, where organizations can get in trouble.

00:38:55:20 - 00:39:21:18
Jocelyn
And I think we manage this pretty well. But I do know that, organizations, you know, got in trouble when their external communications were not thoughtful enough or appeared to be really one sided. Right. And so, on, on either side, it was really easy to sort of offend one side or the other and have them sort of all out there supporting this organization.

00:39:21:20 - 00:39:51:18
Jocelyn
We didn't face that, and we were, quite conscious of the way that we were, again, upholding those principles of neutrality, and really working to sort of thread the needle, and we did that by honestly a year ago, you know, when we were in this a little over a year ago, we were consulting with with leaders of, Jewish community, as well as leaders, who were, you know, who represented the Palestinian community.

00:39:51:18 - 00:40:01:04
Jocelyn
And so it was important for us to gather many perspectives on this and make sure that we were sort of, not being naive in our own communications.

00:40:01:04 - 00:40:33:10
Gerry
Yeah. So, when you're speaking, I can actually hear, you know, you're an excellent orator, and you're also, very politically kind of remaining neutral, that skill as be the CEO for a humanitarian organization like a light, must be something that you've cultivated over a relatively long time. How important is this for the designers that you're hiring? In a light analogy, O'Rourke, formerly, how do designers learn that skill?

00:40:33:12 - 00:40:43:02
Gerry
Where did you get it from? Jocelyn. Tell me which which books are you reading? Who are you looking? Where does it come from?

00:40:43:04 - 00:41:20:05
Jocelyn
Yeah, that's a good point. And I would actually say this is very late and I need to start. May be different too because light you know, we well, we do have a handful of designers on our team. The majority of, a staff at A light come from humanitarian backgrounds are coming from, you know, doing this work. Most of our people are really, you know, we have about 3000 staff around the world at night, and the majority of them are really sort of frontline, you know, running health clinics or working as nurses or, you know, gender running, gender based violence protection workshops or, you know, delivering clean water to to families are running, you know,

00:41:20:05 - 00:41:43:22
Jocelyn
jobs, training programs or whatever it is. So, you know, I wouldn't say that people in the humanitarian context, in that light, are pretty adept at this, because this is what their careers have been. and so I've, I've learned a lot from my colleagues in the light, honestly, to, to sort of uphold that and, and also from my peers, from other, you know, CEOs of other NGOs and other humanitarian organizations.

00:41:43:22 - 00:42:17:20
Jocelyn
So I think for me, that shift has happened more in the last three years since I've been in a like, you know, kind of get idea because we were, you know, and, you know, I think we were we were between, you know, nairobians, between New York and San Francisco. you know, we had a very progressive team that I think was quite, left leaning and probably not as neutral, I would say, in terms of a lot of the, a lot of the things that we were seeing happening in the world.

00:42:17:20 - 00:42:42:10
Jocelyn
And so, you know, I think when I joined Delay, I really had to, I really had to see, like what? You know, what is the purpose of this work? Right? Are we an advocacy or an organization that's really focused on, like, you know, getting extremist leaders out of power? No, we are not. That's not that's a different organism, you know, different organizations can do that.

00:42:42:10 - 00:43:08:05
Jocelyn
Like our our work is to provide for the needs of the people most at risk. After, you know, or, you know, in the context of conflict or, you know, natural disasters or, you know, other really big challenges that have created that kind of displacement. And so, yeah, I think for me, it was just sort of like, what was the purpose of our work here?

00:43:08:05 - 00:43:11:10
Jocelyn
And as a leader that I have to represent that. Right.

00:43:11:12 - 00:43:35:05
Gerry
So what advice would you give to to designers because it's not mentioned. It's not discussed in design schools around the world. You know, the ability to communicate to the needs is is really, really important. And that's what I'm hearing from you. But being able to straddle both sides of, of the arguments is, is something that comes from experience and my perspective.

00:43:35:07 - 00:43:46:00
Gerry
and I want to hear like if you imagine you're speaking to a class of, graduate designers, you want to learn how to cultivate that skill. What advice would you give them?

00:43:46:02 - 00:44:17:14
Jocelyn
I mean, I think one is to like, really start with listening and sort of understand, you know, understand who your audience is and who you're talking to. And I think be a bit of a chameleon in order to be able to sort of address that audience. And so I think the way that I might talk about things in my I also have to sort of understand that, like the way that we might hold perspectives or talk about things personally versus professionally may be different, right?

00:44:17:14 - 00:44:45:20
Jocelyn
Not that they're at odds with one another, but I may take a much more sort of strong stance on an issue. Personally, when I'm in a dinner party talking to my friends, than I might on a podcast interview, right? Or speaking on a stage, or talking to a class of students or whatever it is. And so I think still, I think sometimes people feel like that that's not being true to themselves or that's being inauthentic.

00:44:45:20 - 00:45:35:11
Jocelyn
And again, I think that's where I'm like, I would never say something here that fell at odds with what my personal beliefs were, but I certainly may, be able to hold nuance in, in a way that, especially publicly, sort of given the, the mission and the mandate of the work that I'm leading here. Right. And so, again, I just think recognizing that, like, as leaders, we're sort of a combination of our own individual humans, you know, beliefs and attitudes as well as, you know, the connection with the organization that we're that we're leading and the mandate and mission and objectives and strategy of that.

00:45:35:11 - 00:45:42:19
Jocelyn
And so my job is to both represent myself and to represent this organization. And and that's the work that I need to do.

00:45:42:21 - 00:46:02:14
Gerry
One of the pieces that I'm seeing with emerging talent and actually not even just emerging talent, if you can scrap that sentence with a lot of designers out there, especially when they get to, you know, relatively mid senior levels, they start asking the question of like, why am I doing this? And who am I as a as a designer?

00:46:02:16 - 00:46:27:16
Gerry
That self-reflection piece is really, really important to be able to, you know, have an input into these conversations. What kind of work does a light do in terms of supporting talent like that, to be closer to the work that they are being asked to do? And also, is that choice, made at the practitioner level, that maybe they don't want to work on certain projects?

00:46:27:18 - 00:46:42:22
Gerry
How do you handle those kind of conversation wins that might actually go against their belief systems? They might not want to work in systems that, might be really triggering, or it just might be against their their own personal beliefs.

00:46:43:00 - 00:46:59:15
Jocelyn
Yeah. I mean, again, I think even light is a bit different since we really, you know, people join us because they want to do this work and they're committed to doing this work. And they and the majority of our, our, our team are not designers a light. And so.

00:46:59:18 - 00:47:00:21
Gerry
Okay.

00:47:00:23 - 00:47:05:17
Jocelyn
I think it's I think it's a bit different. And I thought we certainly had that.

00:47:05:18 - 00:47:08:01
Gerry
Yeah.

00:47:08:03 - 00:47:26:04
Jocelyn
And, you know, but but at the same time, like, I think I to talk again, again, I think we had a lot less though than at a for profit design from because all the work that we were doing was like mission oriented. And so, like, I did not work if we had designers that were saying, like, we don't feel comfortable doing this work, we don't believe in it.

00:47:26:04 - 00:47:42:22
Jocelyn
Like as a leadership team, we'd really be like, we really need to take a hard look at that and determine, like, we're nonprofit, we're not here to make money from this work. So like, if this isn't feeling right or this isn't aligned with like, our beliefs or our mission, then like our values as an organization, then we're not going to take that work.

00:47:42:22 - 00:48:04:12
Jocelyn
So I, I think yeah, I think in in New York we didn't really have that. I mean, I saw it sort of across the street and I feel more and certainly and then yeah, I a like I think again I think people just, you know, they sort of sign up for the humanitarian mission and which is and the principles of that.

00:48:04:12 - 00:48:11:12
Jocelyn
And that's pretty integrated in terms of like the hiring process and all the work that we did of okay.

00:48:11:14 - 00:48:33:00
Gerry
So just look, there's there's a wealth of experience and knowledge that we can go into more. But like where you're at now with the light, what does the future look like? What are the pieces that you're hoping to, you know, steer the ship in in the direction? Like what? What's Jocelyn Wyatt's, next five year plan for a life?

00:48:33:00 - 00:48:37:19
Gerry
Like what are you getting excited about? If you can share that with us.

00:48:37:21 - 00:49:02:19
Jocelyn
Yeah. So for me, I'd say that, you know, we I've seen that the that the humanitarian industry is wildly outdated in so many ways. It continues to operate in the sort of top down way where those of us, you know, in the US or Europe or elsewhere, sort of calling the shots and what needs to be done and, and making those decisions.

00:49:02:21 - 00:49:37:04
Jocelyn
And I don't think there's been a lot of innovation in terms of the way humanitarian aid is, is delivered or the work that we do with this place. Community is, has evolved. And so, you know, I think our, our strategy at light is really sort of based on three pillars. The first is on insights. So how do we develop really deep insights about the journeys of displacement and understand why and how people decide to leave their homes and what triggers that and where they decide to go and what decisions they make once they get there.

00:49:37:06 - 00:50:02:18
Jocelyn
the second piece is on is on co-creation and how to embed these methodology edges in co-creation so that every, you know, nurse at a health clinic, that a light is running or every, you know, person that's running, water points or every person that is delivering, you know, a livelihood workshop is trained in co-creation and engaging with our customers, the displaced people that we're serving every day, to ask them, you know, how do we evolve?

00:50:02:18 - 00:50:21:20
Jocelyn
How do we how do we get better? How do we, continue to improve? and then we're running co-creation workshops with, you know, through our teams and with our customers all over the world all the time to really be able to get new ideas and launch new services and programs. And then the third is really this commitment to high quality implementation and delivery.

00:50:21:20 - 00:50:44:23
Jocelyn
So how do we ensure that the services that we're delivering are actually meet one of these services as defined by our customer. And so I think for us, if we can shift the way that we do things, if we can sort of uphold and show a model for what a 21st century humanitarian organization looks like, one that really embeds insights and co-creation and high quality implementations of the work that we're doing.

00:50:45:01 - 00:51:18:19
Jocelyn
You know, across the 20 countries where light is working, we hope we can then sort of serve as a model for other organizations to do that as well. So our commitment is really like, how do we transform the humanitarian industry using principles of design? yeah. To be able to sort of have the the respect and the belief, and commitment to displaced people, to ensure that they're really able to pursue the lives that they wish and, and dream for.

00:51:18:21 - 00:51:42:00
Gerry
Wow. It's that's a huge vision and a huge mission. But I've, I've no doubt, after speaking with you for the last 50 minutes or so, that you're going to make it work, feel free. Like, you know, if you want to check out a lights website, it's we are alive.org. Jocelyn has been brilliant speaking with you today.

00:51:42:02 - 00:51:55:09
Gerry
if people want to connect with you, I'm going to put a link to your LinkedIn into the show notes. Is there anywhere else that people want to and might want to reach out with you, or find out more that your work that you're doing at the moment, other than the website for a light?

00:51:55:11 - 00:52:18:08
Jocelyn
Yeah, I mean, certainly follow a light on social media where, we're on Instagram and Facebook and X and LinkedIn. so follow light. We are light, on those platforms and sign up for our mailing list and, and follow me on LinkedIn and, certainly support our work if, if folks are up for it.

00:52:18:10 - 00:52:21:01
Gerry
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for your time, Jocelyn.

00:52:21:03 - 00:52:22:20
Jocelyn
Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

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