The Training That Guided My Humanitarian Career

Jakub Kovar
14 hours ago
2 min read

Jakub sits on the grass during a humanitarian simulation exercise, wearing a blue safety vest and face mask while taking notes alongside other participants.

My name is Jakub Kovar and I currently work at the Czech Development Agency as a project manager responsible for our projects in Ethiopia, as well as past projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

I had the opportunity to experience a three-day immersive training hosted by the Forage Center staff during my studies at Arcadia University in Philadelphia, PA. Back then, I was a grad school student and wasn’t sure about my career goals and direction in life. I heard about the training opportunity from a professor and instantly thought it as a great opportunity to experience something practical after long hours spent reading academic literature. In this way, I was able to combine both theory and practice.

During my humanitarian field training with the Forage Center, it opened my eyes that I want my future work to benefit other people, while I learnt how difficult it can be to work in the humanitarian sector.

Training such as the one I did with the Forage Center definitely helped me learn what one can experience in a real-life situation.

Eventually, when I started working on development cooperation projects, several times I was thrown into the field in Bosnia and Herzegovina and later in Ethiopia, where one can still feel that violence had taken place there. I remember a time in the post-war Tigray region during military protests, fearing that I might not make it to the airport and catch my flight back to safety.

A project worker in Ethiopia kneels beside local community members as they fill yellow water containers from a large white storage tank in a rural village.

Similarly, like in the compound in Philadelphia, undergoing Forage Center training, I had to stay calm and focused during the time period in Tigray. I believe that my experience from the Forage Center training helped me cope with the difficult situation I was in, navigate the situation, and help me solve my problem.

My main takeaway from my Forage Center training was probably realizing that I won’t always be treated nicely in the field, and I will have to adjust to difficult conditions. This proved to be the case during my field trips in Ethiopia, where one has to deal with the lack of food almost daily and is sometimes treated as a foreigner, a European, a symbol of colonialism.

My advice to other people who wish to work in the international development or humanitarian sector is to prevail and follow their dream of a meaningful job. It took me quite a long time to find a meaningful job in the sector, and it definitely is not always easy. But it is essential to be prepared.

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A blended collage showing young adults engaged in humanitarian field training and community support activities, overlaid with the message ‘Support the students who will support the world.’ The Forage Center highlights global experiential learning in crisis response, conflict transformation, and humanitarian leadership.