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The lecture offered profound insights into the challenges of providing emergency humanitarian assistance to refugees and displaced people, including those encountered on the front lines of humanitarian operations in remote areas affected by armed conflict.

Ms. Chida brought a burqa—a full-body covering she had purchased in Kandahar under Taliban rule in 2001—and invited students to try it on, giving them a striking glimpse of the world through its mesh screen.

Then, Ms. Chida began her lecture not by talking directly about refugees, but by introducing the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) model. She explained that people have different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic, and that they receive and process information in different ways. This introductory point helped connect the communication model to the field experiences that followed: humanitarian work requires more than delivering assistance or information; it depends on listening carefully, observing how people respond, and adapting one’s tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language in order to build trust across cultures and languages, particularly when working with people affected by trauma.

With this framework in mind, Ms. Chida then went on to share her experiences of working in Kandahar, Afghanistan, under Taliban rule as the only female UN(HCR) staff member stationed there before evacuating following the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. Among other things, she shared firsthand observations about how some international media narratives might not fully capture the complexity of everyday life in Afghanistan, including the experiences of women as well as the effects of political interventions.

Ms. Chida then shared a series of harrowing experiences in the conflict settings in which she had served. Throughout her work, she carried with her the words of former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata: “Even an imperfect decision opens the way to the next step.” She also described the late Dr. Tetsu Nakamura of Peshawar-kai, a Japanese humanitarian NGO active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a spiritual mentor and said she was guided by his words: “Stay alive. As long as you are alive, there will be a next step.”

Drawing on these experiences, Ms. Chida emphasized the gap between conditions on the ground and what is actually reported. She also identified the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of a small minority as one of the fundamental problems underlying many of today’s global challenges.

In 2014, while working in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya, Ms. Chida narrowly survived what appeared to be an attempted abduction for ransom by an armed group. She was fired upon and nearly kidnapped, but a few bullets missed her, and NGO staff sheltered her, enabling her to escape at the last moment. Although the incident left her traumatized and eventually contributed to her decision to take early retirement from UNHCR, Ms. Chida did not want her work to end that way. In 2016, she therefore accepted an assignment in Ukraine, where conflicts had already been ongoing in the Donbas region.

Ms. Chida explained that she had often been trusted in international cooperation settings precisely because she was from Japan—a country she described as having a pacifist Constitution, tolerance of religious diversity, and a reputation for relative neutrality. She argued that Japan should preserve these distinctive values and maintain its own approach to contributing to world peace.

After the lecture, students shared that they had come to understand that working for international organizations requires not only compassion but also courage and a strong sense of responsibility. One student wrote, “I learnt that fieldwork is a large part of the work of the UN. I was very impressed by how she remained positive and continued her work with UNHCR even after the traumatic experience of almost being kidnapped and held hostage.” Another student wrote, “This (Ms. Chida’s lecture) made me realize that I want to transition from desk research to fieldwork (…) to research how security personnel can coordinate with humanitarian actors to protect vulnerable populations such as refugees, to provide tangible support in dangerous areas while upholding the principles of humanitarian aid.”

 After Ms. Chida’s lecture, students gave their final group presentations for the spring semester, during which they played the roles of UNHCR staff members.

 Career Profile:Ms. Etsuko Chida

Former UNHCR Head of Field Office / Adjunct Lecturer, Doshisha University, Faculty of Global and Regional Studies

Born in Kyoto Prefecture. After graduating from the Department of International Relations at Tsuda College in 1985, Ms. Chida worked as a Somalia training volunteer with the Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC), as a staff member at Human Like Integrated Academies, and as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer (JOCV), serving as a secretary at the JICA office in Western Samoa. She then earned master’s degrees from the Department of Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine and the School of Social Work at the University of Hawaiʻi.

She worked for the Child Protection Services section of the Social Services Division, Department of Human Services, State of Hawaiʻi, as a social worker responsible for casework with abused children and their families. From 1996, she served with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), holding positions mainly as Field Officer, Programme Officer, and Head of Field Office at UNHCR headquarters in Geneva and in Kenya, Afghanistan, Djibouti, Zambia, Mozambique, South Sudan, and other locations.

From 2016, she served as Durable Solutions Officer at the UNHCR Representation Office in Kyiv, Ukraine, and from 2017 as Field Officer at the Dnipro Field Office. She took early retirement from UNHCR in August 2019. As of March 2026, she works as a Kyoto Prefecture contract employee serving as a child guidance officer at a temporary child protection center, as a part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Economics at Okayama University, as a contract lecturer in the Department of Global and Regional Studies at Doshisha University, and as an OLC lecturer at Bukkyo University. She is a certified social worker and certified mental health social worker.

 Publications (in Japanese):

- Author: Afghanistan Inori no Daichi [Afghanistan: Land of Prayer], Seiryū Shuppansha, 2002.

- Co-author: Kokusai Kinkyū Jindō Shien [International Emergency Humanitarian Assistance], edited by Seiji Utsumi, Yasuhide Nakamura, and Yasushi Katsuma, Nakanishiya Publishing, 2008.

- Co-author: Genchi to Sekai o Tsunagu Watashitachi no Shigoto [Our Work Connecting the Field and the World], edited by Hirokatsu Kanō, Tsuda College Open Research Center, 2008.

- Co-author: Chikyū o Sukuu Shigoto, Dai 4-kan [Work That Saves the Earth, Vol. 4], Chōbunsha, 2008.