The Invictus Initiative

The Invictus Initiative, arguably the best international humanitarian organization out there right now for its 'relationships first' approach and varied team composition. Having the privilege of traveling with this organization gave me the inside look as to what makes their model far more effective when compared to much larger operations. What I immediately noticed was the more controlled atmosphere Invictus seemed to impart wherever we went. Where most humanitarian organizations prefer to rush in, knock out whatever plans they created before hand and leave, Invictus takes the longer approach. Our first goal was always to sit down and talk with the group of people we had identified as needing our assistance and see if that really was the case. More often than not the information we had going into a location needed to be updated and what we thought was best at the time no longer happened to be true. By far the most difficult aspect to this approach was how it forced you to stop exclusively thinking about crafting a solution. For most when presented with a problem, we immediately try to jump to a solution of our own design. Here, jumping to solutions frequently gets in the way of learning more about their needs, and just because an idea is a solution in our eyes does not make it so for them. However, after spending the length of our trip observing the effectiveness of getting to know those who you are trying to help first, it became apparent that there is no other way to go about it.