“It’s a peculiar profession,” Margareta Wahlström says when asked about her life as a humanitarian aid worker. Wahlström has worked in crisis situations from Vietnam to Cambodia to Afghanistan, and she held high-level positions at both the United Nations and the Swedish Red Cross. Along with a stressful work culture that often rewards a certain workaholic “cowboy” mentality, the “peculiarities” of humanitarian work also mean that women are less likely than men to reach decision-making positions. Thanks in part to Wahlström, that is changing. Her consistent advocacy for gender equity is one reason she was recently awarded The Henry Dunant Medal, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s highest honor.

Young people do not fit into “cookie-cutter” stereotypes, says Michelle Chew, IFRC’s newly elected Youth Commission Chair. “Young people are very diverse and only by valuing and accepting all forms of young people can we engage communities properly.” While young people are gaining influence, she says efforts to engage with youth can seem like “box-checking exercises” that end up turning young people away. As someone with experience as a front-line volunteer with Malaysian Red Crescent ambulance crews, she says she’ll do her best to ensure the voices of young, community-based first responders are represented in the strategies, plans and decisions made by IFRC’s Governing Board.

When Bas van Rossum was elected to represent youth on the Governing Board of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), he was the youngest person to have ever served in that role. Now as he steps down as president of IFRC’s Youth Commission, he talks about the challenges ahead. “Young people are perhaps the closest to the front lines,” he says, during a special episode recorded during the IFRC Youth Forum. “So it's really important that we listen to young volunteers and that we give them space to really shape the direction we're heading.”

The vast majority of humanitarians killed in the last decade are not foreign aid workers, but local humanitarians who often face grave dangers simply trying to save lives in the communities where they live, says IFRC Secretary General Jagan Chapagain in this special episode, recorded during the United Nations General Assembly in late September. “More than 95 per cent of the humanitarians killed have been from local communities,” says Chapagain, who called on UN member states to protect aid workers and to take urgent action on a wide range of critical humanitarian concerns.

It’s quite common to refer to volunteers and first-responders as ‘heroes’. After all, they often risk their lives to save others. But in some cases, can that hero narrative do more harm than good? Ukraine Red Cross volunteer and IFRC Youth Commission member Maryna Kozhedub answers unequivocally ‘yes’, especially for young volunteers. Calling them heroes in conflict situations puts unreal expectations and pressure on people who are also impacted by crisis. “I am absolutely against hero narratives,” she says. “I'm about the narrative that volunteers work hard, but they are humans who have needs and should be protected and cared for, because this pressure would be enormous for anyone.”

Federico Rios Escobar has spent more than a decade documenting the epic struggles of migrants in South and Central America. The hardships they face in the roadless jungle known as the Darien Gap go beyond anything he’s seen before. “There’s only one way to cross and it’s on foot,” he says. “There's the mud, rain, humidity, the hot sun, rivers that suddenly grow, landslides — and many migrants have died of these things — but many are also victims of robberies, assaults, extortion, and sexual assaults.” For migrants, he says, the Red Cross volunteers there offer more than first-aid, they offer a sense of hope, safety and humanity to people in desperate conditions. Tune in to find out where you can see his award-winning, heart-breaking and inspiring photographs.

Can Costa Rica’s largest ambulance fleet become completely carbon neutral? How can we better work with the forces of nature to protect our communities from natural calamities? Is it possible to save lives and save the planet at the same time? These are some of the questions that the first woman president of the Costa Rican Red Cross, Dyanne Marenco Gonzalez, tackles during this wide-ranging interview about her 20-year humanitarian career. She also discusses the challenges of being a young woman leader in the male-dominated fields of law and emergency response.

A 25-year veteran of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Violaine des Rosiers has served as an emergency response humanitarian worker in more than 30 countries, including Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Liberia and, most recently, Ukraine. In her home country of Canada, she also served as CEO of two social innovation organizations. With all these experiences, she has a lot to say about ways humanitarians can innovate, improve and learn from the rapid changes and massive challenges of the 21st Century.