Raquel's story | Local communities: allies, intermediaries or counterparts?
When men in uniform stopped her at a checkpoint and refused to let her through, Raquel Moreno was quite surprised to see her fellow bus passengers step up to help. However, just a few years later, it was a group of civilians who blocked her truck and forced her team to flee, leaving all the humanitarian assistance behind. Whether as sympathetic allies, tough counterparts or go-betweens, local community members play a critical role in most humanitarian negotiations. Let’s hear what Raquel has learned from her experience negotiating with and for people in crises. This episode is part of the second season of Frontline Negotiators: Stories from the Field. It features personal stories told by humanitarian professionals as they negotiate to access, assist and protect people in crisis. Across the season you will hear first-hand accounts from humanitarian workers from different backgrounds, agencies, nationalities and technical profiles who will share about the challenge of delivering aid in some of the most high-pressure environments in the world. The series is produced by the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation.