Abstract

Please join us for a talk, Q&A and drinks with a seasoned practitioner, reflecting on her work and this sphere of work in general.

Fiona O’Brien began her career as a district reporter on the Kent and Sussex Courier before moving to Reuters. She spent several years as a foreign correspondent based in Africa and the Middle East, reporting on conflicts and post-conflict societies including Iraq, Sudan, the DRC and Madagascar. She was a consultant editor for the United Nations in Khartoum, and spent three years as editor of London-based Gulf States News. She now lectures in journalism at Kingston University.

About the CGHR Practitioner Series:

For those hoping to pursue a career in the ‘Third Sector’, especially amidst a broad range of organisations and agencies whose mandates can be loosely collected under the umbrella headings of ‘Human Rights and Social Justice’, ‘Conflict and Security’ or ‘Development and Humanitarian Aid,’ the terrain can be difficult to navigate. A sound academic training, the kind provided by Cambridge University, is important but certainly not enough to prepare students for the transition into working in this sector. Through a mixture of substantive discussion, personal reflection and practical advice, the CGHR Practitioner Series brings together high‐level experts working in these fields and creates a forum in which students and researchers can listen and ask questions about what this work actually involves, seek out reflections from experience on the dilemmas and challenges faced, and probe the skill set and experience needed to forge a career in these fields.

More about the CGHR Practitioner series: http://www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk/events/practitioner_series