Published on August 20, 2024 by Sonoma Sun
The remarkable Erin Blankenship, an analyst for the UN World Food Project currently in Gaza and a former professional soccer player who advocates internationally for equality for women in sport, was visiting her sister Leslie Blankenship in El Verano when she spoke with Anna Pier.
Education? Bachelors from Trinity University in San Antonio. It had my 4 S’s – sunshine, soccer, scholarship and study abroad. I studied International Affairs and Mandarin and spent two years in China. Since then I have done an MA in International Peace and Security and an MA in Conflict Security and Development, both from Kings College London. While at university I played professional soccer for West Ham United FC and Crystal Palace FC.
Talk about your work to combat inequality in women’s sport. I founded Equal Playing Field (EPF) with a friend. Our first Guinness World Record was a 90-minute FIFA football match on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. 33 players from 20 countries climbed up carrying the goalposts and flour to mark the lines. Climb to the top of the world to prove you are equal!
The next world record game took place at the Dead Sea – the lowest point on Earth! We set 5 world records for women in football to demonstrate in the most obvious way possible that women are just as capable as men. We challenge gender inequality in and through sport, from grassroots to elite. We inspire girls and women (and their allies) to break free from the limitations placed on them; anything is possible.
To date, EPF has supported camps and events for more than 8,500 girls and women from 72 countries and we have hosted three high-level political equality summits, bringing together 450 of the world’s leading figures and trailblazers in women’s football and sport.
Talk about the World Food Project. Currently, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) employs about 30,000 people in 90 countries. The WFP provides food to nearly 150 million people every year. It is the logistical arm of the UN. I am a conflict and emergency analyst. My job is to find out what is going on, what the circumstances are, who is who, who is safe to work with, who the stakeholders are and what is causing the vulnerability.
The focus is, of course, on food security in conflict areas. I help WFP identify where we can work. Recently I have been in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon. I make sure we do no harm. I have spent the last four months between Gaza and the West Bank.
I was also part of emergency response teams and provided assistance in many countries – in Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, on the Sudan-Egypt border and in Turkey after the earthquake.
What do you like about your job? The biggest advantage is that I never get bored. I get great intellectual satisfaction from solving complex problems. I try to mitigate the effects of bad things and I enjoy working in this field. I have the freedom to focus on values and international norms rather than purely political interests. I am more inclined towards principled action than a political agenda.
Can you talk about your current work in Gaza? Professionally, work is the sharpest manifestation of my skills. But this year I have been hit hard emotionally and psychologically. There is a catastrophic shortage of food, and it is painfully obvious in the humanitarian community that hunger is a weapon of war. To meet the demand, 200 trucks would have to be loaded with food alone every day. But at best, there are only 80 trucks a day carrying everything. Some days and weeks, the IDF does not allow any trucks through.
This is a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law. This is a textbook definition of genocide. I have expectations of those in power and they are failing us. We are failing in our basic humanitarian duties. To date, 287 aid workers have been killed in Gaza – more than in the entire history of humanitarian crises since the founding of the UN.
What does a typical day look like for you in Gaza? At 6am, I get up and catch up. At 8am, I discuss what’s coming with my manager. Why? For example, trying to find alternative routes to bring in food, since the Rafah border crossing has been closed. I talk to community leaders or NGOs. We are constantly developing strategies to allocate the food that arrives and get it to the communities that have the most urgent and pressing need. Or, more often, we provide to those that we could safely reach under the circumstances. And we need to do this in a way that doesn’t create security risks for the communities or the people we’re working with on the ground, nor contribute to longer-term sensitivity issues within and between communities in a context of such extreme desperation.
What are your coping strategies? Focus on the smaller parts of the problem and find allies along the way. Consider the human aspect, so you’re not alone. As a nerd, I process my trauma on an intellectual level. And I take a lot of unpaid leave. I’m uncompromising about the time I need. And I quit every four or five years and spend a lot of time with other people in my life, in other, far away places.
The interview was conducted by Anna Pier
