When the structure, pace, and purpose of humanitarian life suddenly fall away, what fills the space that’s left?

In this Embodying Change special, host Melissa Pitotti brings together Jennifer Lentfer and Hasangani (Hasi) Edema-Reynolds to explore the eight themes that come up again and again in peer support groups for humanitarians navigating change: identity, commitment, rhythm, balance, boundaries, resonance, joy, and connection.

Through storytelling and deep reflection, they trace a path from loss to renewal, asking what it means to stay true to your purpose while rebuilding your life beyond your job title. If you’ve ever questioned who you are outside of your work, this conversation will help you find language, hope, and solidarity for the road ahead.

Today’s guests

Jennifer Lentfer
Farm girl turned aid worker turned writer, coach, and communications strategist. Jennifer runs EE Consulting, curates the blog How Matters, and shares poetry and collage at JenniferLentfer.com. Formerly named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s “100 Women to Follow on Twitter,” she supports people to usher in political courage, cultural humility, and an ethic of care within social change organizations. She recently became the Director of Communications for The Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, USA.

→ Connect with her on Linkedin.

Hasangani (Hasi) Edema-Reynolds
A humanitarian professional and researcher bridging the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. Over nine years, particularly in fragile and post-conflict contexts, Hasi has built expertise in multi-sector response, recovery and resilience programming, humanitarian advocacy, program management/implementation, and fundraising. Currently with CDA Collaborative Learning, she supports action research on accountability, conflict sensitivity, and shifting power, and advises on responsible transitions and organizational change. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Master’s in Humanitarian Assistance from Tufts University. Outside work, Hasi finds joy in singing, piano, painting, and travel.

→ Connect with her on LinkedIn.

You’ll learn

• Why grieving the loss of a professional identity is a vital first step
• How to honor commitment to communities while pivoting
• Rhythms and boundaries that sustain life after intense roles
• Ways to translate humanitarian experience so it resonates beyond the sector
• Why joy and connection are essential, not luxuries, for renewal
• Simple practices to keep peer support alive between meetings

Resources recommended

• ConnexUs Stopping As Success
• CDA Collaborative Learning Projects
• Reimagining Research Course offered by Pause and Effect
• Why Resisting Urgency is the First Step in Transforming Organizational Cultures, Bridge of Hope Summit (2025)
• Donor Transformation Challenge, CIVICUS, 2024
• Visiter Genève, guided tours by Catherine Hubert-Girod

Poem: The Death of the Change Maker

By Jennifer Lentfer
Shared with permission.
Originally published on How Matters: https://www.how-matters.org/2020/05/04/the-death-of-the-changemaker/

I gaze deep into the rectangle below.
There, at the bottom of the six feet
lays the changemaker.
The creator of grand, heroic strategy and ideas
to change everything, at once,
to change minds and behaviors and alignment,
magically.

Oh changemaker, how close you lived to
conquer and capture and control and contract,
how tightly you gripped, fixed,
how you wrestled your longing for
certainty, comfort, convenience,
how you constructed causation,
how you were only taught/thought one way.

How you relied on fanciful linearity,
determinate, ambitious, utilitarian
force of will plodding, plotting, spent, alone!
How you thought you had to carry it all…

Now changemaker, laying there in this plot,
unable to influence…anything
amidst the falling shovelfuls of soil.
There, there, I lay — the irony of former self-elevation
no longer lost on me.

The earth will fill in my body,
its softness, loaminess reclaimed —
dismantled and expanded without all the effort.
Need, renewal, security looms.
It is already welded-ly woven.

The maker will be rebirthed.
We don't know when,
but up through the dirt,
the small, incremental, devoted changer may arrive.

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Join the conversation

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