If aid work feels like survival mode sometimes, you’re not alone.
I’ve taken showers with more insects than water drops on my skin, been pulled out of my tent at 2 am and held at gunpoint for hours, and survived hundreds of death-by-powerpointless meetings in HQ.
So when I say I help you feel better "no matter what life throws at you, or where you’re stationed”, I mean it.
Whatever you’re going through, I get it.
I’m Yasmina — or Yas.
I help aid workers feel better amid chaos, hardship and grief, and create a life that’s purposeful and full of possibility.
Half-Algerian, half-Spanish, I’m really the product of the 13 countries I’ve had the privilege to call “home.”
In 12 years as an aid worker, I have been around the block:
served in some of the world’s most challenging contexts — including several L3 humanitarian emergencies — across East and West Africa, the Middle East and Asia
worked for a wide range of UN entities and INGOs
got to explore HQ, regional, national and front-line focus and dynamics
contributed to the sector through coordination, advocacy, comms, planning and reporting.
built and managed several teams
cried 1,000 goodbye tears from every job I’ve had the honor to be trusted with.
I understand the pressure, politics, and emotional toll you’re navigating every day
This life gives us so much — unforgettable friendships, wild experiences, purpose like nothing else.
The most solid friends one could ever ask for, experiences beyond our wildest imagination, unforgettable moments of pure joy, cultural expansion, and a sense of purpose.
But it can come with a high cost
The high-stress and toxic office dynamics, the unspeakable grief we carry when friends get killed on duty, the loneliness of long-distance relationships (if we manage to sustain relationships at all), the struggle to keep a healthy routine, the difficulty of building a long-term home base.
The system’s mental health support? Pretty much nonexistent.
— and when it does show up, it often misses the point.
I remember getting “Happiness Calendars” and motivational emails from well meaning staff welfare teams. Cute. But when you’re overworked, stuck in what feels like the middle of nowhere, missing yet another important family gathering, covered in mosquito bites, or grieving the brutal killing of your colleagues — the “Happiness Calendar” can suck it. Not because people don’t care — but because they don’t understand what this life really throws at us.
Therapy didn’t feel like what I needed: I didn’t feel broken, I didn’t need fixing.
I knew there was nothing weird about finding it tough to handle tough things.
So I had to figure out how to be okay — even when things weren’t.
I signed up for coaching and became obsessed with neuroscience and cognitive behavioral principles.
I learned to:
Manage the never-ending to-do lists and high-stakes deadlines hanging over my head
Navigate the daily traps of office and inter-organization politics
Overcome self-doubt and reduce the volume of other people’s opinions in my head
Process the moral injuries, guilt, and compounding forms of grief
Build relationships that mattered and felt like home
Get a handle on my people pleasing tendencies
Understand and conquer my mind’s reflexes, biases, programming to make them work for me, not against me.
It was hard, though, as the traditional coaching, and other CBT-based solutions are completely disconnected from the realities of our sector. Some of the advice like felt a bit Lalalandish, frankly.
So my new obsession became to tailor this in-depth work to the specific complexities of the humanitarian and development sector.
That’s how Rewired For Good was created.
As a space for humanitarians and any aid worker to gain clarity and control over their lives, no matter how harsh the circumstances, so they can have the highest impact at work without deprioritizing their own well-being.
The Rewired for Good process
A simple, frontline-tested way to heal, build balance, direction and momentum, in depth, and in alignment with your values. And for good. It’s your roadmap to whatever you want to create in your:
We strengthen your skills around 4 core pillars:
intentional thinking | emotional capacity
self-appreciation | external curiosity
The programme is adapted to your own pace guided by 4 steps:
Stabilization — to address what hurts most, immediately
Clarity and planning — to define the vision you want
Implementation, capacity boosting — to create the vision and build the muscle required for it
Monitoring, evaluation, adjusting — to ensure your results are inevitable