Meet Class 12: Unni Karunakara

Unni first heard about THNK from a colleague who had participated in the program. “Kate Mackintosh and I are old friends and we worked together at Médecins Sans Frontières. We were catching up one day and she told me about this fantastic thing she was a part of.” When his term as president ended and he began exploring his next move, Kate suggested that it might be a perfect opportunity to join THNK.

Although he’s no longer president, Unni is still in a position to shape the organization. As a member of a committee dedicated to innovation and transformational thinking at Médecins Sans Frontières, the timing is perfect to learn new creative collaboration skills at THNK. “I have something that I’m engaged with which forces me professionally to think about transformation, innovation, and creativity. THNK is a good program to accompany me on that process.”

With many years spent in the field, Unni is not afraid to talk about the dark side of his work. “In my 20 years as a humanitarian worker, a lot of what I dealt with is not very inspiring. It’s all about the dark side of humanity. Of course, there are flashes of great inspiration and empathy and hope, but most of it has been rather dark. I work in an area where burnout is quite a problem, and over the years I felt the need to take some time off to focus much more on creative things.”

Unni is inspired by Japanese architect Keiji Ashizawaby’s DIY furniture workshop-turned-social enterprise. Following the earthquake and ensuing tsunami which devastated the Tohoku region in 2011, Keiji founded the Ishinomaki Laboratory as a way of helping community recovery. Community members build simple furniture needed for temporary housing. The locals have learned new skills, raised funds for rebuilding efforts, and improved morale through the act of creation. Unni admires this principle and has been exploring how he might apply something similar in the troubled regions where he has worked in Africa and Asia as a way to promote long-term healing in these populations. “Working with your hands, you’re creating. You can shape the outcome. It’s like a surgeon doing a surgery and then the patient walks afterwards.”

Coming from an organization whose mandate is to provide healthcare for people in crisis, it’s no surprise that Unni is ready to take a step back and to find a new way of interacting with the world. “I’m at that personal point in my life where I feel like I need something that I can control the outcome of. When you’ve done 20 years of humanitarian work, you start thinking about these things- about being able to be more in control of something. Not in a ‘being in charge’ way, but the whole simplicity of things. Simplicity of working with your hands, a thing of beauty and it is of use. Simplicity is something I’ve been thinking about for quite a long time.”