From Grocery Store Clean-Up to Gaza and Greece
Christy Dow Hoke on her life and travels working for UNICEF
Lokichoggio. Khartoum. Addis Ababa. These city names roll easily off the tongue of Trinity Western alumna, Christy Dow Hoke ’94, as she lists the many places where her work with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has taken her.
A missionary kid, Dow Hoke lived in Nairobi from Grade 6 until high school graduation. “I always assumed I would do something overseas, but I hadn’t really considered the many ways a person can help and serve others without being in a traditional missionary role,” she explains. Working in the relief and development arena was a career she stumbled upon somewhat accidentally.
Dow Hoke’s journey began in a grocery store the summer after graduation, where she worked as a janitor to earn money for a plane ticket to Kenya. When her original plan to join a film crew in Uganda fell through, she volunteered for an NGO called Christian Mission Aid, a job which eventually led to a post with UNICEF. “I walked into the UNICEF office in Nairobi, resume in hand, and was fortunate to have been exactly what they were looking for — a young, enthusiastic woman with more ideas than experience,” she recalls.
I hadn’t really considered the many ways a person can help and serve others without being in a traditional missionary role.
Over the next 12 years, Dow Hoke held various public relations and fundraising positions for UNICEF, jobs which took her to lands of war and poverty like southern Sudan and Somalia.
Although she describes her time in the field as “protected and safe,” Dow Hoke says that these experiences were life-changing, both positively and negatively. “It’s impossible to do this kind of work and not be changed by it. I have a more cynical view of humanity, having been confronted daily with the result of people’s struggle for power and control.” But she adds, “I’ve also seen the illimitable strength of the human spirit in overcoming loss and hardship. I’ve learned that my life and troubles are insignificant by comparison.”
In June 2008, Dow Hoke left UNICEF to start D-H Solutions, a company which provides fundraising and public relations strategies for United Nations agencies.
Since the founding of D-H Solutions, Dow Hoke’s career has taken her to the West Bank, where she helped UNICEF raise money in the wake of the conflict in Gaza; to Copenhagen, where she assisted a UN operations group with public relations strategies; and to Ethiopia, where she worked with UNICEF on fundraising efforts.
It’s impossible to do this kind of work and not be changed by it.
In the midst of all this, Dow Hoke found time to get married, begin an MA in communications, and learn Greek in preparation for her move to Athens, the new home base of D-H Solutions.
After 15 years of service to communities across the globe, Dow Hoke explains that she stays motivated by the knowledge that her work has an impact on people’s lives. “I hope that my contribution has helped more children drink safe water, receive vaccinations, and sit in school classrooms with a pencil in their hand,” she says.
by Laura Ralph '07
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