On Easter Sunday, Melanie was fired. She wasn’t a bureaucrat collecting dust—she was a frontline worker at USAID, managing programs that delivered food, medical care, and protection to people in some of the most dangerous places on earth. She gave nearly a decade of her life to America’s humanitarian mission. And in return, she was told her job was no longer in the “best interest of the United States.”
What follows isn’t just a letter. It’s a eulogy for the promise we once made to the world—a promise to stand for dignity, decency, and life itself.
The Letter They Don’t Want You to See
On Easter Sunday, my dream job with USAID was terminated. I was notified only several weeks prior that my role as an Agreement Officer's Representative, overseeing lifesaving humanitarian assistance programs, was no longer in the best interest of the United States.
I joined USAID in 2016, and worked most of that time in the Office of Food for Peace and Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. The work that my organization does saves lives, alleviates suffering, and aims to make the world a better place. The times I cried reading reports of dire needs in other countries, seeing firsthand how people live who rely on our assistance, hearing accounts of mothers and children who are barely surviving... the job was never easy. As a highly empathetic person, I carried the weight of this suffering with me daily. Knowing aid was not reaching people who desperately need it, and knowing it may never reach them again breaks me. I shed so many tears so far this year. For myself and my future, but mainly for the children who are not getting malnutrition treatment, the widowed mothers who rely on our generosity to feed their families, the girls who have nowhere safe to turn after facing abuse at home. For the promises we have broken to people throughout the world, and the promises we have broken to people here at home.
I spent the last few years focusing on Yemen, which is currently one of the world's most dire humanitarian crises. After / was notified of my employment termination and while I was at our office building working hard to save the programs I spent years building up, I found out I was suffering the loss of an early pregnancy. I undoubtedly believe that was caused by the stress / was put under by this administration, and my doctor inclined to agree. After this happened I stayed at the office, pushing through my own sadness while trying to ensure that the humanitarian programs I care so deeply about could continue. By the end of the day, nearly all of them were terminated. I had access to medical care. But I knew, at that exact moment, that women overseas were losing that same right-midwives left unpaid, clinics shuttered, no ambulances available. And since then I have often wondered: why would some people feel more compassion for my personal loss than for the women overseas who now face that pain alone? I grieve not only for myself, but for all of them.
During my time with USAID, I worked many late nights in the office, staying up until 3 AM to meet end of fiscal year deadlines. I hid under desks at embassies and ran to bunkers in the middle of the night with missiles coming toward the city. I held people as they cried over the atrocities they witnessed first hand. I functioned on nothing but coffee and the hope that I could make the world a better place for people.
I will always look back on my almost decade with USAID as some of the best years of my life. I started my career there at age 23, grew into a real adult there, and traveled the world there; I represented the United States in ten different countries. I worked with some of the best people this world has to offer, and met people that I know will be lifelong friends. Someone much further in her career once told me she had never seen a group of women uplift and support each other like one of my work teams had done. / will always be proud of that./ would not be the person I am without the time I had in this industry. I know that if twelve year old me could see the future and know who she would grow up to be, she would be excited for what the future holds for her.
While I am happy for all of the experiences I had, more than anything I am heartbroken that it is over. Watching the slow dismantling of an industry and the organization I dedicated my whole adult life to has been nothing short of traumatizing. The bags under my eyes and grays on my head are one small reflection of how I feel inside. I lost the job I loved at the same time I lost the chance to love a child that I was excited for, to start a next chapter for my family.
I cannot say this enough times: US foreign assistance saves lives and helps keep America safe. Humanitarian assistance and emergency food aid was not able to continue following the Executive Orders and chaotic messaging received from high political levels. I truly believe this to be intentional, making a villain of USAID and making us unable to continue doing our jobs. USAID is not a criminal organization, and USAID is not simply being merged into the State Department as people have been made to think. The humanitarian architecture has been dismantled, and lifesaving aid cannot continue with the extremely limited amount of staff that are yet to be terminated. The government waste, abuse, and inefficiency that occurred during this process is astronomical.
This is not the future I want for the child that I still hope to have one day. I hope my children, should I be lucky enough to have them, will grow up to be compassionate, empathetic, and kind. I hope they treat the world's most vulnerable with dignity and respect. I hope they are proud of the America they will live in. We are at our best when we extend compassion, not just within our borders, but beyond them. I will never waiver from the belief that all those in the world deserve help, and I will never stop finding ways to make the world a better place both for myself and for my future children.
-Melanie, USAID staff member of ten years
What You Can Do Right Now
Melanie's story is not unique. But it is urgent. This administration has intentionally dismantled a pillar of the postwar order—a system built by Americans, not just to lead the world, but to serve it. If we abandon that role now, we may not get it back. And the people who will pay the price aren't sitting in Washington boardrooms. They're sitting in bombed-out clinics, in famine zones, in refugee camps.
Call your members of Congress and demand they protect humanitarian aid. It takes less than a minute—find your representative here.
And if you want to support USAID staffers like Melanie, who have lost their jobs, you can donate here. Every contribution matters.
History will ask what we did in this moment. Let’s make sure we have an answer.
