By Peter Joshi, UN-seconded to Uganda and Kenya by Danish Refugee Council’s Stand-by-Roster.

Relief workers usually do not find themselves in situations where they may solve a problem; No, they have to solve the problem as people will otherwise die.

Two words are essential for members of Danish Refugee Council’s (DRC) Stand-by-Roster: flexibility and observation. Every time you accept a secondment, these two concepts overtake everything you do. More often than not, you will not know what you’ll meet at your destination, there’s only little information to go by, and communication with the field is non-existing as you will be among the first relief workers there.

But you observe suffering and misery and flexibility takes over; you know, you have to help the people, you meet – and you want to.

The job description is merely guidelines
We have job descriptions – but they are guidelines. They are based on what others have done in similar situations but they are not exhaustive. An example: as a field officer, it is my job to make sure that the refugees, I work with, feel safe and secure. If they don’t, it is my responsibility to find someone, who can reassure them, and maybe even have a talk with the persons instigating the sense of insecurity. In doing this, I have worked with people from all walks of life.

Another example: during a typical week in a Somali refugee camp, I held a meeting with a local leader for a group of refugees, who had been at the edge of the law for months; I had a discussion with a couple of high-ranking army officers, who wanted money (we didn’t give them any), and spent a couple of days making sure a group a refugees received building materials for their houses and found men to help them build.

I also spoke with a young refugee woman, who had been raped, to see how we could help her. Her family would no longer accept her at home. A couple of ambassadors and delegations arrived and I arranged for police, cars, coffee and cake, showed them around, answered questions concerning money and budgets -  and finished the week in the company of journalists from Belgium in need of a briefing and a tour.

24-7-365
Non-flexible and non-observant relief workers have to get out of bed very early to catch up. But actually we all do that anyway; we often work 7 days a week from early morning to late night. We keep taps on what goes on in our refugee camps, both by visiting the camps and by doing all the administrative work, we make sure, we receive funds from donors and that any problem that arise is solved as well and soon as possible. We may not always achieve top marks for the result but we do for trying.

Relief workers in the field are well-accustomed to humble lodgings; small, dark, hot rooms, a bed and a chair each for you and your roommate. Due to the security situation, we live in compounds and cannot leave it on our days off. Toilets without water and water for all other necessities just a few hours a day. There is of cause no hot water and you have to deal with all varieties of creepie-crawlies, snakes, scorpions, spiders, etc.

Why do we do it?
The relief worker is a generalist with a high threshold for hardship and stress and with the ability to be fast, competent and innovative. Because it is a matter of human lives, of people living on the edge, of making a difference. Life in the camps is hard and when you meet their inhabitants, people who just want to feel safe, you realise how very good your own life is.

My job as a relief worker is the best in the world. It is the job with most frustrations. With long and hard working days and time not spent with family and friends. But it is also a string of ever changing days, and all the little things in the lives of the people, we work with, that makes you wonder, cry and laugh.

The relief worker is there to offer help to those in need – and we do it because the job offers the best job satisfaction in the world. Because it is a calling. Because we are flexible and observing. Because we are human.