Aid work hard but fulfilling

When New Zealand-trained ophthalmologist Neil Murray found himself doing a cataract operation in a tent in the middle of a Pakistan duststorm, he improvised.

"We got some sheets and dampened them, because dust is obviously a contaminant in eye surgery," he says matter-of-factly.

Murray, one of New Zealand's 120 ophthalmologists, has spent part of each year for the past 12 years working as a volunteer for Christian Blind Mission International (CBMI), an organisation working to eradicate treatable blindness.

About 30 of New Zealand's ophthalmologists work voluntarily for part of each year. Murray is one of the most travelled and has worked in Pakistan, Kenya, Nepal, Palestine and Rwanda.

Many professionals save for a relaxed retirement, but Murray and his wife, Tania, have saved hard to be become fulltime aid volunteers.

In March they will rent their Tauranga home and leave a private ophthalmology practice to spend 10 months in Ghana.

Although the Murrays will pay their own way, future CBMI assignments may provide a stipend of $250 a week to cover food and travelling costs, says Murray. In return, he will work 12 to 16 hours a day to help to clear a backlog of cataract operations in Third World countries.

So why would a well-paid ophthalmologist swap his life in Tauranga for tents, the threat of disease and scant income?

"It's a big step, but once you make the decision to go you can save lives," Murray says. "At present, 25 million people are blind from treatable cataracts and their children have to lead them around. With one operation I can release them from that."

Aucklanders Warwick and Jo Bowden - who between them hold teaching, special education and nursing qualifications - understand those sentiments.

The Bowdens have worked in riot-torn Papua New Guinea for six years, developing community-based rehabilitation and special education services for organisations that include CBMI. They travel by plane, truck and banana-boat to remote destinations where they hold training workshops.

Jo Bowden says the days are long, hot and challenging. "There's often no power or running water and our office looks out to a volcano which belches ash and smoke 24 hours a day.

"There is a breakdown in law and order so the environment is volatile. And we miss our three children, their partners, and our little grandchildren."

They stay because they have a chance to give something to people who have little hope. "We encourage people to understand the causes of disability - in Papua New Guinea people blame sorcery and evil spirits," Bowden says.

Waiheke Island resident Renzo Benfatto, an emergency relief manager for ChildFund (formerly Christian Children's Fund), also knows the difference an aid worker can make.

Benfatto, highly qualified in political science and business management, has spent 20 years managing emergency relief programmes in areas of conflict.

Back in New Zealand after managing community-based programmes in Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia, Benfatto says working in disaster areas with failed infrastructure - as happened in New Orleans - can be tough. He has had malaria twice.

He says although the satisfaction in the aid sector can be addictive, it is not ideal for people with young children, and he finds the separation hard to deal with.

Benfatto is paid, and says that although aid work will never make anyone rich, it pays the bills.

Also paid is Aucklander Jane Thomson, an operations manager for World Vision in Afghanistan. She is a trained nurse with an MA in intercultural studies and an MBA in international development.

Thomson is responsible for managing World Vision's work in Afghanistan, where she manages 100 staff and has an annual budget of $21 million for projects that include health services and building schools, roads and dams.

She says she expresses her Christianity in practical ways that show respect for human dignity.

Thomson says 12-hour workdays are common and, although the cultural experiences and comradeship of aid work are a bonus, the long days and security risks take their toll.

"In Iraq, when the terrorists were increasingly targeting their kidnappings, killings and suicide bombings against international aid workers I was a bit afraid."

Many charity workers survive the pressures by combining periods of aid work with commercial-sector employment.

But how do employers rate people with a background in charity?

Thomson says that when she returned to conventional employment for seven years she found her charity work valued highly. "It had prepared me well for what is a rapidly changing, multi-cultural and global workplace."

Murray, who employs 30 people, says the medical profession looks favourably on aid work experience because such people are adaptable and flexible and the medical profession thrives on those attributes.

But Benfatto says employers don't always appreciate what aid workers are trained to do.

"There is an idea that humanitarian aid work is for young, inexperienced people doing their OE, and that because it is a non-profit sector aid workers are not as efficient or accountable.

"Yet I use the same tools used to manage a private enterprise. To be a good senior manager in the humanitarian aid sector you need a good knowledge of financial management, human resources, public relations, marketing, and IT systems," Benfatto says.

Thomson believes it is probably harder to readjust to New Zealand life after aid work than it is to attract the approval of an employer for a conventional job.

"You have to adapt so much to survive and be effective in a foreign culture and often a different religious context that when you return home you sometimes feel as though you don't belong or fit any more," she says.

Murray says re-entry to New Zealand culture always comes as a shock.

"New Zealand is home, no question, but it is challenging to come back and recognise that affluence is okay too," he says.

The Bowdens also find it difficult when they return.

"In Papua New Guinea, children with disabilities are carried to school on the backs of their brothers and sisters.

"When we return it is hard to hear people who have so much complain so loudly that they do not have enough," says Bowden.