What's in it for you?

Different people have different motivations. Here are some of the reasons our HSPs have given for working here.

"Seeing my involvement make tangible results in desperate situations"

"The support given by Oxfam makes it possible to realise rapid results"

"Emergencies don't seem real on TV, but when you're walking through a camp, you realise this is about people like you and me, with their own personalities, individual histories and problems. It's important for me to feel I'm doing something to help people as intelligent and capable as us, but who just find themselves in impossible situations."

"You have a great deal of autonomy in the decisions you make"

"I'd hate to wake up every day and know what I was going to be doing"

"You build up a rich bank of experience quickly from working in different setups"

"The job security of being on an open-ended contract"

"You have a sense of belonging to an organisation rather than feeling out on your own"

Personal account

Here is an account from HSP Programme Manager, Jolly Shah on her experience in Aceh.

"It was some time last September that I landed in a place called Calang, in Aceh, on the west coast of Sumatra. It is a tiny peninsula, not wider than a kilometre with sea on three sides, so everything was destroyed when the tsunami hit. People only had 15 minutes' warning, and only about a thousand survived of its 10,000 population. With regular earthquakes and the risk of further tsunamis I had to establish an early warning system.

"This was my first assignment with Oxfam, with responsibility for 120 staff. Calang had already had several different managers in six months, so another challenge was to give programme staff some stability and trust in management. I was completely overwhelmed by a special farewell I received on completion of my five weeks. Calang, although my shortest deployment so far, will remain very special to me."