Question: How many people have you helped in your lifetime?

George Foden answered on 3 Mar 2023:

That’s a good question, but its very difficult to answer. I personally am just part of a much bigger group of people that are trying to help. We work in the humanitarian sector, which is made up of lots of different charities like the Red Cross and Oxfam, and they go to places that have been affected by disaster or conflict and try to help people. I support them in their programmes through QSAND.

QSAND has been used lots of times by different charities and governments to help with rebuilding, so we don’t really know how many houses that have been rebuilt were done so with support from QSAND. I have directly been involved in helping projects in India, Nepal, China, the Philippines, Tunisia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later this year will be going to Malawi to get some first hand experience working on the ground.

It’s important to remember though that humanitarian organisations should be trying to help people to recover themselves. We are not there to save people and build their homes for them or anything like that. Most people recover and rebuild by themselves, and humanitarians can help them by supporting that process. Affected people are very resilient, and they do all of the most important work themselves, sometimes with our input.