How Aid Works

Nuran Higgins knows how hard it can be to live from hand to mouth, not knowing where the next meal is coming from. Once homeless, she is now helping to improve the way aid is delivered from Nepal to Afghanistan.

No matter whether you're on a remote Pacific Island or in Syria's largest city, toilets are critical to any humanitarian operation. Sanitation expert Pete McArdle gets to the very bowels of the matter.

To run an Ebola treatment you need big piles of cash. In this age of plastic cards and electronic transfers, providing aid costs money. And while you're handling the finances for a multi-million dollar recovery program for a whole country, where do you find time to teach yourself to swim and compete in a triathlon? Meet the Red Cross iron woman of finance, Patrea Ryan, who helps explain where the money goes and how it helps.

One minute you're in the Himalayas of northern Pakistan helping communities recover from devastating floods. The next minute you're in an outback Aboriginal community in Central Australia helping Aboriginal women give birth. How do you switch realities and cope with the culture shock? Nurse Yvonne Ginifer shares her secrets.

Every day, silent plagues of mosquito-borne diseases are killing thousands around the globe and Kym Blechynden is leading the charge to beat them. Working across the Asia-Pacific, how do you take on the mighty mosquito to stop killer diseases like dengue, malaria and zika in their tracks?

What's it like having an aid worker for a father? How does that change the way you see the world? In this special discussion, veteran aid worker and humanitarian legend, Bob Handby passes the baton to his son, water engineer Mark. They reveal how a love for humanity is handed down the generations.

Why the hell does cholera still exist? Libby Bowell, who's been tackling preventable and horrifying diseases for several years, explains the perfect storm of conditions that come together to cause an epidemic.

Is it time for more intelligent aid? Red Cross International Director, Peter Walton, reflects on his days in the field and how we can turn aid on its head; from using drones to help in disasters, to using local Pacific businesses to supply relief goods to their own communities.

Imagine facing thousands of people needing shelter after an earthquake. Then imaging trying to coordinate shelter arrangements in three languages at once. Shelter specialist Leeanne Marshall shines a light on the challenges of delivering one of the fundamental necessities of life; a roof overhead.

Modern day Florence Nightingales explore the big questions in emergency health: how do you provide medical care with minimal equipment? How do you keep your cool when people are dying around you because there aren't enough doctors, nurses, medicines or time? Why are children still dying of hunger? How do field hospitals work?