How Aid Works

Why are people still homeless three months after a massive relief effort in Vanuatu? We ask Tom Bamforth about who lost a house, who got a house, and whether any of those houses will still be standing when the next cyclone hits.

You can access any prison, any detention centre, any gulag or PoW camp, anywhere in the world … but you can never tell anyone what you see there. Katrina Elliott talks about why neutral observers are important and the personal cost of seeing all and saying nothing.

This is medicine stripped to the core: mending broken bodies by torchlight, in a tent in the heart of a swamp. Florence Nightingale Medal recipient Nola Henry describes how a mobile surgical team works in South Sudan and why a red cross on a white background keeps the bullets away.

A red cross or red crescent on a white background means ‘Don’t shoot!’ in every language. It’s meant to give aid workers access to the most difficult and dangerous places on earth: from prisons to battlefields. But as Dr Debra Blackmore explains, it demands strict neutrality. And with a recent spate of attacks on workers bearing the emblem, is it effective anymore?

Everyone wants to help when a major disaster hits: from relief agencies marking their turf to well-intentioned foreigners wanting to volunteer. Madeline Wilson, reporting from cyclone-ravaged Vanuatu, explains how disaster relief works and how order can emerge from chaos.

Emergency shelter is a complex thing. How do you keep diseases from spreading? How do you protect women and children? Robbie Dodds reports from Malawi, where 42,000 people are living in tents after flash floods covered a third of the country.

You don’t stop diseases like Ebola with doctors. You stop them with garbage collectors, plumbers and grave-diggers. Amanda McClelland, leader of the Red Cross Ebola response team in Sierra Leone, talks about the unsung heroes who may yet stop Ebola in its tracks, no to mention the other deadly diseases you didn’t see in today’s news.