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Provides an analysis of some of the most traumatic situations involving famine and war of the last two decades, helping us to understand what it takes to be an aid worker and how important humanitarian action is today. Famine and war evoke strong emotional reactions, and for most people there is a limited amount they can do. But the relief worker has to convert emotional responses into practical action and difficult choices - whom to help and how. Their own feelings have to motivate action for others. But can they separate out their own selfish feelings and prejudices in such an emotive climat

Since the Sichuan earthquake in mid-2008, the People's Liberation Army (PLA), due toits hard work on disaster rescues, has come under international spotlight once again. This earthquake has been considered the most destructive in China since 1949. Within days of the earthquake, more than 130,000 soldiers of the PLA and armed police were rushed to the earthquake frontier. (East Asian Pol/GIGA)

During the German occupation, Greece suffered a serious malaria epidemic, and the progress in malaria control achieved by the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) mission to Greece in the 1930s was wiped out. At the same time, however, medical relief was channelled into the country through a relaxation of the Allied blockade. While the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) inherited the wartime local relief distribution networks, malaria control measures required a return of the RF scientists within the organizational and logistical framework provided by UNRRA's Medical Division. They introduced dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) spraying on a nationwide scale, revolutionizing malaria control and the idea of disease eradication, and created UNRRA's largest DDT malaria programme. As the Greek civil war unfolded, the fight against malaria acquired a dynamic which immunized it from the political issues of the postwar international scene. In the Greek case, the RF's influence on malaria control by means of DDT moved smoothly from UNRRA to the World Health Organization (WHO) framework.

These are the journals of Leanne Olson, a Canadian nurse who for four years worked in war zones around the world, delivering medicine in Bosnia, supporting rural hospitals in Africa, providing aid to people in need. She was one of the first foreigners on the scene of the Mokoto massacre in Zaire, where more than a hundred people were killed by machete-wielding Hutus. She spent one Christmas pinned down by Serbian heavy artillery with a troop of Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers. She immunized thousands of children in rural Liberia. And she has witnessed the quick progress of ethnic cleansing, watchi

Disaster relief workers experience psychological and physical needs as a direct consequence of their disaster involvement. While this impact has been acknowledged, relatively little is known about the nature of the psychosocial demands generated by prolonged exposure. Developing both comprehensive preparatory and support programmes for relief workers will require that the nature of these demands, their impact on personnel, and their implications for disaster management are documented. Describes the experiences of a group of nurses who provided relief care in Romanian orphanages in the aftermath of the 1989 revolution in that country. Suggests that prolonged disaster exposure creates specific personal demands and operational problems. Problems were described in relation to operational practices and national issues (e.g. political and cultural factors). Describes the implications of these factors for relief worker wellbeing and relief operation effectiveness, together with suggestions for managing these demands.

Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience explores the interface between spiritual and psychological care in the context of disaster recovery work, drawing upon recent disasters including but not limited to, the experiences of September 11, 2001. Each of the three sections that make up the book are structured around the cycle of disaster response and focus on the relevant phase of disaster recovery work. In each section, selected topics combining spiritual and mental health factors are examined; when possible, sections are co-written by a spiritual care provider and a mental health