A guest post by Rachel Kurzyp a participant in Save the Children's Emergency Foundation Course

The Emergency Course is held yearly for Save the Children's employees. The course allows participants to develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours needed to operate safely and effectively in a breaking emergency.

Life in Sendonia

A week in Sendonia felt like a year. A year of learning, experiences and emotions compacted, and it wasn't till the end when I looked back on the first day that I realised how far we had all come.

Some thirty individuals across Asia-Pacific, from various NGO's, attended the Emergency Foundation Course. Headed for regional Victoria, we were all bundled onto a bus, handed our briefing and left wondering if this really was like being on an emergency deployment.
Many people, me included, have romanticised the idea of being deployed into an emergency but the course wasn't at all what I expected. We were exhausted although some of us were pumped up on coffee, we were stiff although not from exercise from sitting still for hours instead and we were hungry as food hadn't crossed our minds for days.

Split into teams we created new NGO's, organisational structures, wrote position descriptions and press releases, took photos, ordered food supplies, organised trucks for distributions, constructed and conducted a needs analysis, secured our perimeter and delivered proposals.

When we weren't huddled in groups crowed around desks writing frantically, we were having lectures on key areas of humanitarian work. All areas were covered, from a basic history lesson, to how important it is to account for every box of supplies at the distribution centre.

I think it's safe to say that we all got a good taste of what it would be like to be in a real emergency. To our surprise most of the week was spent preparing our response instead of actually responding. Nevertheless we pushed and challenged ourselves, forged strong friendships and learnt more than we ever would from reading books.

For me, the course made me realise I already knew so much about the aid sector, that I wanted to gain more experience in the field and more importantly that my work in the office is just as crucial to the work we do on the ground.

I now realise that humanitarian workers aren't going on a working holiday when they are deployed. They are in fact working long and arduous hours, with none of the creature comforts we take for granted. A week in Sendonia is a week I won't forget.