Alumni Profile: Joshua Pepall

Degree: Social Work 2002 Current Position: Humanitarian Accountability Manager, World Vision Sri Lanka Tsunami Response Team Joshua Pepall is a humanitarian aid worker whose career has taken him to some of the world's most traumatised places. He currently lives and works in Sri Lanka, where efforts continue to rebuild after the 2002 tsunami. On a recent visit to Melbourne, Joshua spent time at the University talking to Social Work students about his career. He also spoke to GradNet about the challenges of working in a complex and sometimes hazardous environment, while staying focused on the real needs of the communities that World Vision serves.

You’ve had a very interesting career not only since you left here, but also since your undergraduate degree.

Yes, it’s been great. Plenty of challenges along the way. I went to Deakin and did a degree in international development and sociology. Even before then, I’d been working in Asia for a few years in rehabilitation and community development programs.

I've worked throughout South East Asia, the Middle East and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I've also been a social worker in Australia, where I specialised in working with newly arrived refugees and survivors of torture and trauma. I was involved in community development and capacity building programs in isolated Aboriginal communities in north-western Australia and I have worked for the Department of Human Services in child protection.

I currently lead the Humanitarian Accountability Team (HAT) for the World Vision Tsunami Response Program in Sri Lanka. The team’s mandate is to ensure that World Vision’s programs are accountable to communities and of a high quality and standard.

How did you get into development work?

I come from quite a diverse family – I have five adopted brothers and sisters from all around the world. So in some ways I was brought up in a mini United Nations and exposed early on to the needs of children in communities all around the world.

My folks were based in Hong Kong and worked for an aid agency assisting children in institutional care in China. After finishing high school I went over there and worked as a volunteer for a few different agencies in Indonesia, Hong Kong, China and the Philippines. From there I went to Deakin, did my undergraduate degree and went off to Bosnia where I worked in refugee rehabilitation.

I realised that the international development degree provided an excellent ‘macro’ perspective on some of the structural issues that create poverty, but what I was looking for was an understanding of people. Social Work provides an understanding of people and their environment that has truly been invaluable in my work. A lot of other professionals only see it through one lens - be it engineering, or health, or something like that – so what I’ve really appreciated in my work is the ability to understand a community from a child’s perspective right through to an elderly person’s. That’s one of the skills I learned in the School of Social Work and have been able to apply to my work in relief and rehabilitation. Social Work also taught me about advocating for the rights of our clients and recognising the strengths and capacities they have and can offer.

So what’s the situation in Sri Lanka like now?

It’s very tense, actually. The peace agreement that was signed in 2002 really only exists on paper and there are currently over 200,000 internally displaced people in the north and the east.

Is that partly related to the tsunami?

No, it’s related more to the civil conflict. The tsunami was the second wave of trauma for communities because Sri Lanka’s been in civil war for over twenty years. Communities had just started to rebuild after the signing of the peace agreement in 2002. The waves came and destroyed a lot of the infrastructure that had been rebuilt. So there has been wave upon wave of trauma for these communities, and the escalation of conflict has made it very difficult to implement a lot of our programming. It’s a challenging working environment to say the least.

You seem to have a very pragmatic way of doing things.

In the tsunami response team, many of our national staff members had not worked with communities before. We hire staff who have the right technical skills but may not necessarily have worked at a grass-roots level with communities or with a large aid agency such as World Vision before. The role of the Humanitarian Accountability Team was to help these staff to not only rebuild people’s homes but do it in such a way that it helps these families and communities rebuild their lives.

What we wanted to do was take what we know about trauma and recovery, resilience and rehabilitation and make it practical and real by creating simple and engaging tools and process to help our staff achieve this goal. The philosophy behind what we do is that humanitarian accountability is largely about treating people with respect and dignity. It’s often also referred to as the Golden Rule: treat others as you yourself would want to be treated. Simple and yet dazzlingly complex in our operating environment where we work.

We needed to develop tools that would enable staff from World Vision to connect with the community at a head level but also at a heart level. These people are people – they may have undergone terrible experiences but they are not ‘victims’ but survivors with skills and resources to offer their families, communities and World Vision as an organisation. So we’re trying to keep it as close to the ground as we can, seeing what we do as a partnership with people and not just service delivery, and it’s worked really, really well.

Where do you live?

I’m based in Colombo with my wife, who works for another agency in health. I do a lot of travelling. A trip from Colombo to Batticaloa takes between nine and twelve hours, so I chalk up a lot of kilometres.

Where will you go next?

Our tsunami response program is coming to an end in September 2008. World Vision’s been in Sri Lanka for over thirty years and we will remain here. Because of the size and scale of the tsunami World Vision set up a team to manage the tsunami reconstruction, and I’m part of that team. At its peak we employed over 1000 staff and have assisted over 300,000 people across the country. We’ve met all our objectives and are now transferring out. I’m there until March 2008.

My hope is that I can stay in Humanitarian Accountability and look at working in other World Vision programs, possibly in Africa. There’s a lot of interest at the moment in Humanitarian Accountability and a realisation that we need to improve the way we work with communities. There’s a huge power imbalance between international NGOs that come in and the communities. Social Justice is about recognising and seeking to realign this imbalance. This means making sure we work with communities, listen to them and ensure that our activities are done with them and not ‘for’them. That’s an important distinction. Eventually I would like to come back and do further study at Melbourne University and the School of Social Work.

Where’s the push for humanitarian accountability coming from?

It’s coming from a variety of places, from agencies themselves, donors, and from the media publicity around charities. What people are coming to realise is that the industry is in need of tighter regulation and that we can always improve how we work with people.

During your experiences in different countries and different jobs, what were the greatest rewards and challenges?

By far the greatest reward, I think, is working with staff and communities and being able to develop new and creative ways to work more effectively with communities. In reconstruction and rehabilitation, it’s a great opportunity to be able to work with people who have had their lives literally disappear before rebuilding their lives. I learn a lot about my self and others as well.

In addition I get to travel, work with amazing people, eat incredible food and - in Sri Lanka at least - surf some great waves.

The greatest challenge is that I see a shift from my time in Bosnia in the 1990s to my time in the Middle East and now in Sri Lanka, in that security is becoming an increasing concern for the aid industry. You used to be able to fly your flag and you’d get some level of safety as an international agency, but now aid workers are increasingly seen as targets, and the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is no longer there.

Is that everywhere you go?

I think there’s a change, and that’s for a whole range of reasons. There’s the pressure of coming into an environment where there is insurmountable need and limited resources, having to decide how to use our resources wisely and efficiently. Authorities also use suffering as political leverage and the greatest test of any government is how it protects its most vulnerable. On a personal level, it can be quite a challenging and demanding environment for families.

Do you have kids?

No kids, just my wife, who’s been an incredible support. You really need to take care of yourself and also take care of your major relationships, because it’s very taxing. Social Work has provided some good skills in this area that have been invaluable to understand the debriefing process and the importance of supervision.

Over the years I have seen the best and worst of humanity. People, despite their experiences, maintain hope and compassion. In the field I have dealt with kidnapping and experienced attacks. I’ve seen terrible things done, and it’s really important that we look at how we can support aid workers and relief personnel. There’s a growing awareness in the industry that the best way we can support communities is to support ourselves, recognise and be aware of the impact our work can have on staff.

What are your strongest memories of studying at the University of Melbourne?

Friendship was a big one – I made some great friends who I still keep in touch with. Also, I was fairly directed when I came here and I targeted a lot of my study towards the international context, and the staff here were very supportive of that and allowed me to pursue what I was interested in.

Is there anything you’d like to say to other alumni about your study and your work?

I’m quite passionate about social work and I think it has a lot to offer the humanitarian industry. Coming back to Australia I have been reminded of the interest in relief and rehabilitation. In the field we are always looking for good people, but it does take dedication and commitment. Usually people need to volunteer for a certain number of years to build experience. What we’re after is people with good technical skills, be it water, sanitation, child protection, health or nutrition – practical skills – and a strong sense of compassion and commitment not only to rebuild the physical infrastructure but also families and communities.