Farmer-turned-humanitarian engineer to warzone
university-of-waikato
Mon May 18 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Farmer-turned-humanitarian engineer to warzone
Monday, 18 May 2009, 1:47 pm
Press Release: University of Waikato
Raglan farmer-turned-humanitarian engineer heads to another warzone
Raglan drystock farmer Michael Carter knows a lot more about deserts than most Kiwi farmers – thanks to a chance encounter at Fieldays.
Carter, who farms 100 hectares with two of his sons, has spent much of the last three years helping establish water supplies for some of the world’s poorest and most war-torn communities in parched northern Africa.
Later this month [May 28] he heads out to the Ethiopian-Eritrean border for another 12-month stint as a water and habitat engineer with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“I’ll be working in an area with lots of displaced people and prisoners in POW camps due to the long-running border dispute there, putting in new boreholes, wells, latrines and organising hygiene training,” says Carter, who has a Masters degree in earth sciences from the University of Waikato.
He’s not fazed by the thought of going into a warzone – in 2007-8 he spent 12 months with the ICRC based in Darfur. “The first hurdle was getting used to the sound of gunfire in the streets at night; they’re certainly not shooting possums, but I quite enjoyed it!”
The work there involved lots of fieldtrips to villages not even on the map in remote and difficult terrain. Carter’s team was at constant risk of ambush and looting by bandits – “one plump duck ready for the plucking” as he describes it.
Yet he says humanitarian work in these conditions is addictive. “It’s quite unique, a whole world on its own. And the ICRC is second to none in supporting its delegates, you feel like you belong to a family.”
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Born on his farm, Carter left school at 16 and spent 20 years farming before a chance encounter at Fieldays changed his life forever. “I saw a University of Waikato promotion at Fieldays and thought I’d try a couple of papers part-time. Nine years later I had my Masters in Earth Sciences. Then I saw an ad for engineers on the ICRC website and I thought I’d give it a crack.”
Six weeks later he was on the plane to his first posting in Liberia.
Carter says there’s a big demand for water and habitat engineers, and this week [May 21] he’s back at the University of Waikato to talk to students in the Earth Sciences Department about his humanitarian work.
“Much of the work is to do with finding subsurface water, and almost half of the people working as water and habitat engineers have backgrounds in geology, earth sciences and hydroscience.”
He says Kiwi delegates, most of whom are engaged through the New Zealand Red Cross, have an excellent reputation as aid workers. “We function pretty well in the field. I guess we aren’t complicated, and we’re just a ‘do it’ sort of people.”
With a Raglan mate, Carter is even developing a prototype hand pump using off-the-shelf NZ parts for use in rural Africa. “In both my missions nearly half the pumps weren’t working properly at any given time because they were of such poor quality. It was so frustrating: the average working life between overhauls was just seven months. Imagine the cost in human health!”
But there’s no place like home, and Carter makes sure he spends plenty of time on his farm between missions. “I’ve just had 12 months back farming. A cool climate, fresh air, food I want to eat -- it’s a good way of cleaning yourself out.”
ENDS
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