Relief Worker - Water and Sanitation
After Jürgen completed a Chemical Engineering degree in his native Germany, he spent 10 years working for a water treatment company. But in 1994, he remembers watching the nightly accounts of what was happening in Rwanda. “I found myself wondering what kind of people are helping there, especially when it comes to water.”
For many years, Jürgen had been attracted to the idea of working overseas, but he continually put this dream on hold. In 1997, he was approaching the 10th year in his company. “I thought if I don’t go for it now, it will never happen. So I made a conscious decision to really look around, not just think about it.”
After some research, he discovered Medair, and they seemed to be the best fit for Jürgen. However, he was not ready to rush into any decisions. He completed the required Medair Relief and Rehabilitation Orientation Course (ROC), but it took him about four months to tell his boss that he wanted to leave. Even after being hired by Medair and assigned to Sudan, he still kept his apartment for the first year. “I’d never been to Africa before. I thought maybe I won’t make it, and will have to come home after a few weeks.”
A “very green” Jürgen begins working in Sudan
Despite his considerable work experience as an engineer in the water sector, Jürgen did not begin his time at Medair with great self-confidence.
“Looking back today, I think I was very green and inexperienced... as green as someone can be at how to deal with national staff, at how to deal with almost anything. I still wonder how things went in such a positive way. When it came to drilling, I understood a bit about water, but still I needed to learn about concrete-making, how to drill a borehole, how to install a pump. This was all new to me.”
Drilling Medair’s first borehole in Sudan
Jürgen’s main task in Sudan was to drill boreholes to provide a clean water supply to villages. The problem with his task was that a successful borehole had never before been drilled by a Medair team in Sudan.
The quest to drill a lasting borehole became almost a spiritual experience for Jürgen. He and his team of local Sudanese staff had to drill with a hand drill, which took a very long time, and there were many drawbacks. Along with the manual technology, the water table was very deep for hand drilling, and there were political constraints and security concerns.
“That first year was like a year of being tested. I remember my father calling and asking how many boreholes I had drilled already, and I had to say I was still working on the first one.”
Jürgen could easily have given up this quest, and blamed failure on any number of understandable complications. But after almost a year of perseverance, he finally succeeded at his task. It was a breakthrough for the whole water sector in the country.
The villagers had a ceremony to celebrate their new well. They gave Jürgen and his team a cow in recognition of their achievement, and the old king gave a speech. He said, “Now the river is in the village.”
“We had a number of people around the borehole praying for it,” said Jürgen. “And all the people lining up for water... Those are pictures I won’t ever forget.”
Return to Europe...
Jürgen returned to Germany with a real sense of achievement, and he was quickly offered a temporary job at a water company. After six months, the company offered him a permanent position. Jürgen needed to make an important decision, because he also wanted to return to Africa.
“It wasn’t so difficult a choice. Even the boss said, ‘If you’re going to look out the window and dream of Africa, then we shouldn’t employ you.’”
...And then back to Sudan
So Jürgen went back to Sudan, this time as the Water and Sanitation Coordinator. He spent less time in the bush, and more time training others. He wrote proposals for new initiatives, did budgeting, and supported people in their technical roles.
In his second year, it emerged that there was a real need to provide drinking water to remote locations with contaminated rivers and ponds, and no boreholes. In the garden of the office, Jürgen set about designing an innovative lightweight emergency water treatment system. He tinkered with it until it worked to his satisfaction, and then he taught other people how to use it. The small treatment systems proved remarkably effective, and they are still being used to this day, with other NGOs like UNICEF requesting that Medair respond with the mobile treatment systems.
Jürgen begins working at Medair HQ
After completing his second year in Sudan, Jürgen was asked to work at Medair’s headquarters in Switzerland. He became a Desk Officer, first for Afghanistan and then for Uganda, and also the Water and Sanitation Adviser for all of Medair. He has been at HQ ever since, doing all of the managerial and administrative work that is needed to make the programmes run effectively, and travelling to the field at least twice a year.
When asked what he has learned while working at Medair, Jürgen responds with typical modesty: “Sometimes I wish I had grown a bit more. I think at the beginning, I was well-meaning, but still arrogant with the local people, not assuming that they know anything. But today, I always look for their wisdom and knowledge.”
He acknowledges that, in many ways, working at Medair has changed his life:
“I think my worldview is much broader than it was in the beginning, particularly about what aid organisations actually can achieve. And I have less fear about being somewhere in a completely strange place. I want to tell younger people to look at all the options before you make your choice for life. There’s so much more than what they tell you.”
Some days, working behind a desk is challenging for a practical engineer. In the future, he could imagine being responsible for a large municipal system in a European country. He believes that working at Medair has been an excellent training ground that will help him to achieve this career goal. But for now, Jürgen continues to find many valuable rewards at Medair.
“Working at Medair matches my character and my skills. Here, I can serve people with the best of my abilities.”
