Katja, 37, is from Finland. She is seen here arriving at Mont Rolland camp for the three-day simulation activities. She is an executive assistant at UNHCR HQ in Geneva. "I applied to the Workshop on Emergency Management (WEM) because I have always wanted to do an emergency with UNHCR, because that is really the time when we have to deliver, that is the time when we have to be efficient and do our job well. I thought it would be an amazing opportunity, I felt I wanted to be part of that. At the same time, I have been working at UNHCR HQ in Geneva for the past three years and you find yourself very far away from the realities and from the challenges! I think when you are deployed to emergency operations, you have a sense that you actually achieve things because you can see what is happening, how you can actually achieve little successes and how you can make a difference into people’s lives". © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Gulie, 38, is Ethiopian, he is based in Dollo Ado as field associate for UNHCR. "I really loved the simulation exercises, especially the simulated influx in a village with the arrival of Nigerian refugees in Cameroon and see how a UNHCR team reacts to assess their needs and help them as quickly as possible. It was a very practical exercise, similar to the situation I experienced in real life when I joined UNHCR in 2011 in Dollo Ado in Ethiopia, when hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees were arriving. Emergencies are really when you feel you can make a difference, people need shelter, water, sanitation, protection and you are providing those. You share a strong connection with people. Every year, I have been working in a different refugee camp in Ethiopia. I always go and visit refugees I met years ago". © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Jim, 58, is American. He has been a trainer for UNHCR Workshop on Emergency Management since 2014. His regularly draws emergency training scenes in his notepad. "Many of the participants in this 2017 group are not technical specialists and don’t have a background in sectoral standards and norms. For many of them, the idea of quantifiable standards, like 3.5 square meters of shelter space per person, or 45 square meters per person for the land needed for a refugee camp were new. Doing the basic math to find needed areas for a site or the amount of clean drinking water needed for a camp of 10,000 people was a challenge. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the WEM if for teams to see a clear vision of what they want to accomplish, quantify it in concrete terms and then put it into UNHCR’s formats for narratives and budget. It is not easy" © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Shobna Sivaraman, 31, is from Malaysia. She is a UNHCR Protection Associate in Kuala Lumpur. "I work in an urban setting with refugees in detention. With the WEM training, working with refugees in camps became much more tangible. I learnt that I can do things I never thought I could do. For example, all of a sudden during the refugee influx simulation, I am given the role of a site planner! I had to open the UNHCR emergency book, read it, talk to the trainers. And I leant what a site planner really does and how. At least the basics! We lived in a tent, hardly slept, ate military rations, we were constantly under pressure… I now feel I will be able to adapt wherever I am, even if I am deployed in difficult areas. I feel empowered with the training! I am not any more in a “comfort zone” thinking that I have to do what I am familiar with but I know now that even in difficult situations, I can still come up with some good ideas and help a group of people." © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Ibrahim, 52, is from Cameroon. He is a Senior Emergency Energy and Environmental officer for UNHCR in Dakar. "It is fantastic to be able to do this training! UNHCR is a humanitarian organisation and its operations very often start with refugee emergencies. I am based in Senegal, and we just narrowly escaped an emergency in January with the situation in the Gambia! Over 76,000 people had left that country to Senegal in less than a month, fleeing political uncertainty. This training comes at the right moment for me, it showed me what I should do in case of refugee influxes, how to behave in case of crisis. Everyone who joins UNHCR should enroll in this training in order to learn how to better assist displaced people. “ © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Thomas is from Denmark, he is a safety and medical adviser for the Danish Refugee Council (DRC). He is here testing cereal bars from his ration pack before starting the simulation training. "I really wanted to do this training because it has always been a dream to work for the United Nations. I used to work with the Red Cross and now with DRC, but for me, the UN is universal and in a way the circle is complete with this training. It was hard, not so much sleep! I think the team work is the main thing, as well as individual attitude. Keeping a positive attitude, waking up and try to find small good stuff even when you are getting tired. A lot of stress has been built up, between the simulation exercises and a humanitarian plan we had to write to assist the refugees, similar to what we would have to do in a real emergency." © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Fabrizia, 40, is Italian. She is a gender based violence specialist for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York. She is holding a UNHCR mosquito dome she used in her tent to protect herself from potentially catching malaria. "I have learnt a lot about myself during this training. I was fully immersed in the simulated refugee influx and I realized then that I can actually handle stress, maybe better than what I would have thought otherwise. I found out that I had those resources in myself to handle it. The most difficult moments were the struggle with myself. Managing myself in order to let the team succeed! I think I have quite of a prominent personality and so sometimes I had to step back to also let the rest of the team come together and proceed as a team. I think the training is a good way to test yourself, and to really understand if humanitarian work is something you can do". © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Alpha, 36 is from Guinea. He is an administration and finance officer for UNHCR in Côte d’Ivoire "I learnt to always have a positive attitude: during the simulation, I managed with my team to free displaced people who had been arrested by militaries just by talking with the commander. I realized how complex it can be sometimes in the field. Of course it was a simulation but it is inspired by problems in real life. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are facing this kind of situation. We also witnessed a woman being raped by militaries in front of us and we felt very powerless, there was no way to negotiate and protect her. Even though those exercises are simulations, it touches me as I can imagine how even more brutal it is in real life." © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Selen, 40, is from Turkey. She is UNHCR's head of office in Istanbul. "I loved the WEM, even though I was not expecting such intensity! It has been a very successful training for me. We had the opportunity to work under stress and under time pressure for ten days, and it was even more stressful during the three simulation days. The biggest lesson was to see how I reacted under stressful situations, to learn more about my own skills and limits. I learnt a lot through reading books in my life. But tthis ime, I learnt a lot about emergencies by experiencing what they are, and not only in books." © UNHCR / Helene Caux

Hassan, 46, is from Irak. He is a Programme Associate for UNHCR in Kurdistan. “I have been dealing with emergency situations since I joined UNHCR in June 2012, with either new influxes of Syrian refugees or Iraki displaced people running away from violence. In Kurdistan, where I am based, we have several refugee camps as well as camps for displaced people. Displaced Iraki people arrive on a daily basis. It is a lot of stress, people need everything, they are traumatized. In my job, I can’t bring back their former lives, but I can try to make sure we provide them with shelters, health care, security. The WEM will certainly help me improve my skills to better assess the needs of the displaced people, as well as better plan and implement the delivery of assistance. It certainly provided me the chance to better know my weaknesses and strengths, and showed me the importance of teamwork and of respecting other’s ideas”. © UNHCR / Helene Caux