A chance meeting set Libby Bowell on the path to being an aid worker — a journey that has taken her to some of the most poverty-stricken areas of the world.
That meeting, with a group of remote-area nurses, was more than 15 years ago.
Since then, Ms Bowell has been splitting her time between remote Australian communities and volunteering abroad.
Biggest-ever cholera outbreak
Ms Bowell has worked in Ebola zones in Liberia and in hurricane-ravaged Haiti.
She has just returned to her home near Byron Bay from Somalia, where she coordinated the international Red Cross response to one of the world's biggest-ever cholera outbreaks.
"In Somalia you've got some of the worst rates of malnutrition in the world and when you put that together with this terrible drought, cholera can kill thousands of people," Ms Bowell said.
"Things like drought and cholera aren't sexy so they don't stay in our news headlines for long, if at all, but the problem is not going away."
No water to drink
Earlier this year, a United Nations official said the world faced the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II with more than 20 million people in four countries — Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria — facing starvation and famine.
In 2011, drought and famine killed 260,000 people in Somalia.
Ms Bowell said the country was again at risk as the rains failed to fall.
"You've got a large population of poor people that live in country areas and the water is not in the dams where they need it," she said.
"Hygiene is so important in preventing cholera, but when you turn on a tap and there's no water to drink you're not going to use the small amount you have to look after the hygiene for yourself and your family," she said.
The international Red Cross has reported 71,000 suspected cases of cholera in Somalia with more than 1,000 having already died.
Aid programs include education about hygiene and safe as well as pop-up cholera-treatment centres. Rehydration stations are also being set up by volunteers.
"We spend a lot of our time reminding people how cholera is transmitted and that it's always in a water source somewhere in Somalia," Ms Bowell said.
"But we also know that the main reasons people die from cholera is severe dehydration and that is completely preventable.
"So we try to catch people in the early stages of dehydration at small, pop-up posts in communities and hand out oral rehydration salts to prevent them from advancing to moderate or severe hydration and hopefully saving their lives."
Ms Bowell has been awarded an Order of Australia and Florence Nightingale Medal for the work she does overseas and in remote Australia.
But for her it's not about the accolades, but the honour of being able to deliver lifesaving services to people around the world.
Hard, tough work
"I've been doing this work for a long time and I still find it such a big privilege," she said.
"It's hard work, it's tough work but you do have small wins and that's why I keep going back."
