Emergencies are familiar territory for Peta. The Aussie from Perth has worked on crises in war-torn Iraq and helped navigate UNICEF’s ebola response - just to name a few.
For almost a year in Bangladesh, she has been tasked with coordinating the emergency field response for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees.
She said while every disaster is unique, this had “double the complexity”.
"It started with the man-made disaster with
the Rohingya leaving Myanmar and then
it quite quickly turned to; how do we protect
these people from natural disasters?"
Earlier this year, Peta was working to protect hundreds of UNICEF facilities, such as learning centres and health outposts made from bamboo and tarpaulins, from heavy rains during monsoon season.
On July 25, in the overcrowded camps of Cox’s Bazar, where almost half a million children and their communities live, 480 mm of rain fell in just 24 hours. A number of UNICEF services were damaged or destroyed.
But the damage could have been much worse, Peta said.