In the eye of the storm

Helping hand: Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood with a happy villager in 2011 at Kampung Weu Raya, Aceh, one of the villages Mercy Malaysia helped to rebuild. — Photo: Mercy Malaysia

Mercy Malaysia’s Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood remains an unstoppable force in the humanitarian sector.

ESCALATING conflict. Limited resources. Rising disaster rates. A challenged humanitarian system. What sounds like a dystopian future is, in truth, an all too turbulent reality for aid workers. And the woman tasked with tackling these big questions via the first global humanitarian summit in Istanbul in 2016 knows the night is darkest before the dawn.