The Road Less Travelled

More and more people from the UK are leaving their prestigious, highly paid jobs to take real risks, and feel what it's like when the well earned benefits of their hard work and tough decisions are actually saving lives…

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is emerging from seven years of war, which has contributed to the deaths of approximately four million people - 98% of whom died from disease and malnutrition caused by a healthcare system destroyed by conflict. CIMA qualified accountant, Helen Orde gave up her job as auditor with one of the UK's biggest accounting firms, KPMG - part of a global network of member firms with 9,500 partners and 22 offices - to go to war torn DRC to take up her post as financial controller with international aid and development agency, GOAL UK.

Helen spent time working in Geneva with International Committee of the Red Cross where she was the UK secondee to KPMG Geneva for the donor reporting engagement of the ICRC. It was through a personal recommendation while working in Geneva that prompted Helen to search out GOAL. They had been in the field with GOAL in Angola and spoke highly of the work they'd achieved there, so Helen packed in her job and indulged her philanthropic side: "If I didn't do it before mortgages and things I thought I'd never do it. At Christmas last year I worked with Raleigh international, which is a gap year youth development charity, but I felt the work very worthwhile and I met a lot of friends, I wanted to do more of that kind of work."

At KPMG Helen was responsible for the project management of audit engagements including year end, half year and interim client site visits; she assisted in the preparation of reports for both group audit teams and KPMG senior management. "The job I'm embarking on is very different to what I'm doing at the moment," said Helen. "Where I spend my time looking at other company's finances and making sure they are running correctly, with GOAL it will be all about running our finances effeciently. I love the outdoors and I love traveling so I am hoping to get out of the office to visit GOAL projects in the field as much as possible. My colleagues at KPMG are being very funny, they have this idea of me going to live in a mud hut and having to shower from a bucket. I contacted one of the GOALies out there to ask if there was anything that I was unlikely to think of bringing that would be useful, she suggested bringing my favorite DVD, so it's not all roughing it; I'll be living in a nice house on a lake, there are tennis courts and we can go away some weekends travelleing. It will be the silly things that I notice the most like paying cash for everything, I'm used to handling finances for big companies, no cash actually passes through my hands.nis courts and we can go away some weekends travelleing. It will be the silly things that I notice the most like paying cash for everything, I'm used to handling finances for big companies, no cash actually passes through my hands.

But the Congo is not the only developing country to benefit from a surge of young professionals leaving well paid, prestigious positions the UK to volunteer their professional skills to help reduce the plight of the poorest of the poor. GOAL's roving accountant and manager of the UK GOAL office, Jerry Cole spends his time between Honduras, Uganda, Sudan, Niger and India. Jerry was Finance Director for MLS Group PLC, which at the time was in the top 20 growing companies in the UK, before he left to join GOAL."I enjoy the travelling aspect and the adventure of my job with GOAL, it's a breath of fresh air working for people who need you rather than spending your time working for a greedy shareholder," explained Jerry. "What I do now is more consultancy based and managerial than before. I am responsible for developing financial systems and building staff capacity to make the running of GOAL offices at home and abroad more efficient." "Being Financial Director with MLA Business was more hands off," continued Jerry. "I had to report to a board of directors on the finance of the company, it involved managing external shareholders, banks and stakeholders, it was more of a feeling of being a cog in the wheel, with GOAL I'm at the coal face of a living breathing organisation, I can see first hand how my work is making a difference."

Jerry's role in GOAL is to liaise with qualified accountants in the field to develop the efficiency of financial systems and to facilitate reports to head office and donors. He lets head office know where the gaps are and then tries to fill them. Being an auditor involves checking and reviewing someone else's work all the time but being a management accountant Jerry is preparing financial information for audit, so there is much more scope there to make the job more varied. "My main responsibility is to assess risk, incorporating financial, security, programme, and staff risks, the objective being to ensure the financial stability of GOAL in the long term," said Jerry. "Since I joined I have rolled out a new financial system, SAGE, across all GOAL offices, and it has been very successful and improved efficiency greatly. The highlights have been working in new places, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures. You meet people who have the same agenda as you, and that's not sitting at a computer getting fat; it's the poorest of the poor. The people I meet are more human, you have time to nurture relationships as the life is not as fast. The job satisfaction is in developing systems and making them work."at; it's the poorest of the poor. The people I meet are more human, you have time to nurture relationships as the life is not as fast. The job satisfaction is in developing systems and making them work."

"The only way I would go back to the private sector would be to set up my own company; there is no way I could go back to working for the big wigs again. Africa is new and interesting, you don't realise how western or capitalistic our mind set is until you go to these places. It's very humbling to share in these people's lives, to see how thankful they are, and see what a massive impact GOAL's work has there. You quickly realise we're in the minority, there are more people living in India than in the whole western world, it's a privilege to work with GOAL , with over a million benefactors a year how could it not be. My job before this was a bit mundane, not quite on the edge, and not really risk taking, there is nothing I miss about it, apart maybe from taking a pay cut of a half and losing my share options but it's worth it!"

Jerry heard about GOAL through a long time friend, and now colleague, Jonathan Edgar. Jonathan has been working for GOAL for the last six years. Before joining he was Management Consultant with Price Water House Coopers, until he went on sabbatical to the Balkans as Country Director with GOAL and has never looked back. "I now work in management within GOAL. I negotiate with our international donors in America, Britain, Ireland and Europe," explained Jonathan. "What I like about the job is its very multi disciplinary. GOAL is interesting because it's made up of lots of different professions working towards the same aim, the bottom line of which is to reduce poverty and improve people's lives, rather than making cash. In terms of working the principles are very similar. The work has to be very focused; you need to have the right processes in place to get people on board. This job is about adapting your skills in the field. I work with a variety of very different areas from governments, to religious groups, businesses and individuals. There is a great opportunity to be creative which is a really attractive thing about this job. Finding solutions to a wide scale of problems, you really have to think on your feet. attractive thing about this job. Finding solutions to a wide scale of problems, you really have to think on your feet.

"The move was really rewarding for me. Making a difference to people lives gives an enormous amount of personal satisfaction to the job. Also the obvious one is going to different countries and experiencing different cultures. It gives you a broader experience of life, with GOAL you can experience in a year what most people spend a litime trying to experience. That's the big reward with this job."

"The one thing I miss about working in the private sector is the professional development aspect. There is a lot of investment in employees in terms of salary and training, in the voluntary sector there isn't the same support network, there just isn't the money to facilitate that. Your professional knowledge is really respected in the private sector; here it's more general knowledge that is needed. However, skills are transferable; an attitude of never say never is needed! You have to cut costs a bit as you earn a lot more working in the private sector, but it's a lifestyle choice and you manage. That's the great thing about this job, it's difficult to describe the average e day.

Jennifer Smith left her job as senior consultant with DTZ Pieda Consulting to coordinate emergency relief in Ethiopia with GOAL. "Initially I was going to go to Ethiopia for six months with GOAL, so I took a leave of absence from work, but then GOAL asked me to stay so I handed in my notice and stayed in Ethiopia for 15 months, mainly because of the sheer amount of work to be done there," explained Jennifer. "While I was there, Ethiopia declared a state of emergency because of food shortages. At the beginning my work mostly involved writing proposals for development programmes, however this changed focus when the emergency occurred and I was writing them for emergency aid instead. Things changed considerably after that, largely because of the number of new people who joined GOAL. At the start it was just me, the country director and an assistant country director and the programme coordinator so the office grew considerably, as did the budgets and the programmes we had to manage."

"I spent a lot of time in the field trying to get a feel for the projects so I could write proposals for funding. After six or seven months it got really hectic, we were working long hours, with three emergency programmes running at the same time, at one point we were responsible for a budget of over one million. I worked primarily about 80 kilometres outside of Addis Ababa with a group of pastoralists on education and health programmes and setting up a co-op. I also worked with the Boran tribe in the very south of Ethiopia. By the time it came to June and July the emergency was really at its height."

"I worked in the regions of Awash and Afar in the east of the country. First we set up an emergency feeding programme for pregnant women and children lactating under five year olds. I went around the nomadic population speaking to the elderly, as in order to know how much food we needed to provide, we first needed to know how many people lived there. The elders were very responsive and understood what we were trying to do. We slept outside, there were only about 20 of us, it was fascinating. Some of the villages we arrived in had no one in them; they had already left in search of food. When I came back to the capital, I was made emergency programme coordinator and was responsible for coordinating three emergency programmes. I had to make sure there were vehicles available for delivery, as well as the correct amounts of food. We sometimes bought from private suppliers and sometimes government ones. We often had to negotiate at government level, as we couldn't start a project without government approval. It can be a very challenging experience, as well as some donors wanting monthly reports, some quarterly, and some every two months, have to be calm and rational for this job.

Jennifer met her long term partner while she was in Ethiopia. He worked for a construction company there, and when they shut up shop, she left with him to go back to Edinburgh. "He was the safety manager for the site 'Bovis' engineering company, we met in the Silver Bullet bar on the outskirts of Addis Ababa and we're still together five years later." While Jennifer didn't go back to the same company, she went straight into another environmental planning position. "Now I'm technical trainer at an award winning environmental planning company. I had three or four job offers on my return to the UK. My time with GOAL in Ethiopia really impressed a lot of the companies I had job offers from. The fact that I had gone out and done something completely different really impresses employers. The fact that I wasn't out there digging wells, I was doing something that was relevant to my profession was what was important. I learned a lot of practical work solutions when I was in Ethiopia, some I still use in daily work here in the UK."e in the UK."

GOAL UK is holding a recruitment event for accountants on Friday 9TH March, 7 to 9 pm at Kensington Suite, Jurys Kensington Hotel, 109-113 Queens Gate, South Kensington, London SW7 5LR.

If you would like to register for the evening or find out more, contact Laura Byrne on lbyrne@goal-uk.org or 020 7631 3196. Please note that places are strictly limited and those who have not registered will not be able to attend. For more information on GOAL please log on to www.goal-uk.org or call 020 7631 3196.

GOAL works in 13 developing countries implementing development programmes in and projects in response to humanitarian disasters, HIV/AIDS and street children.