Welcome to the Broad Experience, the show about women, the workplace and success.

I'm Ashley Milne Tite. This time, when you're doing your job a long way from home, culture clash is almost inevitable.

But in disaster zones, in developing countries?

You have to go into that and act as a woman. You know, in many cases, act as a manager in situations or cultures where that's really very rare or completely unheard of.

Which can be uncomfortable for both parties.

A lot of us donate to charities or non-profits, depending which causes you care about.

Some of that money probably goes to a group like Oxfam or Doctors Without Borders,

an NGO that helps people in desperate situations, usually abroad. But how often do any of us think

about the workers in those organizations, the people who work in the refugee camps or help get

fresh water to remote communities? If I ever hear the words aid worker on the news, it's usually

because one of them has been kidnapped or killed on the job. Aid work, like other helping professions, is female-dominated.

And a couple of months ago, I heard from one of these women.

She's a listener, and she said, you know, we hear a lot about women's CEOs.

We even hear about women in the military, but we never hear about women in aid.

And there is a lot to talk about.

We're not using her real name because she doesn't want to hurt her chances of landing her next job.

I'm Jessica and I'm an aid worker, so I work in humanitarian response,

which kind of means working in emergency situations.

Jessica's 28 now. She started her career in South Sudan, working

with displaced people. Then after a few years, she went on to Jordan, then back to South Sudan,

then to Sierra Leone. Sometimes the work can be dangerous. She has hidden in a bunker for hours

while under bombardment. sometimes it's more pedestrian.

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