Q&A

Denise Furnell on the Indonesian Tsunami

Denise Furnell, safety and security adviser for the International Rescue Committee, talks to CSO about security challenges in Indonesia a year after one of the worst natural disasters in history

By Scott Berinato

In most of the countries where I operate, international staff are not allowed to drive the vehicles. We always have to have national drivers. Partly due to language, partly due to cultural negotiation requirements. In some countries you'll end up in a four-hour discussion after an accident, two hours of which is going over who is to blame. Guards and drivers are a cultural entry point for us. And you form quite good bonds with them, and they tell you about their families, and it all starts to make sense. Where it does become slightly more tricky is when we start saying, "The next two weeks, due to threats that are credible, you can only go between the office and home. Sorry, no, you cannot go see your friends." That gets tricky, and that literally is when you've got to manage to get them to appreciate and understand the context of the environment they're in.

The IRC's central mission is relief, not security, but you talk about the need to mainstream security in order to carry out that mission. Employees in many corporations resist the mainstreaming of security. Does your organization also resist that idea?

It's the only way it's going to work. If you were to try to do a top-down style approach, it won't work. At all.

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