Voices of peace - Annie Turnbull

Cord staff member Annie Turnbull, Cord Africa Programmes Operations Manager shares how she came to work in peacebuilding.

As our six-seater plane lifted off from Hadjer Hadid in Eastern Chad, I waved at my colleagues standing beside the airstrip and thought how my Monday morning commute has changed over the years!  I still haven’t forgotten my dreary hour-long bus rides to get to a job I felt no connection with.

From a young age I was inspired by my parents’ deep commitment to social justice. I remember, aged six, standing outside a supermarket with my Mum collecting money for Prisoners of Conscience overseas. After university I was determined to find a career that would involve working with people from other cultures for peace, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to get there.

I found myself working in a busy sales team for a national company. The longer I stayed the further away my ‘dream job’ seemed, and the heavier my heart felt as I made that morning commute.

After a short while I decided to volunteer for Amnesty International in South East Asia. That experience opened doors for me and my career in development took off you could say; but even as I found myself working in Northern Uganda a few years later, I knew that something was still missing.

I was managing projects for a large health charity, supporting refugees under violent attack by the Lord’s Resistance Army. The refugee camps were huge and had been there for many years. The work was important, but for me it was only responding to a symptom of violence, without addressing the underlying conflict which had created this desperate situation.

It was increasingly clear to me that I felt a particular call to focus on projects that met peoples’ basic needs but also built peace.

Now I feel privileged to have found in Cord an organisation, and colleagues, with whom I share so many values and hopes for the future. As Operations Manager for the Africa Regional Programme, I am based in the UK but work with Cord teams in Chad and Burundi monitoring projects and planning new funding bids to make Cord’s vision for peace a reality.

My journey to work these days can take in anything from the road into Leamington Spa, to camel trains in Chad or banana plantations in Burundi. It’s busy and challenging work but I wouldn’t have it any other way!