My name is Kim Henley and I’m a late-comer as a volunteer for Operation Hope, although I’ve been doing a lot of work in the background.

I am engineer, working for Orica in Newcastle. Since Erica and her friends started volunteering overseas, I’ve been a background and home backup person. I’m also the company secretary now the Operation Hope is incorporated and listed as a charity, and dealt with ASIC, the ACNC, ATO and sorted our GST registration. I also look after the on-line accounting system.

With the container shipping project this year, I have become a lot more involved by setting up the inventory system and helping ensure every item was listed. We had no idea what the Iraq import requirements would be (and couldn’t find out from Australia). So we assumed they would be stringent and ensured our inventory would hold up to close scrutiny.

Once it arrived in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq, I came with Erica to help see the container shipping project through.

I’m generally a handy-person around the place, and enjoy the challenge of doing something I have no idea about – a good attribute for sending a container to Iraq.