In the war-torn streets of Kandahar, Afghanistan, Lucy Lau is navigating her role with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)—not just as a humanitarian worker, but as a shining example of resilience and empathy. A mechanical engineer turned aid professional, Lucy has spent over a decade traversing the globe building infrastructure, fostering communities, and challenging gender norms in some of the world’s most challenging environments. At the heart of her work lies a simple yet profound belief that every action, no matter how small, can spark meaningful change.

Radiance Amid Ruins: Stories from Kandahar 
Since arriving in Kandahar earlier this year, Lucy has encountered countless stories that linger with her, but one stands out—a young Afghan woman who supervises her medical team. “She’s really a very, very bright young woman,” Lucy says. This supervisor was on the cusp of completing her medical degree when the Taliban’s education ban in 2022 halted her dreams, leaving her just one year shy of becoming a doctor. Undeterred, she joined MSF, becoming the only female supervisor in Lucy’s project, overseeing both men and women while pursuing an online public health degree. “She still wants one day to become a doctor, and she’s still hoping that policy will change in the coming year,” Lucy shares. 

In a nation with a crumbling health system, soaring maternal mortality, and a shortage of female healthcare workers—worsened by the 2024 ban on women in medical institutes—her resolve echoes Lucy’s own tenacity. With 3,269 staff and €55.5 million spent in 2023, MSF currently runs seven projects across Afghanistan, providing specialized healthcare amid post-2021 instability. Lucy’s work ensures that the hospital’s infrastructure supports TB patients—often including a higher ratio of women, affected by crowded living conditions— a task made urgent by the region’s fragility. “You think that when you come to Afghanistan, we would see a lot of women that are different from us, but at the end of the day, they are very similar to us,” she reflects. “They are just trying to do their best—they are even doing better than us, I would say, given the circumstances.” 

From Pipes to Purpose
Lucy’s journey into humanitarian work began unexpectedly. A wastewater engineer by training, she spent years in a technical role before joining MSF in 2011. Her first assignment in Liberia was a revelation. “The work is just so satisfying…because whatever you do, you see the result almost straightaway,” she recalls. Building toilets, trenches, and temporary clinics, she saw lives transform in real time. “Two weeks later, people are using it, and you see that people’s lives change,” she says. Safe water and medical access—these victories hooked her. “I was sucked into it by then, just because of the nature of the work.”

Her drive stems from the sheer experience of her work. “It’s the experience,” she says simply. “To be able to work alongside the local communities… it’s just great.” From Liberia’s post-conflict recovery to Malaysia’s refugee enclaves and now Afghanistan’s volatile landscape, each assignment offers new challenges and perspectives. “Being in a new place, working with new people, you really see a lot of things that you don’t see in a normal job,” she adds.

Breaking the Mold: Gender in the Field
Lucy’s identity as a woman has shaped her experience in subtle yet significant ways. A decade ago, colleagues advised her to claim she was married to deflect unwanted attention. “Being married, if you reach a certain age, is a blessing, but it’s also the normal thing to do,” she explains, reflecting on societal expectations. In Kandahar, she fields curious questions about her single status and lack of children, but they’re friendly, not probing. “It’s just kind of the team getting to know each other,” she says.

Though Lucy’s gender has rarely sparks direct doubt about her abilities—“quite rarely,” she admits—she’s not blind to the double standard local women face. “For their own Afghan women, there is a certain resistance to work with them,” she notes, citing her project’s lone female supervisor. Men often prefer reporting to male supervisors, a norm MSF challenges with female staff committees and scholarships. “There’s a lot of things ingrained… It takes time to change,” she says. Still, her presence matters. “I think it is a very, very good thing to have us here…it does open their mind.” 

Bridging Borders: Lessons Across Continents
Lucy’s work with MSF has spanned continents. In Malaysia, she worked closely with female Rohingya refugees confined by husbands’ grueling jobs and cultural isolation. “They are highly dependent, or even completely dependent, on their husbands or male relatives,” Lucy explains. With little exposure to the outside world and no familial support network, many having fled Bangladesh or Myanmar alone, their challenges were compounded by statelessness and cultural barriers. Lucy’s team responded with outreach programs in collaboration with local NGOs, offering group activities, health education, and prenatal care, empowering women to take small steps toward agency.

In Liberia, Lucy’s work built tangible hope as she constructed toilets, trenches, and temporary clinics—foundational infrastructure rising from the ashes of conflict. The immediacy of the impact struck her deeply; within weeks, communities were using these facilities, their daily lives meaningfully improved. Afghanistan, her current post, demands a different balance—urgent aid amid security constraints that limit direct outreach. In Kandahar, where MSF runs a drug-resistant TB program, Lucy supports the treatment of patients, many of whom are women and children affected by malnutrition and disease outbreaks like measles, which surged in 2023. Beyond Kandahar, MSF’s work includes Herat’s 2023 earthquake response, as well as maternal and trauma care in Helmand, Khost, and Kunduz, though gaps in care—like the lack of neurosurgery—underscore the system’s strain, amplifying the urgency of Lucy’s efforts elsewhere. 

She adapts by inviting community representatives to the hospital, consulting local staff, and ensuring that MSF’s efforts align with the people’s needs. Her commitment to listening ties her experiences together. Early in her career, Lucy was a whirlwind of action—“do, do, do,” she recalls—but time and exposure have tempered that energy with patience. Now, when she arrives in a new assignment, her first weeks are spent in quiet conversation with local staff, letting their insights shape her plans. “What I’ve learned is to really listen,” she says, a lesson refined over years of navigating cultural nuances. This isn’t merely a professional strategy; it’s a personal philosophy, one that echoes in her interactions with family and friends back home in Hong Kong. “You never know when the information will come in handy,” she adds.

Unsung Heroines: Women Leading Change
Lucy sees women as humanitarian work’s backbone. Her presence alone carries weight in a male-dominated society. “Being in our positions is already something,” she says, acknowledging the role she plays as a model of possibility. But her conviction goes beyond symbolism. In MSF’s Kandahar hospital, women drive care—female nurses and midwives outnumber their male counterparts, driven by cultural norms and patient needs. “We have a tuberculosis program here, and the proportion of female patients is higher than men,” Lucy explains.

In the nutrition program, the reliance on women deepens. Mothers, grandmothers, and sisters tend malnourished children overnight, while men are rarely seen. “The health of the baby is really dependent on the women,” Lucy emphasizes, underscoring the critical role female staff play in educating caregivers about breastfeeding and nutrition. These interactions, often intimate and gender-specific, highlight an unsung truth: humanitarian aid hinges on women’s involvement, both as providers and recipients.

However, recruiting local women remains an uphill battle. “They are less educated… they speak less English,” Lucy notes, tracing this disparity to systemic exclusion favoring men. MSF has made strides internationally, boasting more female managers than ever, but locally, the gap persists. Lucy’s solution is grassroots and personal: mentoring, coaching, and supporting women to seize opportunities. “I think this kind of thing is easy to do, and it is worth doing,” she asserts. Through small, deliberate acts, she plants seeds for change, trusting they’ll grow over time.

Echoes of Impact: Finding Strength in Small Victories
The rewards of Lucy’s work are subtle yet profound. As a non-medical worker, her impact is indirect, but positive feedback from her team affirms it. “When the team tells you that something has worked really well because you did this, that’s generally the most rewarding,” she says. It’s a quiet affirmation of her impact—whether it’s a well-designed system or a decision that eases a colleague’s burden. She’s quick to keep perspective: “Our role is really small in the bigger challenges that these people are facing day to day,” she admits. “But if something that we do has helped a little bit… that’s good.” 

Balancing this career with personal life is trickier. Married to a fellow humanitarian worker—though their assignments rarely align—and with aging parents in Hong Kong, Lucy takes long breaks to reconnect with loved ones. In Kandahar, where volatility is a constant companion, her team is her anchor. Volleyball games on weekends and late-night chats over tea offer not just camaraderie, but a release valve for stress. “I really enjoy spending time with them,” she says, a nod to bonds of purpose.

Equality Envisioned: Paving Paths for Afghan Women
For Afghan women, Lucy sees education as the most pressing need, blocked by policy and poverty. She believes international advocacy and grassroots support can shift this reality. “Even if people try and understand the situation of women here… that really helps,” she says. Awareness, she argues, is the first step; spreading knowledge and backing organizations tackling women’s education can amplify local efforts.

To young women considering this path, her advice is straightforward: “Just go for it… See for yourself what it’s like,” an invitation rooted in her own leap of faith years ago. She hopes she will be remembered as “someone that made effort to understand the local community.” Her vision for gender equality is equally distilled, a world where “women that we work with in every country do not have to think about the fact that they are women before applying for a job,” where ambition isn’t shadowed by gender, and where opportunity is a given, not a negotiation.

Lucy Lau’s story is one of quiet strength—an engineer who has built not just physical structures, but bridges of understanding across cultures. In her hands, humanitarian work is proof of the power of listening, the necessity of women, and the value of small, purposeful acts. Through her, MSF’s mission finds a human face, one that reflects not only the world’s fractures, but its capacity for healing.