LIFE on Mersea Island right now probably couldn't be much further removed from working in a stifling hot tent in South Sudan.

But that is just one of the harrowing assignments Sam Duerden has been on during the last eight years, while working for the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

If you're unfamiliar with it, the IRC is a global humanitarian aid, relief and development organisation which offers emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution or natural disaster.

Sam, 33, is currently on a break from what to him has been simply doing his job.

Back home when he grew up in West Mersea, having just recently been honoured MBE for services in response to humanitarian crises, Sam's keeping his achievements pretty low key.

"I don't know what the typical age is," he says, when I ask if he thinks he's relatively young to have the honour, announced on New Years' Eve.

"I was very surprised and humbled but I work with some amazing colleagues around the world."

Sam's a Mersea boy at heart, having attended the island's primary school, then Colchester Royal Grammar School, where his A-Levels earned him a place at Oxford.

There he read English Language and Literature so you'd be forgiven for thinking the natural career choice might have been teaching, or even journalism.

But experiences at university sowed the seed to explore and help those in critical situations.

"I was involved in some overseas work at university and did some volunteering in Nepal and that gave me some exposure early on," Sam explained.

In Nepal Sam helped raise money and support a youth centre construction project in a village.

"It developed my interest of other areas around the world," he added.

Upon graduating however, Sam worked in an office-based communications role for two years before he came across a similar role but working for the IRC.

Sam said: "I had come across them in a few locations and based on that I applied to get my first role with them."

After two years Sam went on his first assignment with the IRC to Thailand, where he worked for six years.

"My job there was mainly involved in grants where we managed funding and that was reasonably desk based.

"Then not long after that I went to Kabul to manage a humanitarian programme."

The IRC's work there involved providing support to anyone caught up in the impacts of flooding but also localised fighting and clashes.

Sam added: "I got in some field sites a few times but there were fairly high security restrictions for expats working there."

His work next took Sam to South Sudan where he was a field co-ordinator in refugee camps.

"We were running a reproductive health project - so we were running a maternity ward and providing care and counselling to survivors of gender-based violence."

While it was Sam's role to oversee the work, he was as close to the action as anyone else.

"The living environment was pretty tough - 45 degrees and we were living in tents.

"I was struck by how vulnerable places are but also how resilient people are."

Unsurprisingly, access to any luxuries were non-existent.

"We basically ate lentils all the time - I certainly lost weight, it wasn't too healthy. Self care is a big issue for aid workers," said Sam.

It is here that the IRC, a non-profit organisation, has been providing vital support to South Sudanese who are struggling to recover from decades of civil war and life-threatening food shortages.

The region had spent decades in the grip of ongoing conflict before gaining independence in 2011.

The IRC’s mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future.

Sam worked there for just under a year before his most recent project took him to the Middle East including Iraq.

There Sam, as deputy director, and his colleagues have been overseeing access to basic health and food programmes for people affecting by the ongoing conflict.

Fortunately Sam was based in a relatively calm and stable area.

It is all a world away from the island Sam has most recently returned to and is home to his parents, Mary and Peter.

Sam said: "It is nice coming back to Mersea because it is quite slow and calm.

"In the field everything is at 100 miles an hour and the work is always bigger than you can respond to."