I left Scotland in 1999 in search of adventure, believing that by helping other people I would discover a lot about myself in the process. I never knew that I was enamoured of Africa; it kind of just happened that way.

After nine months in Namibia with a small charity, I joined Oxfam at their headquarters in Oxford.

I did pretty much anything I could, from answering phones to sending out circulars, to having real discussions on what I thought I could do myself to end poverty and suffering.

Then they sent me to Sudan, where I spent a dusty and tough five months.

You really feel it when you are in a remote and isolated environment, without the advantages of clean water and electricity, creature comforts and family, about how lucky you really are in your life at home.

And how necessary it is to put those creature comforts aside in order to help others.

That really hit home when I went to Liberia, where I have spent the last 18 months working in the capital Monrovia on Oxfam's urban water and sanitation programme.

Liberia has been in crisis since the early 1980s, when an uneducated army officer took over the country.

Nobody has piped safe water: not the new president; not the 15,000 UN peacekeepers and definitely not the young people under the age of 18

His bloody coup marked the beginning of the end for a country that had been among the continent's most prosperous since it was settled in 1847 by freed American slaves.

The 1980 coup was followed by another one in 1989 and then another civil war in 1999.

Peace has settled over Liberia since 2003, but it's a fragile peace, made even more fragile by the lack of basic services facing the country's three million people, one in three of whom live in the capital.

Nobody has piped safe water: not the new president, not the 15,000 UN peacekeepers and definitely not the young people under the age of 18 who make up half the country's population.

They have known nothing but war and the poverty that arises from wholesale conflict.

You spend a lot of time talking to people in Monrovia; everyone has at least one or two stories to tell in their broad Liberian English that takes its cues both from current US slang and an archaic English better suited to the 19th Century.

Liberian youngsters pumping dirty water out of a well

And everyone talks about how they don't have "current", or electricity; how they have to "tote" their water; how they worry about the diseases and sicknesses afflicting their children because all they have are flimsy plastic sachets of water to drink, to wash in and to cook with.

Oxfam works in these communities with partners such as the European Community's Humanitarian Office as well as the UK Government's Department for International Development.

We are trying to reduce the risks of water-borne diseases such as cholera and prevent infestations of mosquitoes that can lead to outbreaks of malaria, by making the water delivery systems that much safer.

Since June 2005, Oxfam and its partners have installed more than 100 water points in communities across Monrovia, after long consultation with community members themselves.

You cannot be anything less than amazed at the resilience of these people

We also work with the waterboys who deliver cans of water in wheelbarrows, making sure that they are not taken advantage of or compromised in their pursuit of an honest living, providing an important service to the poorest communities.

While the focus of the Urban Monrovia programme is public health and malaria control, these water and sanitation projects are also an opportunity for communities to come together, to try and reconcile with one another in the aftermath of Liberia's gruelling war.

You cannot be anything less than amazed at the resilience of these people, who despite ethnic and racial and generational divides live in this crowded city, most of them ready to put everything aside in the interests of peace.

I have left Liberia for Indonesia in the last month, heading to a remote area afflicted by the December 2004 tsunami in an effort to help restore their own water and sanitation systems.

But I am proud of the work I did in Liberia, mostly because of the national staff who made everything possible.

More than anything I hope that the programme gets the support it needs to continue, because it's really not just about building latrines - it's about putting in place a system that can serve people for the long-term, and keep them healthy.