Lawyer Susie Staley visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan in her voluntary role as Save the Children New Zealand chairwoman.
She was invited to the Arab kingdom to attend the charity’s annual members meeting for 10 days in May.
The United Nations Refugee Agency opened the camp in 2012 to host Syrians fleeing from violence in the Syrian civil war.
When Ms Staley visited, more than 80,000 people lived at the 5.2sqkm camp.
"It was fascinating."
About 1.3million Syrian refugees lived in Jordan, mostly not in camps.
The camp was "well organised" and densely populated, she said.
The dusty main street in the camp had "bakers, cake shops and clothing shops".
She visited a kindergarten in the camp and watched its 3-year-old pupils at play. The pupils were born and raised in the camp and "know no different".
Another stop at the camp was a bread distribution centre, which the charity runs.
To enter the camp, passports needed to be checked and vehicles searched for explosives.
"You weren’t allowed anywhere on your own."
The security measures were extensive, especially as delegates included Save The Children International chief executive Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former Prime Minister of Denmark, and Save the Children United States chairwoman Dr Jill Biden, the former Second Lady of the United States.
In the camp, she felt both lucky that she lived in New Zealand and proud of her organisation’s work.
In response to the refugees, the staff numbers at Save the Children Jordan "scaled up" from 20 to more than 650.She admired how the Jordanians welcomed the refugees.
The annual meeting was held in New York last year and Johannesburg in 2015, she said.
Jordan was "the best" meeting she had attended because of its association with the biggest refugee movement in the world since the world wars.
"We are now facing the worst crisis of children in conflict and the question we have to ask is: ‘Are we all too polite about countries committing atrocities?’"
