Friday, May 21, 2010
Bernice’s post on Collaborative Approaches
The most recent and devastating event that got the whole world rushing out to want to help, would be the Haiti Earthquake. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti had left 1.5million over people homeless and tens of thousands without the access to food, water and medical supplies. This devastating blow has put about an opportunity for different organizations to come together for a collaborated support in providing aid to the country.
Some of the different organizations involved in providing aid to Haiti are, the United Nations World Food Programme, Doctors Without Borders, International Organization for Migration, Christian Aid, Irish charity Goal, French agency Acted and Medecins Sans Frontieres. For all the different organizations, for them to work together, they are all aiming and targeting at the same goal, which is to provide aid to the Haitians, to want to help improve their current state.
At this point of time to go about reaching out to the Haitians, there are many problems and challenges faced by them. For transportation and delivery of basic necessities itself, there are delays in the delivering itself, the ports and airports in Port-au-Prince were not built to cater to the high volume of flights arriving, and from that, there were many planes hovering around or being directed to the Dominion Republic, it had in turned caused there to be huge backlogs. Coordination was the key importance for aid to be provided efficiently.
Other problems they faced would also be the delivering of food to the Haitians itself, they roads in Haiti have been damaged by the earthquake itself, rubble was everywhere and people were rushing in out of the state itself; the drive to deliver the necessities itself would take hours, and also with the destruction of roads and infrastructure in Haiti, there were also destruction of trucks, as such, there was a shortage of trucks and a lack of fuel, with the basic form of transportation being at a low quantity, not much of the food can be delivered in a short span of time.
One other problem that they organizations face would be of responsible aid, meaning that at one point of time when they distribute the basic needs, the people might tend to take more that required and keep it for themselves or even intend to sell it, as such, not everyone would be receiving the aid, as such, the most vulnerable ones might still be suffering when their share of necessities are taken away by others. Another thing would be building camps for them, or in a sense providing shelter for the people. Currently, the land where the homeless are living in now, it would not be suitable to built shelter there for a long term.
To counter such issues, the different organizations can work together in really planning their routes together and not rushing in to giving their supplies. The different organizations can plan and split up the work. It is all about planning and coordinating.
We Loved12:59 PM
April 2008 past