Reflective Statement on Emergency Response
Describe:
The images selected here were from two very different types of emergencies. Hurricane Mitch was a rapid onset emergency that occurred in Nicaragua in late October 1998. Though Mitch didn’t actually hit Nicaragua, it hovered over Central America for almost 2 days, causing extensive rainfall and flooding across the country. In Posoltega, it caused a massive mudslide that ultimately covered an area 10 miles long and 5 miles wide and killed more than 2,000 people, and buried four villages in several feet of mud. Throughout Nicaragua, Mitch left between 500,000 and 800,000 homeless and damages were estimated at $1 billion dollars (National Climatic Data Center, 2004). In contrast, Gode, in Somali Region of southern Ethiopia, suffered a slow onset emergency, a severe drought, in late 1999. The drought was a culmination of three consecutive crop failures. Many pastoralists, the predominant inhabitants of the Region, lost all of their livestock, as a result of the drought. This eventually depleted household reserves and traditional coping mechanisms causing internal displacement of thousands of people particularly women and children. Many went to a town known as Gode, in search of help. This type of emergency is harder to determine because it is not so readily visible. Save the Children was the agency that identified the crisis and led the first response.
Analyze:
Mitch: Responding to Hurricane Mitch was a very emotional time for my team and I. The area where the mudslide occurred was our regular intervention area and my team members knew every person who died. Our initial response involved evacuating people to shelters, distributing Title II food commodities already in-stock from our warehouse, and facilitating medical attention and safe hygiene and sanitation in shelters. My food aid program mushroomed overnight. We partnered with the World Food Program and USAID and started delivering what was previously a year’s supply of rations every 2 weeks. Bridges were down and roads were a mess. We provided food, temporary shelters, non-food items, and psychosocial support to children and teachers, as well as temporary schools. We worked with local municipalities (16) and eventually assisted with road reconstruction and agricultural recovery programs.
Gode: I was sent to Gode, on a temporary short-term assignment to assist with the emergency response. To my surprise, I was dispatched to oversee therapeutic and supplementary feeding camps, as well as water delivery. I had to coordinate with a local NGO we had partnered with because it was outside of the agency's regular operating areas. It was a tremendous awaking for me. I had never been to Africa, didn’t speak Somali nor was I familiar with their culture or Ethiopian politics. Furthermore, I had never seen babies and young children that looked like skeletons (and there were literally hundreds), nor did I know anything about water delivery, only food distribution. Common sense told me that therapeutic services should not be interrupted overnight and that more personnel were needed to attend to so many babies. We also needed latrines, medicine and a cooking area. We hired more staff, including feeding and water specialists and tracked indicators for managing malnutrition in emergencies. We converted trucks into tankers and delivered “treated” water to more than 350,000 beneficiaries along with plastic jerry cans. I regularly participated in coordination meetings sometime with up to 40 organizations!
Appraise:
As I look back at these two emergency situations, I am amazed at the responsibility and challenges I was able to take on. I feel I was fortunate to participate in something so much larger than myself. It was humbling to realize, I was in over my head; but I asked probing questions and sought out information. I problem solved, I appealed to village elders and other humanitarian organizations. I learned everything from how to insert formulas into excel spreadsheets, to how to calculate nutrition rations, to conduct Food-for-Work interventions, construct wells, safeguard livestock, to how to mitigate disasters and facilitate recovery. I also learned to write proposals and secured reconstruction and emergency grants ranging from a few thousand dollars to multimillion dollar grants. I learned about humanitarian standards for emergency response, indicators for managing acute malnutrition in emergencies and how to involve beneficiaries in evaluating relief activities. Both of these emergency responses eventually became model operations. They were the cumulative success of many individuals, teams and agencies working together. I will always be grateful to Save the Children for having afforded me the opportunity to serve in them.
Transform:
Such opportunities as I had in Nicaragua and Gode would be unlikely in today’s world. Agencies, particularly, International NGOs have become more aware of the importance of having qualified rapid response capabilities and now ensure staff preparedness and training. I was not the only one who learned in these operations, indeed my agency did as well. After Ethiopia and later the Tsunami in Indonesia, Save the Children made sure all our offices worldwide had emergency preparedness plans and trained personnel. They developed Rapid Emergency Deployment Teams (of which I was member) to provide immediate short-term assistance to field offices if needed in the case of emergencies. They developed agency standards and shared best practices and lessons learned. I have since participated in emergency operations in Bolivia and Bangladesh, but both Save the Children and I were much better prepared for these relief and reconstruction efforts.
The images selected here were from two very different types of emergencies. Hurricane Mitch was a rapid onset emergency that occurred in Nicaragua in late October 1998. Though Mitch didn’t actually hit Nicaragua, it hovered over Central America for almost 2 days, causing extensive rainfall and flooding across the country. In Posoltega, it caused a massive mudslide that ultimately covered an area 10 miles long and 5 miles wide and killed more than 2,000 people, and buried four villages in several feet of mud. Throughout Nicaragua, Mitch left between 500,000 and 800,000 homeless and damages were estimated at $1 billion dollars (National Climatic Data Center, 2004). In contrast, Gode, in Somali Region of southern Ethiopia, suffered a slow onset emergency, a severe drought, in late 1999. The drought was a culmination of three consecutive crop failures. Many pastoralists, the predominant inhabitants of the Region, lost all of their livestock, as a result of the drought. This eventually depleted household reserves and traditional coping mechanisms causing internal displacement of thousands of people particularly women and children. Many went to a town known as Gode, in search of help. This type of emergency is harder to determine because it is not so readily visible. Save the Children was the agency that identified the crisis and led the first response.
Analyze:
Mitch: Responding to Hurricane Mitch was a very emotional time for my team and I. The area where the mudslide occurred was our regular intervention area and my team members knew every person who died. Our initial response involved evacuating people to shelters, distributing Title II food commodities already in-stock from our warehouse, and facilitating medical attention and safe hygiene and sanitation in shelters. My food aid program mushroomed overnight. We partnered with the World Food Program and USAID and started delivering what was previously a year’s supply of rations every 2 weeks. Bridges were down and roads were a mess. We provided food, temporary shelters, non-food items, and psychosocial support to children and teachers, as well as temporary schools. We worked with local municipalities (16) and eventually assisted with road reconstruction and agricultural recovery programs.
Gode: I was sent to Gode, on a temporary short-term assignment to assist with the emergency response. To my surprise, I was dispatched to oversee therapeutic and supplementary feeding camps, as well as water delivery. I had to coordinate with a local NGO we had partnered with because it was outside of the agency's regular operating areas. It was a tremendous awaking for me. I had never been to Africa, didn’t speak Somali nor was I familiar with their culture or Ethiopian politics. Furthermore, I had never seen babies and young children that looked like skeletons (and there were literally hundreds), nor did I know anything about water delivery, only food distribution. Common sense told me that therapeutic services should not be interrupted overnight and that more personnel were needed to attend to so many babies. We also needed latrines, medicine and a cooking area. We hired more staff, including feeding and water specialists and tracked indicators for managing malnutrition in emergencies. We converted trucks into tankers and delivered “treated” water to more than 350,000 beneficiaries along with plastic jerry cans. I regularly participated in coordination meetings sometime with up to 40 organizations!
Appraise:
As I look back at these two emergency situations, I am amazed at the responsibility and challenges I was able to take on. I feel I was fortunate to participate in something so much larger than myself. It was humbling to realize, I was in over my head; but I asked probing questions and sought out information. I problem solved, I appealed to village elders and other humanitarian organizations. I learned everything from how to insert formulas into excel spreadsheets, to how to calculate nutrition rations, to conduct Food-for-Work interventions, construct wells, safeguard livestock, to how to mitigate disasters and facilitate recovery. I also learned to write proposals and secured reconstruction and emergency grants ranging from a few thousand dollars to multimillion dollar grants. I learned about humanitarian standards for emergency response, indicators for managing acute malnutrition in emergencies and how to involve beneficiaries in evaluating relief activities. Both of these emergency responses eventually became model operations. They were the cumulative success of many individuals, teams and agencies working together. I will always be grateful to Save the Children for having afforded me the opportunity to serve in them.
Transform:
Such opportunities as I had in Nicaragua and Gode would be unlikely in today’s world. Agencies, particularly, International NGOs have become more aware of the importance of having qualified rapid response capabilities and now ensure staff preparedness and training. I was not the only one who learned in these operations, indeed my agency did as well. After Ethiopia and later the Tsunami in Indonesia, Save the Children made sure all our offices worldwide had emergency preparedness plans and trained personnel. They developed Rapid Emergency Deployment Teams (of which I was member) to provide immediate short-term assistance to field offices if needed in the case of emergencies. They developed agency standards and shared best practices and lessons learned. I have since participated in emergency operations in Bolivia and Bangladesh, but both Save the Children and I were much better prepared for these relief and reconstruction efforts.
Emergency Capacity Building Project (ECB)
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Not only did I learn about the minimum standards for emergency response, but I also had the opportunity to participate as an outside reader and later a conference participant, in a collaborative inter-agency initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to build staff capacity in Emergency Response. The Emergency Capacity Building Project's Good Enough Guide provides busy field workers with simple steps to put local people at the heart of emergency response and measure program impact in emergency situations. I was a contributor to the Guide as well as an external reviewer. Click on the image to access a link to the Guide.