March 08, 2011

Responding to calamity.

Himal asked me to write an essay for their issue on Disasters (March). You can read it here: Responding to Calamity.

Comments welcome.

2 comments:

Jai_C said...

1. When our Co. went in for tsunami relief we were a little late but benefited from some feedback like the points here. We collected money, co. matched the contribution and we were able to provide IIRC ~1000 identical kits of newly purchased basic clothes and kitchen utensils medicines, basic grains and flour. we thought access to safe drinking water would be a problem but couldnt figure anything we could do abt it. we were able to get more stuff than we thought since the traders we approached took only cost price or less when they realized where it was going.


2. Reading this post I realize I have some mis-attribution of some older post or comment.

It could have been Annie's, or maybe someplace totally else I guess, but I remember it as this space that I read abt a baker in an MH town, who heard abt the Latur quake and simply loaded the entire product of his shop into his auto-tempo and started off for Latur.

I guessed that the items of a regular bakery were likely sweets and other confectionery more than basic bread.

It did not occur to me then to think how useful how much of that would be to the recipients.

I also (mis?)read in that piece a sense of warm appreciation for the baker.

I seem to have a problem either with the source of my memory or with the sentiment I read into that story.

thanks,
Jai

Mohan gandhi said...

Well written article and keep up the work. Super likes.


Thanks,
Mohan
http://originalmusictracks.blogspot.com/