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Tech NGOs Working In Haiti
d5w writes "There are a thousand and one NGOs responding in some way to the disaster in Haiti, but the necessary infrastructure is usually overlooked when people give charity donations. In fact, some popular donation sites actively downgrade charities for spending on infrastructure. Here are two organizations responding in Haiti, though, that have a purely tech infrastructure focus: Télécoms Sans Frontières brings mobile telecom rigs and satellite phones to disaster sites, making sure that responders on the ground can communicate with each other and that individuals can contact families abroad; here's an eWeek story about TSF. MapAction sends experienced GIS people and GPS equipment to provide up-to-date mapping, which is important when the landscape has just changed drastically. Any others?"
Thanks.
"In fact, some popular donation sites actively downgrade charities for spending on infrastructure."
My guess is that it downgrades them for spending it on their OWN infrastructure (like phone lines, buildings, etc) as opposed to spending it on the recipient's infrastructure.
Infrastructure is pretty much at the top of the list for things that Haiti needs, since their "roads" look like dried riverbeds, running water is all but nonexistent, and power is provided only to major cities and only on a rotational basis.
Doctors with borders, Telecoms without borders. They cooked all that up, reinforcing the human rights as a species. I still think their best contribution might be mayo and Francois Truffuat, but, hey, this is still pretty good.
This is my sig.
Well, there's a billion and one random internet people who would rather deliver some sarcasm than help people out. Some people are at least trying.
There's Engineers
Disaster mapping software with support for incoming SMS and email reports:
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/
Speaking of NGOs, here is a reputable charity that accepts PayPal or Google Checkout for donations (I found most of the others like Red Cross and Doctors without Borders only took credit cards). For anyone interested in donating, but would prefer to do so via PayPal or Google:
http://www.us.tzuchi.org/usa/home.nsf/other/k12063
While primarily a Buddhist organization, their charity "arm" is secular, and not subject to some of the proselytizing that can go along with other "religious" charities.
How about Slashdot and other tech-blogging-sites? I couldn't have cared less about the Haiti situation until my normal digital news outlets brought it to my attention. Keep up the fine work!
Right now food, medical care, and water are needed today. So I would throw in, The Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, AmeriCares, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Boarders.
Here is a list of the most highly rated charities http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/Haiti.html
I doubt that you can do wrong with any of them.
Oh and hats of the ARRL. A friend of mine is a HAM radio operator that works with the State of Florida Emergency management services. He was joking that he was offered an "all expenses paid two week vacation in Haiti" yesterday. He can not go because his wife is in a wheelchair and he is her care giver but other members of his group are heading off to provide radio communications for Haiti.
Last I heard the phone cable to Haiti was cut by the quake. Until that is repaired they will have to depend on satellite and radio to contact the outside world.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Openstreetmap is already showing refugee camps
see
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=18.53817&lon=-72.3414&zoom=16&layers=B000FTF
The biggest thing Haiti and similar countries need to break out of the poverty cycle is to stop their population growth. Until that happens no amount of infrastructure help will be enough.
.. Haitian man, (they being BBC News 24) and he was very very specific, he said "We need medicines, food and water. We do not need money."
Within 24 hours, the same news channel is talking about nothing but money being needed by these "Aid" organisations, regular appeals every 10 minutes, complete with web addresses and phone numbers to call to donate money.
cut back to reporter on the scene, 60 hours after the quake, located 2 miles from the airport...
"No, no aid of any kind has been seen here"
Cut back to studio, Red Cross guys upset that their food warehouse is being targeted by thieves, and starts citing excuses about needing a plan and infrastructure in place "to ensure that aid gets to the most needy first" as a reason why there are warehouses full of aid ALREADY IN SITU and not being doled out.
Cut back to hospital, no medicine, no aid, no help.
Cut back to reporter on street 2 miles from airport
"No aid of any kind getting through"
Speaks for itself, all these aid agencies are like the cancer research charities of the 80's, not interested in anything except promoting themselves and getting as many donations as possible.
Shit like this is a job for (given the proximity to the USA) US Army mobile hospitals and engineer corps.
It should not be an opportunity for fake charities to exploit to get more donations that never reach those in need.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
One of my Uni internships was with them, I worked with TSF at their HQ in summer 2002, helping set up their new equipment and also for liaison with the Red Cross during the Venezuela floods that July. They're great people, and they provide priceless service to the other organizations and especially to those families who can get in touch with their relatives. It was a great experience.
(Not affiliated with Doctors Without Borders): http://www.ewb-usa.org/
They had people in Haiti when the quake struck, and some were actually missing for a while. They have at least ten ongoing projects there.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Sunlight labs is sponsoring a hack-a-thon for Haiti in DC on Saturday.
The OSM response has been hugely impressive with commercial companies donating high quality imagery that has been mapped by volunteers around the world. The resulting data has also been put to some very good uses. See here for an early description.
That's a deeply cynical opinion of the world's humanitarian aid charities. I couldn't disagree more. After the US army has been and gone it will be the likes of Red Cross/Red Crescent, and Medecins Sans Frontieres who will provide ongoing medical support to the recovering community. These charities all declare breakdowns of where the donated money is spent. The initial relief effort has been hampered by a number of factors, but your claim that the Red Cross aren't really there to help people but simply to promote their brand and accumulate wealth is way off the mark. The people of Haiti will be in a much worse position if these groups are not present, and without donations from the public these groups would not exist at all. Maybe you're trying to justify your decision not to donate, and to some extent I'm trying to justify my decision TO donate, but I don't think you're representing these groups fairly with your statements.
Hmm... Cellphone companies rushing to get infrastructure back up. I doubt the CFO of the cellphone companies are saying "They might be publicly saying lets get some help in there so that families can communicate and get the help they need". I am sure internally it is more like... "We are loosing a ton of money every day that the cellphone infrastructure is down. We need that up ASAP!"
I guess you missed the frequent reports of security problems complicating the delivery of aid. Were my boots on the ground trying to deliver needed "...medicines, food and water..." and my safety were threatened, my prompt would be something along the lines of "Sucks to be you, because you just chased away all the help you're going to get," as those boots retreated from the threat. It is beyond cynical to expect medical personnel and other volunteers to work where they are not safe. Time for a reality check, my friend.
The Thomson Reuters Foundation has deployed itsnew Emergency Information Service (EIS) to Haiti. An experienced team of Foundation journalists was sent to the country on Wednesday with the goal of seeking out, collating and disseminating life-saving information to the people.
Communications is the most important part at this moment, to speed up the access to water and other basic sirvival needs. The more people connected the fastest they can move to the suply places.
Even when the supplies are there security needs to be in place to preventing rioting or chaos when the supplies are distributed. A few greedy people with guns can wreck any relief effort. This slows the overall effort at the beginning of course but distribution must be organized to really be effective.
Trying to reach Télécoms Sans Frontière returns:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Yours In Ashgabat,
Kilgore Trout
Crisis Commons is trying to setup CrisisCamps across the world to help the NGOs solve problems they are having.
http://crisiscommons.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Money is a lot easier to move around and it can be use to buy what the aid organization needs and in the quantity/packaging that they want to make shipping easier.
Compare food packaged for direct consumer use and food packaged for commercial use. Now if Joe Six pack is going to donate food, is he going to donate a drum of industrial pudding or would he be likely to send a couple of snack packs of pudding? If you were an aid agency which one would you prefer to have to deal with? Or would you prefer to just go an buy what you know you'll need.
Who modded him down?
Mod parent either to FUNNY, insightful or informative status!
Mod parent informative. Beats going to acronymfinder.
MODERATORS. If you do not mod parent up, bad things will happen. THIS IS YOUR WARNING.
http://www.hi8vb.tk/ Radio Hams from Dominican Republic, Cuba & USA who have travelled there to help with emergency communications.
Inveneo.org is preparing to send a team, whose mission is to set up long-shot WiFi links, and put down solar-powered computer workstations as network nodes. That is all the information I have at the moment: visit their site at Inveneo.org. -jw
I bet you never ever have being starving, people riot because they know help it's being send but they are not receiving shit, theres no water, theres no food it's been 4 fucking days wouldn't you be pissed off: when some guy that can't understand you comes take a look talk something on the radio and left? They did know there were no roads why do they didn't bring a lot of helicopters, it's not that Port au Prince it a big place, no, help it's being firstly used in foreign people affected not Haiti people. I know Haiti people here that have talked with their relatives, that is what the people starving there are seeing.
They are pissed of because every nation doing rescue and medical labor are focusing in their nationals, most of the rescue teams are in the UN hotel trying to rescue, you bet, UN workers. Even here in Colombia, the first flights to return from there returned with a handful of people, mostly wealthy people, then in the news we saw commons workers from here, wounded and starving in the airport asking why the fucking C130 didn't bring them back to our country. That, my friend it's a reality check.
Mod the parent UP. Or else the bogeyman will come and boogey with your boogers. Amen.
truth
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
You've just documented the link between TV news and cynicism. It's not really news, it's video bites taken out of context and chosen to push your emotional buttons so you'll keep tuning in.
If you want to have an informed opinion, turn off the idiot box and pick up a book or a newspaper. Or go online — the amount of real information you can get that way is mind-boggling.
If someone is using GIS Professionals to help the Hatians, why not get DigitalGlobe or TerraServer or another Satellite Imagery company to generate (georectify) before and after images of the areas. Host those images on a server.
If someone could setup a website comparing the before the earthquake and after, you could use collective GIS and Remote Sensing community (you could use collective intelligence to tell people what need to be done to help recovery) to show blocked roads and bridges and help someone on the ground to coordinate those effort.
The imagery would be useful to see where the most damage has occurred.
~ Micah Cochran
M_od P-a/ReNt UP!!! MOD par-ent UP mOd parent up ... Mo-D PaRe_Nt UP!!! Mod par--ent UP mOd parent up .. MoD -PaReNt UP!!! Mod parEnt UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt-/ UP!!! Mod parent UP mod pare/nt up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!!- Mod parent UP mod parent up .-.. MoD PaReNt UP!!!! Mod parent UP mod- parent up ./. MoD PaRent UP!!! Mod par-ENt UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parent up ...... MoD PaReNt UP!!! M_od parent UP MOD par_ent up .... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP m-od parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parEnt up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP/ mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parent up .... MoD Pa_ReNt UP!!! Mod /parent UP mod pa_rent up ... MOD PaReNt UP!!! Mod p_-arent UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod paren-t up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parent- up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent- UP mod pa-rent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod par/ent UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! MOD parent UP mod parent up ... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod paren/t up .... MoD PaReNt UP!!! Mod parent UP mod parent up
Infrastructure is only good if it's already in place prior to the disaster.
Building/Rebuilding infrastructure is actually not frequently a good response to a disaster, beyond getting basic communications up and running to support other disaster relief efforts, which can generally be provided by mobile/temporary radio emplacements.
As an example, in the US Virgin Islands, they tend to have extreme hurricanes every couple of years. You can walk around in Christiansted or Frederiksted on St. Croix afterwards, and a lot of what counts as infrastructure is practically demolished. When this happens, the US Congress inevitably votes to pay the costs for burying the necessary utilities so that telephone, power, sewer, etc. (most houses have cisterns for water) never go out again.
The money inevitably goes to the local utility company owners, who happen to be the same people or in the same circle of people, who own the casino, the airport, the Carombola golf course, the hotels, etc.. The take the money, spend 10% of it balancing the wires back up on the poles to wait for the next hurricane/payday, and then pocket the remaining 90%.
Spending on infrastructure in Haiti at this point to get things back up and running likely won't get them anything better than they already had before the Earthquake, won't prepare them any better for the next disaster, and will likely only serve to line the pockets of corrupt local officials (or corrupt local gang leaders, at least until the corrupt local officials can get back on their feet).
Slashdot is a technical site, and thinks of technical infrastructure as being important, but communications for anyone not directly involved in disaster relief at this point is a luxury, not a necessity.
If you plan on doing anything, the priority has to be on water, food, and shelter (in that order), then medical care for the injured (this is triage ordering, to save the people who survived or have already been dug out first from dying in the next few days or weeks). After that, you can try to figure out how to get non-temporary infrastructure built with a minimum of corruption, and hey, if you figure that out, maybe you can try it in the USVI, too, and then Florida, and eventually, California.
-- Terry
/\/\/\od ||)arent \\//p
(mod parent up!)
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mpu mpu mod parent u!!!
Mod parent toward the heavens (e.g. mpu! [and i don't mean memory protection unit])
In short, you don't even have to go to Haiti to be a helpful techie.
NGO is short for Negro, you fucking retards. This article is false because a negro would never work anywhere.
Mod PARENT UP!
I was an FS-5 Cisco Engineer in 2004 for the UN Stabilzation Mission in Haiti (MINUTSAH) where I maintained the VoIP and Data links back to Brindisi and it looks like the folks from my section didn't make it out. I have sent several emails to former colleagues and have gotten no responses. The US news media has pretty much glossed over the deaths at the compound and even the folks I work for now don't have any sat photos of it. Unfortunately, after 72 hours, it looks like nearly everyone there is dead. This is the biggest loss to the DPKO and the UN ever. My former colleagues, we will miss you all.
Mod parent up alreday
Uppity uppity
Mod parent up