Post Disaster Reconstruction in Haiti

I am excited about our support of the International Workshop – After the cameras have gone: Rebuilding Sustainable Communities in Haiti after the January 12th Earthquake: April 9th, 2010 Boston, MA. We are the NGO partner of the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters at UMASS Boston.

Also we are establishing a small delegation to go to Haiti following the April 9^th Workshop at UMASS to present the Recommendations Report on Rebuilding Haiti.  Topics include considerations sensitive to the needs of healthcare, women, children and individuals with disabilities.  We are currently coordinating meetings with several organizations for that trip and you’ll find updates on that trip posted here as well.

Get involved!

16th issue of the GDN electronic resources

Gender and Disaster Network Newsletter

This issue contains a short commentary on the centenary of International Women’s Day, GDN’s efforts to reach out to Chilean women’s groups in light of the recent earthquake, a compilation of resources to help emergency responders in Haiti, and an introduction of GDN’s sister network, the US Gender and Disaster Resilience Alliance (US-GDRA). Also included in this special edition: a case study on girls and women empowerment in Bangladesh shared by our member from Action Aid International, Bangladesh and a compilation of recent resources on gender and DRR.

Help us circulate this issue of the GDN eresources to your colleagues and networks.
Comments and suggestions are highly appreciated: gdn@gdnonline.org.
To join the GDN community: https://www.gdnonline.org/profile/register.php

Mahila Partnership’s Project SOAR

Project SOAR strengthens organizational resiliency through strategic mentorships and enables local organizations to better be able to achieve mission success. Project SOAR allows often over-committed organizations to not only consider, but respond to, rapid changes in their operating landscape.  We serve as advisors to provide ongoing support remotely and on the ground with respect to healthcare, gender issues, special needs populations, sheltering and post disaster reconstruction.

It is set up as a separate cause on Facebook and you are invited to join as well.

So how does this work?  As one example, this is how we’ve applied it to our work in Haiti:

Currently we are working with our partners who have close working relationships with the country with over 10 years experience of delivering goods to remote locations of the island. We are fortunate as our partners include CODE Inc, a leading provider in logistics and procurement for materials in the developing world, the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters at UMASS with strong ties to the Haitian community and is hosting an international workshop on April 9^th, and ONEXONE who has been led the effort in getting supplies to Partners in Health and hailed as “one of the fastest organizations to mobilize valuable medical supplies and actually get a plane-load of supplies landed at Port-au-Prince airport”. We have been actively communicating with and advising various NGOs, US DHHS, and USAID and it is our goal is to strengthen partnerships with agencies and NGOs as well as facilitate efforts to get them the resources they need.

It has been an amazing experience and we are not done.