Feb 26 2008
Oh Dear. Send A Ham To His Widow
It's a bit funny to read a serious article that starts out with an anecdote from an episode of The Simpsons. Yet that is exactly how this LiveScience article on disastrous disaster relief starts out.
In an early episode of "The Simpsons," when Homer has a heart attack and dies, his boss Mr. Burns offers a perfunctory gesture and instructs his assistant to send Homer's wife a ham. (Homer returns to life once his soul hears about the ham.)
The humanitarian aid industry might not be so different in its mechanical reaction to complex and diverse emergencies that arise around the globe, according to researchers from Harvard School of Public Health.
If not ham (which was apparently sent in cans to the Muslim populations of Iraq and Afghanistan), then it is the donation of inappropriate clothes or services based on misconceptions of what is needed when disaster strikes. Ultimately this can do more harm than good.
While television news images of happy and feeble volunteers unable to strike a nail with a hammer in the Katrina cleanup might make this crystal clear, only recently has the altruistic but often inefficient efforts of humanitarian aid groups been studied scientifically.
Michael VanRooyen, co-director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, summarizes the issues involved in disaster relief in a new lecture at Harvard called "Humanitarian Myths: Twelve Myths and Misconceptions in Disaster Response," as well as in articles last year in the journal Prehospital and Disaster Medicine.
There are a host of things that can - and have - gone wrong with disaster relief efforts.
Food can rot; medicine can be administered haphazardly; medical equipment often can't be used for lack of electricity or proper storage; and clothes are often inappropriate for the culture or climate, ultimately resold, undermining the local economy, VanRooyen and his colleagues have found. VanRooyen said that surplus materials can reduce the demand for local products, which closes factories and places people out of work.
Complicating matters is the proliferation of humanitarian aid groups, which function with little professional oversight or coordination with local governments and disaster relief experts. Everyone wants to be first, and everyone wants to be a hero. Such bravado and chaos has led to deaths, such as in Zaire in the mid-1990s when cholera hit poorly operated refugee camps.
The intent of the study is not to discourage efforts, but to urge volunteers and groups to think about what they are trying to accomplish - and what they are actually capable of. If you're useless with tools, volunteering to help rebuild may not be the best thing you can do.
Cancel the ham.
3 Responses to “Oh Dear. Send A Ham To His Widow”
One thing to keep in mind is that we don’t have to treat the disaster area population as victims. Why have hundreds of medical personnel come in to the area and warehouse the medical personnel who lived there in FEMA trailers and give them nothing to do but sit around all day complaining?We should completely change how we handle disasters and use the people in the disaster area as a resource, not as helpless victims. There are qualified construction operators, carpenters, steel workers, medical personnel, daycare workers, teachers in that population of "victims". Let them get back to work quickly cleaning up their own neighborhood. I think it would be much better for them psychologically.
I volunteer with disaster preparedness/relief for my church and so this is of great interest to me. You are right about inappropriate donations. It seems to me like there is something about watching a disaster on TV that makes people want to empty their closets of old clothing. It also makes untrained, unaffiliated volunteers want to show up at the disaster site to do something or other without any thought of how they will be fed, housed, supervised, or utilized.I can’t speak for overseas disasters, but in the USA there are groups in most states that meet regularly among themselves and with fed/state/local emergency management people to coordinate, train, and otherwise try to improve the collective response to a disaster. These coordinating groups improve the situation, but can only do so much - after all that is why it is called a disaster.My advice for persons wanting to get involved is:1. Be prepared yourself: If you can take care of yourself and your loved ones, then you are in a much better position to help those that can’t or won’t help themselves.2. Get affiliated: Join a group that does disaster response. Red Cross, ARES, your church, Citizens Corps, etc. There are many to choose from.3. Get trained: Once you join a group they will provide training opportunities and the credentials you will need to get close to the disaster.4 Donate cash rather than stuff: Again, there are many good charities that do this and know better than to send ham to the Middle East.
The law of unintended consequences applies yet again.