Haiti: On-the-Ground Needs (Want to Volunteer?)

While there has been a flurry of helpful activity on the web to aid disaster relief efforts, where the help is truly needed is on the ground. If you can go to Haiti (especially if you have medical, EMT or other relevant training) it would be an amazing thing to do. 

The Scientology Volunteer Minister team chartered two planes with supplies, doctors and volunteers to help in the relief efforts. They are looking for more volunteers to go down. Get in touch with them via this contact form if you are interested in helping. They are open to hearing from anyone seeking to help.

A friend of mine has a post on his blog outlining current needs (copied and pasted below for reference):

VOLUNTEER MINISTERS AND VOLUNTEERS WITH THE FOLLOWING SKILLS OR DISASTER AREA EXPERIENCE:

 

Volunteers are needed with the following skills:

- Search and Rescue experience 
- Anybody with skills in setting up communication lines 
- Coordination skills 
- Crowd control skills

Anyone with these skills or who wishes to be trained to help in this capacity, contact the Volunteer Ministers Disaster Response office, and they can get you free training for this. 

MATERIALS THAT ARE MOST URGENTLY NEEDED:

-Water (especially water sanitation equipment/materials) 
- Medical supplies 
- Non-perishable food supplies 

 

- Other commodities such blankets, tents, sanitation materials (e.g. soap, toilette paper, Diapers, shampoo).

Posted via web from Reilly Sweetland's Posterous Blog

CrisisFilter | Haiti Relief Effort | An Invitation For Comments

Hi -- As part of a Random Hacks Of Kindness event this weekend, I helped come up with and coordinate an idea that may save lives in the Haiti Earthquake relief effort.

Background: People in emergency situations are using twitter and social media to reach out for help. (Some as desperate as "help, I'm still alive but stuck under a house" or "please send water and medicine asap"). However, due to the volume of traffic, many of them are getting overlooked. (This is per a person in contact with the Red Cross at the event this weekend).

My request: We need feedback from the people directly involved in this relief efforts of this situation. The "View Crises" page is meant for them (where they could see the distilled, most important tweets, posts, etc). Would they actually use this? 

If you know someone involved, please pass this to them. We would love to hear from them. We are under way in getting a prototype on line now, but the sooner we can get input / feedback the better.

How it would work:  

Page 1: Web viewers go to CrisisFilter.org. The home page refreshes about every 15 seconds..just enough time to report on posts containing crises.  In this way, someone could just stay on the site and continuously report crises.

The second page: Relief workers (or people wanting to populate the Ushahidi relief site) go to the distilled "View Crises" page to see the important ones.

Posted via email from Reilly Sweetland's Posterous Blog