The following is a post from
http://www.christine.net following the BlogHer 2006 Conference where World Wide Help Group member Dina Mehta was a presenter.
Hurricane Katrina relief veterans Grace Davis and Sara Ford were joined by tsunami aid activist Dina Mehta in discussing best practices for bloggers delivering tangible aid to communities in need. each of these speakers brought a different perspective:
MumbaiHelps was intended to be a repository of information - where to go for financial
aid, medical help, etc. - rather than a formal organization with the capacity to reach out on the ground. The Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief blog, on the other hand, was designed to support people who wanted to help those in need. Finally, Ford (a Microsoft program manager, and
Louisiana native) drove outreach through her own blog, taking advantage of the credibility that she had already developed as a blogger to speak out and drive people into taking action. Based on the speakers' experiences, these best practices floated to the top:
Top Five Best Practices
1.Help the helpers. Davis made the conscious decision to not
help people in need directly. Though it was a tough decision, this
one-dimensionality helped to keep efforts focused and impactful.
2.Plan to get scammers. Blogging about a disaster will elicit
spam submissions for relief. Davis needed to get the story, find out
exactly what help they needed, and then verify the situation. Church
ladies across the south volunteered to support this task. Mehta's group
posted a disclaimer reminding wiki users that none of the information
had been verified.
3. Get rid of your PayPal button. Davis' blog operated through
mothers instead. She found that having an active solicitation button
had a negative impact on credibility - made them look like a phishing
site or other donation scam. Mehta had the same experience. Ford, on
the other hand, had reasonable acceptance given the prexisting
credibility of her blog.
4. Tell the story. HKDR told poignant stories that weren't
appearing in the traditional news media. Davis posted a lot of pictures
to both share the situation on the ground and to show donors exactly
what they were addressing. Ford, on the other hand, had many requests
for photos of what the town looked like before the devastation
occurred. Emergency workers needed this context in order to make sense
of the piles of debris, to see where the streets were supposed to be
within a miles-wide junkyard.
5. Facilitate one-on-one connections. Most rescuees will need
financial and logistical assistance. Many will also ask for counseling
that speaks to their specific situation, and even receiving needed
relief can bring up post-traumatic stress. A related point here is to
sustain the original context for how and why you got involved as a
blogger - over
time, it's easy for new readers to come in and not understand your
history of involvement.
Miscellaneous Practical Tips
- Keep focused on what you can handle. Mehta, for example, found that the
daily updates on her blog ended up turning into a directory of
survivor sites. The needs were overwhelming, and so managing the
redirection instead was more effective.
- Don't accept clothing, unless you have very specific needs - you
will get more than you can handle. Medical supplies are much better.
- Be mindful of the survivor's own experience. It's humbling to be on
the receiving end of soup kitchen, and everyone has to go through it
when the closest open grocery store is three hours away.
- You need people on the ground in order to get
current information.
- Two major categories of resource information are essential: help offered vs. help
needed.
Promising Ideas
During open discussion, there were some great audience ideas on how bloggers can contribute to disaster relief:
- Ham radio operator clubs have periodic field days, in which they pack
up their gear and generators, and practice how they'd work in a
disaster. Why not have a blogging field day, that would enable bloggers
to work on how they'd be able to help in case of disaster?
- Bloggers could connect with clubs of many useful stripes - ham
radio, off-road driving, etc. - to form collaborative relationships
that deliver more effective impact in case of emergency.
- Take advantage of SMS on blogs - services such as 411sync can deliver blog content to cell phones, and many services (including Typepad) support posting to blogs via SMS.
- Work with press associations to get information from individuals
into mainstream media. Especially in affected areas, the mainstream
media may be the last outlet capable of broadcasting information.
Disaster relief is one way to assist a community, but there are many
other ways to involve people in something that they feel deeply about.
Mehta's reminder to do so is a point well-taken.
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1. Have enough bandwidth and a robust enough site that you can take the vast hits in an emergency that your information will generate. This one gave us no end of trouble, and bandwidth is key. You have to be ready for a million page views in a few days. Preparation for this kind of intense but time-limited traffic is a really, really good idea. We found help in many unusual places, but if you could prepare for this well in advance, you would be very well advised to do so.
2. Internet connections are robust, and best suited for post-disaster information. After the tsunami all communications were lost, it seemed, but the Internet. We found isolated places in Asia that had Internet after the tsunami, places you never would have thought of. After Katrina, we had people who were communicating with us via computer using waning laptop battery power and cell phone, and this was the only way they could get through to the outside world.
3. SMS service has the potential for communication when phone calls won't go through, and when there is no Internet available. This is important.
4. You really need a fast loading mechanism such as a wiki to communicate with the entire world. A lot of people in undeveloped regions don't have the computer size of the average American computer. There are still plenty of 28.8 Kbps connections around and you need to prepare for that if you want to involve the world. You have to use a format that takes this into consideration. You also have to take into consideration the variety of operating systems and browsers in use.
5. You need an easily visible email address on the entrance to your site. Phone isn't bad either.
6. Having people based over several different continents is an incredible strength--it overcomes time zones in a compelling way.
7. People really want to help and will volunteer significant efforts in helping.
8. Access to the Internet is crucial in helping. We were unable to make much headway in our efforts after the Kashmir earthquake because that region lacks what I would term "Internet fluency." That is comprised of access to computers and the Internet, the knowledge of how to use computers, and the ability to use basic English.
9. The ninth thing we learned is that many Americans can't do much with their powerful computers machines other than email and a few light Internet searches, but they really, really want to help.
10. It really pays to have some people on board with diverse and broad ranging and advanced skills in both hardware and software. We were able always to find these people, but it also absorbed a lot of time.
11. The information provided by the World Wide Help Team likely a strong component in the future of helping others following disasters. It works. It crosses political boundaries and time zones. It bypasses the bureaucracy of both government and established NGO's. It unites diverse viewpoints and people.
12. If you use a wiki, the spam bots will eventually find you. We have developed significant expertise in controlling this problem.
13. There is enough of a repository of on-line open source code to build whatever is needed. We have added to that code and made it freely available.
14. The fourteenth thing we learned is that infrastructure can be done right with one existing server and about $5,000 for new servers and bandwidth. This makes similar project very financially feasible. Of course it helped to have people on board who (if you paid for their services, and some of our people are actively involved in consulting) would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, at least.
15. Volunteers are key. They are willing to work after the paid help has all gone home. We didn't have paid help, but our dedicated volunteers gave of their time and resources endlessly, and often until it hurt.
16. When people are actively helping others they are willing to set aside almost all political differences.
17. That there is nothing like the Internet for networking.
Online publishing and collaboration tools can be very valuable in aggregating and distributing emergency information.
The ability to quickly understand how to set up, configure and use such tools to maximise their effectiveness and usefulness when information is scarce, can be crucial
Below a few tips should you ever want to have them handy:
InfrastructureCheck Internet ConnectionsDuring emergencies, internet communication may work better than in normal circumstances, or may fail entirely. During the Tsunami in Phuket for example, all voice networks were down due to damage to local infrastructure, but wireless data networks, which used secondary infrastructure not affected by the wave, were up and working faster, much faster than normal.
Check all possible networks and connections to determine which is working and which is faster.
There is generally a range of options from landlines, to wireless access, with different operators.
Locate the most accessible communication providers.
Locate satellite connections and equipment
Hospitals and public services are likely to have backup infrastructure, and they are likely to use that infrastructure for life/death communication
A stable internet connection is likely to satisfy most communication needs, including voice and pictures.
RadioTo ensure radio communication two way communication equipment is needed
EquipmentDuring emergencies, all available equipment should be listed for features and be made available for emergency communication
From mobile phones to computers, from spare batteries and chargers, all resources should be saved and inventoried and be readied as needed
Offline information, say from witnesses and radio can be compiled into short
summaries and emailed or uploaded to online resources
PeopleOnline tools can support quick communication with global reach.
Online communication skills, however, are still relatively scarce, so it is good to have an inventory of what people can do. Some are people good at coordinating, others at editing, some are good at verifying, some are good at designing, etc. Assign tasks based on competence and availability, and willingness to help
Make sure that more than one person is covering a task
CommunicationMake sure that every person collaborating to the communication project is communicating effectively and openly, so that every bit of information circulated can be of use to more than one contributre, thus maximising the network effect.
Using a mailing list for group communication has proven most effective.
See
SEAEAT(elaborate more)
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