|
As the United Nations and worldwide NGOs face the challenges of providing basic services to the survivors of the January 2010 Haitian earthquake, Oxfam’s Raymond Offenheiser scrutinizes what will ultimately be “crucial to the outcome, in the Haitian context, of a successful recovery and rehabilitation by the Haitian people and for the Haitian nation—distributed leadership.” He describes the overwhelming levels of destruction and suffering he witnessed in the weeks just after the quake. The numbers are hard to imagine—4000 schools compromised or destroyed, children orphaned, 100,000 amputees in a country where annual health care spending is $100/year/person, and the approach of the rainy season. Offenheiser goes on to explain the intricate humanitarian response that unfolds in the aftermath of any natural disaster involving the UN, world governments, and NGOs in their efforts to coordinate the recovery.  The quake destroyed most of the government’s physical infrastructure in Port au Prince where Ministry buildings lie in ruins and where untold numbers of government officials and civil servants were killed. Leadership is currently distributed over large numbers of organizations, rescue personnel from many nations, and people from all walks of Haitian life. Offenheiser asserts that “even if the government were intact, it would not have the capacity to deal with the enormity of the catastrophe and emergency it faces.” Using anecdotes from three survivors of the earthquake, Offenheiser describes how seemingly ordinary citizens can become leaders in a crisis. In one example, he illustrates how an individual created a “Cash-for-Work” program, which allowed displaced residents to be paid for putting together much-needed “Family Kits.” The kits could have been bought ready-made and easily distributed to refugee camps. Instead, the component parts were purchased and assembled. The Oxfam employee had the autonomy to make this decision; the refugees had money that...
|
Video Length: 0
Date Found: September 05, 2010
Date Produced: May 19, 2010
|
|
MIT World |
July 07, 2011
In three presentations that look back to digital-age milestones, and glimpse ahead to what may come next, speakers share some previously undisclosed stories, great enthusiasms, and a few concerns. Nicholas Negroponte tells a few “dirty secrets” about the start of the MIT Media Lab, including ...
|
MIT World |
June 29, 2011
Winners of the A.M.Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of computing, describe their singular contributions to the field, and their works’ impact. They also find time to discuss the current and future state of computer science. Moderator Stephen Ward starts with 1990 prize winner Fernando Corbato, who ...
|
MIT World |
June 13, 2011
Drew Davidson likes to play with blocks in his sandbox, as he demonstrates in a show-and-tell to interactive media colleagues. In this case, the playground is an online game called Minecraft, a two-year-young internet sensation with millions of followers, developed single-handedly by a ...
|
MIT World |
June 06, 2011
Amy Bruckman finds the accomplishments of such online collaborations as Wikipedia, Apache and Firefox “nothing less than astounding,” and is both eagerly seeking and hoping to foster the next creative group Internet sensation. In her lab’s empirical studies, Bruckman has dissected different ...
|
MIT World |
June 06, 2011
The ultimate questions for this Sandbox 2011 panel, posed by moderator Alan Gershenfeld, are “Where is technology not working? When is technology not the answer?” That’s a bold agenda for a panel of children’s media creators and a roomful of other producers in the industry, from Sesame ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Featured Content
Featuring websites that enhance the internet user’s experience.
|