Monday, September 6, 2010

UPDATE Tuesday: Reach-out & Training for NGOs & Volunteers in Flood Relief

Congratulations, Yasir Sahib and all who have helped with this amazingly positive effort given the challenges!

See the most recent Report here:

From yasir ~يا سر
Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 1:59 PM

Hello,

We had a good session today with participation from various NGO and volunteer groups. Much good energy and mutually beneficial interaction for groups working in camps.

Please note that today's session is available online for viewing and sharing with those who missed it ! http://streaming.hec.gov.pk/tcs/#page:conferenceList&status:recorded&pageNumber:1 or CLICK here

We look forward to your cooperation in getting more groups and NGOs working in flood relief, rehab and reconstruction, to come on board. Please spread the word, and provide us with lists and contacts across Pakistan, if possible. Even better would be if you can organize groups so that further sessions can be held. Space will be provided, and introductory and training sessions will continue. Sessions will be held on request, and will be arranged by us at designated university campuses and other locations in major cities throughout in Pakistan.

If you have not received the email below, you may find useful information there.
You may also find the FB page of Sahana Pakistan Flood Response 2010 useful:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Sahana-Pakistan-Flood-Response-2010/145586795481844?ref=ts

You may direct further inquiries to us. If you do not want to receive these updates, please let us know also.

With best wishes,

Yasir Husain
Azhar Rizvi

Sahana Pakistan Flood Response 2010
____________________________

Reach-out & Training for
NGOs & Volunteers in Flood Relief
____________________________
END Update...

See fuller description here from Monday:

You may have seen other meeting dates for this one...but this post has been updated very late Monday and should now be the correct date for TUESDAY:

Tomorrow 07 September 2010, Tuesday
Time 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Location HEC (Higher Education Commission), Next to TV Station, Stadium Road

From: Sahana Pakistan Flood Response 2010

Location HEC (Higher Education Commission)
Next to TV Station, Stadium Road

** We would appreciate a note of confirmation if you are attending:

Yasir Husain yasir [dot] media [at] gmail [dot] com

More Info

Participants will be made familiar with the use of features, while we ask for suggestions (for development priorities) based on flood relief activities being undertaken by participants organizations/groups.

You send 2-3 people to our training session. Ideally this would be 1-2 persons of staff and 1 technical person (who can troubleshoot later as needed). These people can then brief other people.

For details on what this is about see email below or :

---------------------------
From: yasir ~يا سر

Dear friends

I am involved with this great team of volunteers who are all professionals and entrepreneurs in the IT area. Many of these are involved in social and relief work under normal circumstances. They have come together to provide a software solution to the chaos and mismanagement that occurs when trying to provide and plan for flood relief on large scale. The team has already customized the Sahana Eden software (being offered for free) for flood relief work in Pakistan, and is continuing software development to how NGOs, volunteers & volunteer organizations and district committees might better utilize what it offers - a way to quickly manage, match and coordinate disaster relief with many others in an ongoing way through cooperation.

We are holding a briefing & training session on Monday or Tuesday. Please state when you can attend, and help spread the word. If you would like to help in development or other area, let us know. A team is about to visit Thatta and Sukkur - get in touch to schedule a meeting. More will follow.

Best wishes,

yasir ~يا سر

A number of organizations are already on board:

+ The Citizen Foundation,
+ Air Force Southern Command,
+ PILER,
+ PFF Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum [northern Sindh, coastal areas, makli, dadu]
+ Sindh labour Relief Committee [Hub, Moro, Thatta, Makli]
+ Sindh Social Forum
+ Digital Activists Group DAG
+ IDSP
+ others

we are also talking to:
+ TRDP Thardeep Rural Support programme
[Dadu, Jamshoro, Khairpur and Thar Districts]
+ SRSO [9 districts in sindh]
+ Edhi Foundation
+ Other citizen, activist, environmental, academic, culture, volunteer groups

SAHANA in Pakistan August 2010

(Leaving these sites as they are throughout without the usual LINK/CLICK so you can pass this on - blogger)

http://pakistan.sahanafoundation.org/eden/default/about
http://pakistan.sahanafoundation.org/eden/default/contact

The SAHANA project for flood relief invites NGOs and individuals

The Sahana project is a web-based disaster relief management tool for large-scale humanitarian disasters. The Software tool has been customized for flood relief management in Pakistan, in which organizations' and individuals' expertise, particular needs and pledges, and incidents and relief services are matched, coordinated and tracked. Many organizations are already on board. As more come on board, effectiveness of aid where it is needed, will increase.

Website Sahana Eden in Pakistan 2010:
http://pakistan.sahanafoundation.org/eden/default/index

Organizations, NGOs, volunteers, journalists and activists working in Flood Relief efforts are invited to use the system for relief & rehab, to their advantage. Organizations are individually registered and may track their own work and supplies. Training is being provided to organizations and volunteers to use the software, which also uses reporting through mobile phones. Sahana Eden is integrated with the Pakreport site http://pakreport.org/ushahidi/ to which anyone can send an SMS report. One can send the SMS to 3441 and start the message with FL followed by text - a flood related report, need, or update.

Training Sessions
Organizations may request briefing and training sessions. Please contact:

Yasir Husain yasir [dot] media [at] gmail [dot] com

Sahana's Pakistan Team

Sahana's Flood Relief Management effort is led by Azhar Rizvi (TAN America Fund I, LP, MIT Enterprise Forum of Pakistan and Rotary International). Sahana Foundation's international team works with a Pakistani team customizing and continuously developing the software in Pakistan. In addition the team includes several IT departments in Pakistan, the Higher Education Commission (HEC), and an initial group of volunteers...

Sahana Pakistan users' group: http://groups.google.com/group/sahana-pakistan-2010

SAHANA Overview

The software itself is expensive running into six figures, and is being offered by Sahana Foundation for use in Pakistan for free.
The Sahana Agasti project has seven [7] modules that address common disaster coordination and collaboration problems. Sahana Eden is being customized and localized at the moment and may have some of the same features:

Request/Pledge Management System: An online repository where all relief organizations, relief workers, government agents and camps can effectively match requests of aid and supplies to pledges of support. It tracks aid provision from request to fulfillment.

Organization Registry: A collaborative “Who is doing what, where” tool which enables tracking of the relief organizations and other stakeholders working in the disaster region. It captures information about the places where each organization is active and the range of services being provided.

Shelter Registry: Keeps track of the location and basic data of shelters in the region. It also provides a geo-spatial view to plot the location of the camps in the affected area.

Inventory Management: Tracking the location, quantities, expiry of supplies stored for utilization in a disaster

Situation Awareness: Gives an overview of the event and allows people to add information on what is happening on the ground. It features the ability to plot a note and a photo with additional information on a Map, so that people can collaboratively capture the current disaster situation.

Volunteer coordination: Helps NGOs keep track of all their volunteers, their contact information, project allocation, availability and skills to help them distribute staff resources.

Missing Person Registry: An online bulletin board of missing and found people. It captures information about the people missing and found, and also the information of the person seeking them.

Sahana also includes tools for synchronization between multiple instances, allowing for responders or district offices to capture data on instances in the field and exchange the data with other field offices, headquarters or responders

Past Deployment by Sahana

** Sahana Agasti**

Tsunami - Sri Lanka 2005 - Officially deployed in the CNO for the Government of Sri Lanka
AsianQuake - Pakistan 2005 - Officially deployed with NADRA for the Government of Pakistan
Southern Leyte Mudslide Disaster - Philippines 2006 - Officially deployed with the NDCC and ODC for the Government of Philippines
Sarvodaya - Sri Lanka 2006 - Deployed for Sri Lanka's largest NGO
Terre des Hommes - Sri Lanka 2006 - Deployed with new Child Protection Module
Yogjakarta Earthquake - Indonesia 2006 - Deployed by ACS, urRemote and Indonesian whitewater association and Indonesian Rescue Source
Peru Earthquake - Peru 2007 - Deployed and localized into Spanish.
Myanmar Cyclone - Myanmar 2008- Currently working in progress to deploy and localize into Burmese.

** Sahana Eden ** (for rapid deployment & customization)

Haiti Earthquake - Haiti 2010- Currently working in progress to deploy and localize into Port-au-Prince and Haiti.
Pakistan Floods - 2010 - under deployment

Tech Details

Developers: Sahana Software Foundation
Sahana Agasti
release 0.6.3 / 2010-0407
written in PHP, Javascript, Perl, HTML
Operating system Cross-platform
Platform Apache, MySQL
License: LGPL
Sahana Eden
r1156 (2010-09-01 07:49:23) (on 03Sep2010 pakistan.sahanafoundation.org)
written in Python, & based on the web2py framework
License: MIT

Sahana Agasti is available in English - Language packs available for v.0.6.2.2 for Arabic, Bahasa Indonesian, Bengali, Burmese, Simplified Chinese, English/UK, English/US, German, Hindi, Portuguese & Portuguese/Brazil, Russian, Sinhala, Spanish, Spanish/Latin America, and Tamil.

Sahana Eden information is being updated as the software is being customized.

for more information:
Website: http://www.sahanafoundation.org ,
Sahana Eden in Pakistan: http://pakistan.sahanafoundation.org/eden/default/index

8 comments:

CN said...

I have left off the streaming AND fb url due to technical and other difficulties from a distance...(yet you may find a way to directly access these if you wish? Or could request the URL from Yasir Sahib) as well as some names for which I don't have direct permission to publicize. Yet emailing Yasir Sahib should be good enough...so if planning to attend, please email him..his email is listed in post above clearly in several places...

CN said...

Following are several lists which may provide some other outlets for people who want to donate yet may not be able to attend these trainings or may want to both go to these trainings as well as collect items from their own circles and donate along with the training:

First, let me mention that there are many ways people are reaching out of course. One group led by a Director of a College Art Program is leading students in preparing packets for Eid - for a kind of "Happy Day" for those who've lost so much...with clothes for each person in a certain camp along with sweets and small gifts. Why not assemble some of these items and then give Yasir Sahib mentioned above with his email and ask him where to bring these and for any directions?

More ways of contributing mentioned in comments below...

CN said...

A most helpful online friend sent the following:

Many people want to donate but are understandably reluctant to hand over anything to those they don't trust. But there are fortunately NGOs you can trust completely. This time though, it makes sense to donate to the larger NGOs that are equipped and have the manpower to cope with disaster on scale. As it has turned out, its easier to raise funds and relief goods, but far more difficult or impossible to distribute them properly. It's better to join up with other NGOs who are equipped and experienced...

See one such trusted group and a more or less "regular" or typcical such list of items to collect on next comment below...

CN said...

Continued advice from online friend...

If you can't think of any NGO or are not sure where to turn then perhaps The Well-known and highly respected Edhi Foundation is your safest bet. But your Zakat to your usual favourite charity should stay put. Some are losing funds to flood victims. That should not happen. Just have to contribute a bit more this time. -- NS

Where and what to give through Edhi

As requested by you, I spoke to the Edhi Centres and they have provided the following information about where they are working in Sindh, and what kind of donations they need. They send out to other areas from here and will be adding other centres as soon as possible.

Karachi

Contact Person’s name: Anwer Kazmi

Phone number: 021-32201261

Information centre number : 021-32424125 (for details)

Donations in cash or kind may be deposited here also:-

Edhi Clifton office, near Agha Super market

SUKKUR

The Sind Relief Centre Sukkur is being run by Fasial Edhi himself,

and he and Mr Uroos are the contact persons there.

The phone number is 071-5626050

Below are items still urgently needed for many places...

CN said...

ITEMS URGENTLY REQUIRED FOR FLOOD AFFECTEES

1. Milk for Children and women

2. High Nutrition Biscuits

3. Drinking Water

4. Clothes for women and children

5. Plastic mats or straw mats (Chataii)

6. Mosquito Nets

7. Blankets

8. Floor Mattresses

9. Soap

10. Hand Towels

11. Tooth Paste (toothbrushes?)

12. Women's hygiene kits

13. Washing Powder/Soap

14. Diapers/Pampers for babies

CN said...

I just became aware of this URL for many newer reports on Flood Related issues and activities:

http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=dWnuPh7ABDjFrzMq7nowgF0yBeKGM&hl=en&ned=us

CN said...

Here's another very special effort by a young and unusually mature online friend:

After having a successful visit to Sukkur for Relief camp, everybody in this friends group wanted to continue work for Flood Victims as much as possible till the very end of the rehabilitation of Flood victims.

So, I am going to start a new blog with the name Friends Indeed.......which would be used as a Forum to co-operate, collaborate and to collect funds on a larger scale for continuation of this relief work.

This is the url of the blog:

http://helpingfloodvictims.blogspot.com/

I have started to post the details of our work from the very first day, so everyone is requested to share his (and her) part as possible.

CN said...

For some really touching photos by a group of friends who include professionals as well as you go here:

http://helpingfloodvictims.blogspot.com/2010/09/further-pictures-of-sukkur-and-kashmor_07.html#comments

Also go to various blogsites for other such efforts:

http://republicofrumi.blogspot.com