If you haven’t been automatically redirected to the Sun Herald article “Women builders headed to Haiti to help”, please click here.
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Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Sun Herald: Women builders headed to Haiti to help
Monday, June 7th, 2010Vail Daily: Vail musician helps people in need
Monday, June 7th, 2010If you haven’t been automatically redirected to the Vail Daily article “Vail musician helps people in need”, please click here.
Thanks for your interest and support!
HAITI: New Photos of School!
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010If you haven’t been automatically redirected to our Flickr site to see the latest photos from Project Leogane, please click here.
Thanks for your interest and support!
NPR: Life Is Still Out Of Place For Haitians
Monday, May 10th, 2010If you haven’t been automatically redirected to the NPR article on HODR, “Life Is Still Out Of Place For Haitians“, please click here. Thank you for your interest and support!
Lonely Planet: Volunteering in Haiti, post-earthquake
Friday, May 7th, 2010If you haven’t been automatically redirected to the Lonely Planet article on HODR, “Volunteering in Haiti, post-earthquake“, please click here. Thank you for your interest and support!
Project Management Network: “Rebuilding Haiti”
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010If you haven’t been automatically redirected to the Project Management Network piece “Rebuilding Haiti“, please click here. Thank you for your interest and support!
HODR Mid-Year Report 2010
Monday, April 12th, 2010
April 2010
Dear HODR Family,
It has been a very busy past 6 months for HODR.
A major earthquake hit the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, on September 30th, and we responded with Project Sungai Geringging, bringing over 200 volunteers (from 29 different countries!) to help with site clearing, deconstruction, and the completion of 10 lovely transitional shelters, with porches and pastel paint jobs. The governor of the region hosted us in a thank you ceremony complete with song, dances, and heartfelt thanks.
Haiti has experienced the worst disaster to hit in our lifetime, as measured by economic loss relative to the national income. It will be our largest and longest project, and promises to stretch our management and all other resources. We anticipate 100 volunteers working from our base in Leogane for months to come, and plan to contribute in many ways; our efforts to date have included assistance of dozens of volunteers at the local hospital, and hundreds have already contributed to the massive needs for rubble removal and site clearing. Multiple teams of structural engineers have volunteered their services to get rapid assessments completed so that appropriate reconstruction decisions can be made, and HODR has been chosen to manage a Joint Logistics Base to be shared by several organizations working in the Leogane area.
We’re also active domestically, with our rebuild project in Iowa underway, and a coordination project in response to the extreme flooding in Rhode Island.
Through all of these efforts, we have been engaged in innovative community recovery initiatives and new challenges, ensuring that we do all we can to support communities in need. As coverage slows in the media and people’s focus moves on, we will continue to help families move forward in Haiti and other disaster-affected communities around the world.
You are the heart and hands of the HODR model, and we look forward to all we’ll continue to get done with your support. Whether you’ve been involved for years or this is the first time you’ve visited our website, whether you can give $10 or $10,000, 1 day or 1 month, without you this critical work is simply not possible. Thank you so much for all you do.
Engaged, committed and at work,
OCTOBER 2009 – APRIL 2010 – Over the past six months HODR volunteers have tirelessly committed their hearts and time to helping the community of Sungai Geringging recover from devastating back-to-back earthquakes. From deconstruction of earthquake-condemned homes to salvaging valuable materials for rebuilding, from training school groups on earthquake safety and evacuation to HODR’s legacy Village Photo Project, and the construction of culturally sensitive and earthquake resistant transitional shelters, the impact of HODR JANUARY – AUGUST 2010 – Since the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti three months ago, we have all seen the reports that the country suffered unimaginable damage and that the city in which the APRIL 2010 – Many of you remember our 2008 Project Cedar Rapids following historic flooding in Iowa. More than a year later, many families still need our help. In HODR’s first-ever “planned” project (not immediately following a natural disaster), during the month of April
INDONESIA: Project Sungai Geringging
volunteers on this remote Indonesian community has been immense. PSG came to a close this past Friday. Stay tuned to www.HODR.org for the PSG Final Report and one more photo set, coming soon!
Latest Project Update | PhotosHAITI: Project Leogane
HODR project is based was 90% destroyed. In the face of such overwhelming destruction, progress is being made. In the first two months of the project, more than 100 volunteers have plugged into myriad of clean-up and community recovery programs including rubble removal, supporting local field hospitals, running children’s programs at an Internally Displaced Persons camp, and providing warehousing capacity for other NGOs. We are truly engaged in the community, and with your support we are making a direct difference.Latest Project Update | PhotosIOWA: Project Cedar Rapids Rebuild
volunteers are using their construction skills to help families in the rebuilding process get back into their homes. In support of our rebuild efforts, the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, AEGON Insurance and the Cedar Rapids Home Builders Association have provided generous funding for project expenses and rebuilding materials, ensuring that general donations to HODR continue to be focused toward direct disaster response efforts, such as those in Haiti.Latest Project Update | PhotosRHODE ISLAND: Coordination Project
APRIL 2010 – Last week HODR launched the Rhode Island Recovery Coordination Center (RI RCC) in response to a request from RI Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster and the RI Emergency Management Agency, following the recent historic flooding. Over the coming weeks we will have a small team running the RI RCC, a central hub for inter-agency coordination statewide, to help connect residents affected by the flooding with assistance. With the strong presence of local volunteers there is not a current need for a HODR volunteer project, but we are pleased to be able to provide coordinative services to help our neighboring state.
Latest Project Update | Photos
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Cedar Rapids Gazette: “Hands On Disaster Response returns to help with rebuilding”
Friday, April 9th, 2010Click here to read the Cedar Rapids Gazette article “Hands On Disaster Response returns to help with rebuilding,” . Thank you for your interest!
Thrilling Heroics: Volunteering Abroad
Thursday, March 25th, 2010“Do a Google search for ‘international volunteering’ and you will be bombarded with organizations offering you placements all around the world but with a price tag of hundreds or often thousands of dollars,” she notes. Kirsty “dug deeper” and found Hands On Disaster Response. After volunteering with HODR in Bangladesh, Haiti and Indonesia, she says, “This was one of the best choices I have made in my life.”
Check out Thrilling Heroics’ “Volunteering Abroad: How to Be More Than Just a Tourist When You Travel”, an article about HODR volunteer Kirsty’s e-book Underground Guide to International Volunteering and her goal to raise $10,000 for HODR!
Thrilling Heroics – “Volunteering Abroad: How to Be More Than Just a Tourist When You Travel”
The Underground Guide to International Volunteering
Government of Haiti Reconstruction & Development Plan
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
To download the complete Plan, click on image.
ACTION PLAN FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF HAITI
March 2010, Government of Haiti – Recovery & Development Plan, Unofficial English Translation
FOREWORD
The post-earthquake Action Plan that we are presenting to our partners in the international community in this draft version is the expression of the needs that must be met, so that the earthquake that has so cruelly struck our country may becomes a window of opportunity for, in the words of the Head of State, the “re-foundation” of Haiti. It is a rendez-vous with History that our country cannot miss. We are obliged to yield results; we owe it to our children and our children’s children. The solidarity expressed spontaneously in the hours following the disaster by Haitian men and women at home and abroad, as well as by the international community, towards our people gives us the confidence needed in this historic duty.
The plan that we propose to you is based on a collective effort of reflection and consultation. At the diplomatic level, formal and constructive talks have made us aware of the expectations of our international partners and allowed us to explain to them our choices for the future. On the technical front, officials at the national level supported by international experts conducted an evaluation of losses and damages known by its acronym PDNA (Post Disaster Needs Assessment), which is one of the pillars of this plan.
This proposal is Haitian, as despite the very tight schedule, key sectors of Haitian society were consulted. This is also the case for all Haitians living abroad who have mobilized themselves and have shown that their commitment to the future of the country remains a strong binding factor of this active solidarity. These efforts, these consultations are ongoing and will continue in the weeks and months to come.
We must learn from this national tragedy, which is why the proposal made encompasses not only the devastated areas but also calls for structural changes affecting the entire national territory.
We must reverse the spiral of vulnerability by protecting our people from natural disasters, by managing our watersheds to make them secure and productive in a sustainable way, by stimulating the development of regional poles that can provide quality of life and future prospects for a growing population.
In view of this, we must strengthen the links between all the regions across the country, encourage the strengthening of the regional partnerships that will bring the opportunity for change throughout the country, the Caribbean and beyond.
We need to connect these regions through a network of roads complemented by adequate port and airport facilities and a range of public services appropriate to the imperatives of economic and social development, particularly as regards education and access to quality health services.
We must act now, but with a vision for the future. We need to agree on a short-term program, while creating mechanisms that make possible the preparation and implementation of detailed programs and projects that will bring about firm actions within a ten-year timeframe.
The challenge ahead is huge. This is why, as the Secretary-General of the OECD and the Chairman of the Development Assistance Committee has pointed out, we must find new ways to cooperate, based on the principles of the Paris Declaration and the principles pertaining to operations in Fragile States, notably that of making the strengthening of the state central to interventions.
We understand the importance of reviewing our political, economic and social governance. We pledge to act in this regard.
To download and read the complete Action Plan, click here.