Trouble Tourists in Haiti
Keith Lofstrom
...
> I had a chat with a my local doctor today about what shots are
> required before going to Haiti.
> In short anyone going there will need recent vaccinations for the following:
>
> Hepatitus A
> Hepatitus B
...
Volunteers going to Haiti will need food, water, shelter, and if
the list of vaccinations means anything, occasional medical care
for any number of infections. Volunteers should speak French, and
if they are helping via the Dominican Republic, Spanish.
So, for those planning on spending enough time helping to make a
real difference, bring a few months of supplies. An interpreter,
if you don't parleiz Francais. A two person tent, of course.
Since the roads between the Dominican Republic and Haiti are
awful, you will probably need to go by boat - arrange to bring
one with you from Florida.
And when you tote all that up, consider leaving out the weight of
an airplane seat and the helpless honky, and send extra supplies
instead.
Consider, just for a second, that the Haitian people already
know how to take care of themselves, given the exigencies of a
kleptocratic government and corrupt building contractors that
build and approve structures that fall down in Richter 7 earthquakes.
Much of that bad construction, as well as the hill-country dams
that inundated prime farmland and drove rural peasants off their
land and into Port-au-Prince, was subsidized by U.S. aid and
enforced in-country by U.S. weapons. We can help Haiti, sure,
but they know far better than we what help they need. AFAICS, the
"man in the street" needs food, water, and shelter, not Facebook.
Humaninet, Northwest Medical Teams, and Mercy Corps, all world-
class charities headquartered around Portland, are on the ground
there now, and understand these needs much better than you or I do.
Perhaps we can help with better wifi in their offices, or with
their already informative websites (please read them!). You can
bet they need cash and transportation, to buy supplies and get
them there soonest.
The Haitian people need the outpourings of our hearts, no doubt.
But they also need our brains, and our eyes and ears and sober
judgements. They need none of our superior whitey arrogance.
Keith
--
Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
Keith Lofstrom
...
> Much of that bad construction, as well as the hill-country dams
> that inundated prime farmland and drove rural peasants off their
> land and into Port-au-Prince
Oh, one more thing. It is the dry season in Haiti right now.
That makes drinking water scarce, but it also means the reservoirs
behind the dams are not full of water. Assuming the dams are built
in the same shoddy way as the buildings, and weakened by the
earthquake, some are likely to fail during the rainy season this
summer, causing more misery and death in the floods downstream.
This is a place technology could help, perhaps. The outside face
of the dam can be monitored by people. The submerged inside face
might need electronic monitors. Perhaps we can work with civil and
mechanical and electrical engineers at PSU and OSU to design and
deploy wireless sensor networks. Those might also come in handy on
our own dams, when the inevitable Richter 9 comes to the Northwest.
Another related technology is earthquake P wave warning systems.
Many laptops and PDAs have accelerometer motion sensors. Apps
running on those devices might be able to detect the P waves,
the lower-energy longitudinal compression waves that travel about
50% faster than the damaging S (shear) waves. If that data can
be collected and rapidly evaluated, then we might have a few
seconds warning to shut down elevators and gas lines. This would
involve aggregating large amounts of very specific but unreliable
real-time data from lots of user devices. Perhaps this would be
a good use for the Sky Pilots - sporadic but widely distributed
coverage would be fine, as long as the transactions were very fast.
Michael
Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> Humaninet, Northwest Medical Teams, and Mercy Corps, all world-
> class charities headquartered around Portland, are on the ground
> there now, and understand these needs much better than you or I do.
> Perhaps we can help with better wifi in their offices, or with
> their already informative websites (please read them!). You can
> bet they need cash and transportation, to buy supplies and get
> them there soonest.
That wonderful liquid resource, the stuff invented to enable trade to flourish, is the most effective way to put your energies to effective use in Haiti. I'm talking cash, as in see the handy donate buttons and forms on:
https://donate.mercycorps.org/charityweb.php
http://www.humaninet.org/donate.html
http://www.oxfam.org/en/getinvolved/donate
http://www.medicalteams.org/sf/donate.aspx
or find an organization of your own choosing.
If your employer does a match, get your employer to match also.
And as Susan Neilsen wrote in yesterday's Oregonian - these organizations can act even more effectively when they have funds on hand when a disaster strikes. For every dollar you give earmarked for Haiti relief consider giving an unrestricted dollar for the organization to use in places that have great misery and no headlines.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/susan_nielsen/index.ssf/2010/01/making_your_charity_count_alon.html
--
Michael Rasmussen
http://www.jamhome.us/
Be Appropriate && Follow Your Curiosity
Sam Churchill
(http://crisiscamphaitipdx.eventbrite.com)
(1) Here's the project page for the RSS feed project.
(http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Haiti_RSS_Feed_Challenge)
(2) They are also updating this page regularly today, so you can monitor that
(http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Portland01232010)
(3) There are IRC chats going on all day about projects to get them up
to speed if you are available to jump in. They are also having a
meeting today (Friday) at noon. It starts tomorrow at 9:30 am.
NedSpace Old Town
117 NW 5th
Couch and Davis (right of Backspace)
Portland, OR 97209
contac...@gmail.com
All said there is an urgent need for telecoms infra-structure including wifi networks.
Evert.
--
The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/
Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate
Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/
Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette
List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net
To post to this group, send email to ptp-g...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
ptp-general...@googlegroups.com
Christopher Chen
> Consider, just for a second, that the Haitian people already
> know how to take care of themselves, given the exigencies of a
> kleptocratic government and corrupt building contractors that
> build and approve structures that fall down in Richter 7 earthquakes.
>
> Much of that bad construction, as well as the hill-country dams
> that inundated prime farmland and drove rural peasants off their
> land and into Port-au-Prince, was subsidized by U.S. aid and
> enforced in-country by U.S. weapons. We can help Haiti, sure,
> but they know far better than we what help they need. AFAICS, the
> "man in the street" needs food, water, and shelter, not Facebook.
>
> Humaninet, Northwest Medical Teams, and Mercy Corps, all world-
> class charities headquartered around Portland, are on the ground
> there now, and understand these needs much better than you or I do.
> Perhaps we can help with better wifi in their offices, or with
> their already informative websites (please read them!). You can
> bet they need cash and transportation, to buy supplies and get
> them there soonest.
>
> The Haitian people need the outpourings of our hearts, no doubt.
> But they also need our brains, and our eyes and ears and sober
> judgements. They need none of our superior whitey arrogance.
Thank you Keith.
Michael Rasmussen mentioned many great charities that can take funds
right now to make a difference right now. Payments via mobile phone
are nothing new, but I'm happy to mention that the text "Haiti" to
#90999 campaign that gives $10 to the ICRC has been very successful.
cc
--
Chris Chen <muff...@gmail.com>
"The fact that yours is better than anyone else's
is not a guarantee that it's any good."
-- Motivational Poster
Aaron Burt
> I spoke to the Red Cross and two aid agencies ont he ground today.
> All said there is an urgent need for telecoms infra-structure including wifi
> networks.
Crazy idea: Thanks to the diligent efforts of Russell Senior, PTP happens to
have access to 80+ durable, weatherproof devices specifically designed to
provide a wireless mesh network.
The main barrier to our putting them to use is that we lack the appropriate
management software, or the ability to roll our own.
Currently, these devices are an embarrassment to the manufacturer, and a drag
on their sales since they're hitting the used equipment market at very low
prices. The manufacturer (SkyPilot) might be inclined to solve both problems
and get some good press/advertising by helping us with software and/or
information...
Only problem, which would be shared by any wireless network setup: power is
scarce and spotty, and solar panels and batteries would be VERY attractive to
thieves.
Michael Weinberg
<namedrop>where my wife works</namedrop>, and other relief
organizations have a term, "spontaneous volunteers," to describe
people who show up meaning well but without coordinating with other
relief efforts. These people are much like your friends who cram the
kitchen when your meal is running behind, offer to help and generally
get in the way so the sauce gets burned, the pasta gets soggy and
something boils over. Only in this instance, it is the lives of
others, not your marinara that is at stake.
I don't doubt anyone's good intentions, but it's simply naive to think
that we have some surfeit of creative, elbow-grease solutions for
Haiti, if we email, blog and "crisiscamp" enough. Simply put, all
these efforts are being put together for the participants, not for
Haiti. It's about a fun challenge for you. If you really want to help,
give unrestricted money to the aid organizations who have boots on the
ground and deep experience working in these conditions.
If the earthquake in Haiti spurs you to work on innovative disaster
tools, that's okay, but treat it as a table-top exercise that may be
useful in the future.
As the recipient of Red Cross relief many years ago (though
fortunately for something less dire than Haiti is experiencing), I can
tell you earnestly that the things that the survivors need right now
are almost universally physical goods, and to provide those, relief
organizations need money to buy them, transport them and fund the
effort to get them into the hands of survivors.
Sometimes the hardest thing is realizing all that we can't do in
situations like this.
Very Sincerely,
--
Michael Weinberg
Volunteer
Personal Telco Project, Inc.
A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit
contac...@gmail.com
I am sorry but I have to dissagree.
As much as there is no point in people just showing up in PaP and doing their own thing my recent calls with a substantial number of relief agencies with people on the ground (incl. the Red Cross) have made clear to em that there is an actual need for people who can build comms networks (incl. wifi).
The point is though to communicate & coordinate with ongoing relief efforts and if you go to make sure that you are as self sufficient as possible so you don't put a strain on the meagre resources.
Again, there is no need to one-man superhero action but if you want to contribute do offer your nearest relief agency and offer your support or service.
Evert.
www.haiti-connect.org
Michael Weinberg
<contac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> I am sorry but I have to dissagree.
> As much as there is no point in people just showing up in PaP and doing
> their own thing my recent calls with a substantial number of relief agencies
> with people on the ground (incl. the Red Cross) have made clear to em that
> there is an actual need for people who can build comms networks (incl.
> wifi).
I think you are naive. When the time comes for communication
infrastructure, it will be built by professional, experienced
technicians and project managers with significant resource commitments
and significant background in managing those resources. Are you any of
those things? The tone and substance of your comments suggest you are
not, or if you are, you are undertaking this initiative outside of
your professional channels. If I am incorrect in this, I'm very sorry.
> The point is though to communicate & coordinate with ongoing relief efforts
> and if you go to make sure that you are as self sufficient as possible so
> you don't put a strain on the meagre resources.
No, the point is DO NOT GO. Even if you try to be self-sufficient, you
stand a good chance of creating confusion, still straining resources,
and quite possibly getting your self-sufficient butt in a bind and
requiring assistance from the relief organizations you are supposedly
helping. If you go, it is about your ego, your naivete and your sense
of adventure. So do everyone a favor, and stay home, unless you have
been invited by an experienced relief organization.
> Again, there is no need to one-man superhero action but if you want to
> contribute do offer your nearest relief agency and offer your support or
> service.
Yes, go volunteer your services, but if they tell you that they don't
need you, kindly consider a donation and stay out of the way.
Christopher Chen
Would you like to contribute to a discussion about creating
community-based broadband systems built and maintained by those that
live in those communities, and for the purposes of this list, in
Portland, Oregon? Would you like to volunteer to talk to neighborhood
groups in Portland? Would you like to discuss the technical challenges
in using the devices we have? Would you like to talk about the
management of hundreds of devices?
That's why I'm on this list. You have made your case. Thank you for
introducing yourself and your project.
cc
On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 10:47 AM, contac...@gmail.com
<contac...@gmail.com> wrote:
> --
> The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/
> Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate
> Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/
> Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette
> List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net
> To post to this group, send email to ptp-g...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> ptp-general...@googlegroups.com
--
contac...@gmail.com
Please read my email before you reply.
I have spoken to the relevant agencies and *all* have welcomed my offer of support and are assisting us in getting people and equipment out there.
In other words they have confirmed the need for the service & equipment I am providing and have confirmed that they want us to travel out there.
I would say that is clear enough.
Evert.
Michael
contac...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have spoken to the relevant agencies and *all* have welcomed my offer of
> support and are assisting us in getting people and equipment out there.
> In other words they have confirmed the need for the service & equipment I am
> providing and have confirmed that they want us to travel out there.
> I would say that is clear enough.
Would you pass along the contact information? it would be more efficient for the volunteers to contact your contact directly.
contac...@gmail.com
Michael Weinberg
From your website:
"Our initiative has been started from scratch meaning that we did not
have a team, had no equipment, funding & transport. Initial publicity
was pushed out through various social media channels (Twitter,
Facebook & Linkedin). We have since received a huge wave of interest.
However we are far from ready to go and need YOUR SUPPORT to get us
there!"
So either your website is wrong, you've misrepresented yourself to
these organizations, or you've taken a "sure, that would be helpful"
brush-off to be an invitation.
In any case, as Chris said, this isn't the topic of this group and
we've certainly heard your message.