Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD: crises

Hodges' model is a conceptual framework to support reflection and critical thinking. Situated, the model can help integrate all disciplines (academic and professional). Amid news items, are posts that illustrate the scope and application of the model. A bibliography and A4 template are provided in the sidebar. Welcome to the QUAD ...

Showing posts with label crises. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crises. Show all posts

Sunday, November 30, 2025

Invitation to EPI-WIN webinar: 1 Dec, on UNiTE to end digital violence ...

... why digital safety is a gender and public health imperative in emergencies

UNiTE to end digital violence:
why digital safety is a gender and public
health imperative in emergencies

We are delighted to invite you to join our webinar on #UNiTE to end digital violenceon 1 December 2025, 13.00 CET (geneva time), with Ms Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur for violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dr Stella Chungong, Director and Chair of the WHO Health Emergencies Gender Working Group, and voices of community experiences.  

Please do join the discussion and share widely.


Title: UNiTE to end digital violence: why digital safety is a gender and public health imperative in emergencies

Time and Date: 13:00 – 14:30 CET (Geneva)Monday, 1 December 2025

Registration: https://bit.ly/4prKGeu

WebpageWHO EPI-WIN webinar: UNiTE to end digital violence: why digital safety is a gender and public health imperative in emergencies

Digital violence, such as doxxing, deepfakes, and online harassment, poses significant public health risks. Millions of women, girls, and adolescents face harassment, stalking, and threats in digital spaces meant for connection.

In crisis settings, these digital threats create multiple challenges. Understand what they are and why it is important to integrate digital safety into humanitarian health responses.

Tentative Agenda and Speakers

Welcome/Opening remarks: Digital safety as a public health imperative in crises:  Dr Stella Chungong, Director, Department of Health Emergency Preparedness & Chair, WHE Gender Working Group

Preparedness begins with protection: why digital violence must be addressed in humanitarian health work: Dr Stella Chungong, Director, Department of Health Emergency Preparedness & Chair, WHE Gender Working Group

UNFPA perspective from Executive Director, UNFPA: delivered by Dr Eugene Kongyuy, Deputy Director of Humanitarian Response Division to represent the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Keynote address: Ms Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women, its causes and consequences

Risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management: digital violence as a driver of misinformation: Dr Kai Von Harbou, Unit Head, Community Protection & Resilience, WHO 

Surviving Digital Violence: DR Millie Phiri, journalist, researcher and author on digital violence

Community Voice:  Ms Sohaila Shamseldeen, Youth and Development Coordinator, Etijah

Monday, July 24, 2023

Conference 2023: Religious Experience and the Phenomenology of Nature

Society for the Phenomenology of Religious Experience


The Theme of the Conference

Faced as we are with climate change, mass extinctions of species, global pandemics, there is probably no more pressing theme today than that of nature. It is, however, not at all clear what we mean by ‘nature’, and whether discourse about nature is even meaningful today. Many speak of the ‘death of nature’ while at another extreme we find the exhortation toward a ‘re-enchantment’ of [by] nature. What the conference aims to explore is the place of religious experience within this our current situation.

Nature philosophy, including environmental ethics, but also the revival in Schellingian themes and the rediscovery within Phenomenology of the question of nature (Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Husserl), questions any unidirectional subject/object relation to nature. Nature is that in which we find ourselves as human beings and despite our molding of our environments, according to such a view, the human engagement with the world itself embodies nature. The emphasis on embodiment shows not alone the limits of dualisms, but also the commonality of the human with the natural world in which we are and breathe. The inter-subjective experience of such being in nature and the inter-corporeal being with animals and plants around us is reflected in the sacramentality of religious observance from totemic rituals to the Christian Eucharist.

Inspired by the overcoming of dualisms of body and mind and nature and freedom deriving from the Phenomenology and Schelling, we can re-examine the religious sense of nature as containing sacredness. This religious sense can be understood metaphysically as an intuition of reality appearing as unapproachable. Phenomenologically, the question as to the source of this sense of the inapproachable and sacred can be understood in terms of feelings of awe (e.g., Otto). Not alone can nature be a source or locus of religious experience, but it may also be the case that religious affectivity gives us access to nature beyond the objectifying and instrumentalizing tendencies of Modernity. In this respect, we can think of the phenomenologies of life (Bergson, Tymieniecka, Henry), which explore modes of appearance of nature beyond the dualities of mechanism and vitalism. These accounts draw on – explicitly or implicitly – religious motifs such Christian notion of life as Christ, Vedantic life as Sat (Truth of Being, identical with self-consciousness and fullness), or Islamic God as truth or reality (al-Haqq), as well as other concepts across many traditions which are connecting life and nature. These motifs can be understood as compatible with the growing movement of panpsychism in the philosophy of mind (Strawson, Goff, Chalmers, Nagel) and the philosophy of life in biology (Varela, Maturana, Wilson).

Living through a pandemic it is important to hear [here?] attend to the core meaning of the word – pan demos, concerning all the people. Just as nature is everywhere, so any discourse about dwelling in nature (eco-logy) must be seen to concern the totality of human experience, in the sense of the full richness of its diversity. One manner in which such diverse experience can be understood is the way in which nature is experienced as a temporal phenomenon. This is clear already in the experience of the cyclicality of the seasons. It is also manifest in the current sense of ecological crisis which draws on a religious sensibility that has remained present in different guises through Modernity, namely the eschatological. In attempting to think nature with respect to religious experience, we are thinking within the intersection of temporal strands: mortal time, conscious time, cyclical, indefinite time, eternal, creative ‘time’. Understood eschatologically or messianically this relation is one in which ending is woven into the fabric of time: time as ending, transforming of past in the present and the opening up of a new future, time of forgiveness, repentance, grace and judgement (kairos)."

Attending online, presentation to follow and suffice to say I'm out of my comfort zone - which is good.

I inquired at first whether introducing Hodges' model might be of interest, as ever, related to the conference's themes. To help establish my context, for the event organisers I attached the paper: "Exploring Serres’ Atlas: Hodges’ Knowledge Domains and the Fusion of Informatics and Cultural Horizons". 

There was delay in my hearing more and acceptance being confirmed. I wish I could attend in-person, but am grateful for the opportunity - both to participate and be green. The paper's title is listed in the programme under: Anthropology and Informatics on the first day. Although the paper isn't the session, it fits well as a starting point. More to follow ...

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Reflecting on the 'distances' between us

INDIVIDUAL
|
 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               
HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      
SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 
|
GROUP

'DISTANCE'

a metric ...

qualitative and quantitative

conceptual - semantic distance

The Social Distance Between Us ...
... How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis

... Drug development $$$
 Access to healthcare / therapy
'Evidence'
Parity of Esteem
 Self-advocacy / Advocacy
 Employment, Poverty, Deprivation
Policy - Health Policy
Land
Property, Housing- Homelessness
 Mental Health Law
 'Public Spaces'
 Social Determinants of Health
Sustainable Development Goals

Life Chances
 Health Career
 Geo-Politics (Local 'politics') ...
 
.... How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain

 

See also: 'distance'

My source: FT Weekend and Times, BBC Radio 4 and 

https://twitter.com/Keirwales/status/1541093078102048770

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Paper: Models of care for patients with hypertension and diabetes in humanitarian crises: a systematic review

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

"Implementing NCD care in humanitarian crises requires the development of a context-adapted approach or ‘model of care’. A model of care may be characterized as a conceptual and pragmatic framework that describes how services are delivered within a health system (Davidson et al., 2006; Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013)."

Models of care

"We found that there was no single unifying model of care for HTN/DM care in humanitarian crises, and the variance in care models included in this review was highly dependent on context. In order to descriptively synthesize the diverse models presented in the included studies, we created a typology based on the type of crisis, region and integration with the health system, since these factors likely influenced model design"
 
patient’s expectations

hypertension and diabetes (HTN/DM)

Crisis type and Region
Natural: Hurricane, Flood, Earthquake

Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan,  China, Pakistan,  India, Philippines, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Nepal

Camp, Non-Camp; Rural, Urban

Location of services - Location of people in need, transport, travel time, distance

Refugee population - Local population

forced displacement, disruption of treatment and support, interrupted health services, movement and attrition of health care workers (HCWs), insecurity, destruction of infrastructure,  breakdown in supply chains and data processes

"The domains of access — availability, affordability, accessibility, accommodation, and acceptability — were derived from previously described measures of coverage (Penchansky and Thomas, 1981; Hernández-Quevedo and Papnicolas, 2013; Levesque et al., 2013)."

Refugees and Host Communities

Humanitarian crises

"Responsiveness has been defined as the ability of health services meet a patient’s holistic needs; in this framework, it also encompassed a model of care’s ability to respond to changing patient needs in a volatile context (.Hernández-Quevedo and Papnicolas, 2013; Kruk et al., 2018). Integration described the linkage between different levels and sites of care, such as facility-based care and community-based support as well as coordination between providers and institutions, while continuity of care referred to uninterrupted care throughout the patient’s disease and life course."

Formal health system and community-based formal or informal systems

Non-governmental organisations


Crisis type and Region
Political: Conflict, Disaster

Affordability, income, worth of service

Accommodation

Person :: Service
centrednesss

 

"Availability was defined as the volume and type of existing services and whether this was adequate for the volume and needs of service users. Affordability constituted the patient’s capacity to use financial resources to obtain care balanced against their income and the perceived worth of the service. Accessibility addressed the match between the location of services vs the location of people in need, including transport, travel time, distance, and cost. The accommodation was defined as the organization of service delivery, such as opening times and ability of service users to accommodate to this. Acceptability was considered as the relationship between the services and the patient’s expectations of appropriate care."
(My emphasis)

NCD  - Non-communicable disease

My source: HIFA list

CITATION: Models of care for patients with hypertension and diabetes in humanitarian crises: a systematic review, Michael S Jaung, Ruth Willis, Piyu Sharma, Sigiriya Aebischer Perone, Signe Frederiksen, Claudia Truppa, Bayard Roberts, Pablo Perel, Karl Blanchet, Éimhín Ansbro
Health Policy and Planning, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czab007

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

"Bleak House" - not just a book: Family Homelessness

individual - home?
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic - HOME? ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic - HOME?
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
home? - population






"Bleak House"
- a work of fiction ...

Charles Dickens - Bleak House


"Bleak Houses"
- a work of Government ...

Bleak Houses - Report



See also:
The Stranger in the Mirror in Bleak House

Book cover - Waterstones

My source
Radio 4 and BBC 2 - Newsnight

Sunday, May 12, 2019

Forgotten in a Crisis: Addressing dementia in humanitarian response

SELF - individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group - POPULATION

Difficulty in Understanding


Natural Disasters
Conflict
War Crimes
Refugee Crises


Difficulty in being Understood


Forgotten in a Crisis: Report


ADI, GADAA and Alzheimer's Pakistan launch report on Dementia in Humanitarian Settings


My source: Several - inc Channel 4 News 12 May 2019.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

South Sudan Medical Journal - November 2018

 http://www.southsudanmedicaljournal.com/

Dear SSMJ Reader,

The November 2018 issue of the South Sudan Medical Journal is now on online and includes articles on Ebola, Caesarean Section and Obstetric fistula. You can download the complete issue as a pdf here or the individual articles listed below.

Please share this notice with your colleagues.

EDITORIAL
Keeping an eye on Ebola Virus Disease Edward Eremugo Kenyi
Between June and November 1976, the medical world was baffled by an outbreak of a ferocious haemorrhagic disease in Nzara, South Sudan (then part of Sudan). This became known as Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The West African outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014 was devastating.  A new outbreak in DR Congo in 2018 is a warning to South Sudan to be on high alert.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Knowledge of type 2 diabetes mellitus and adherence to management guidelines: a cross-sectional study in Juba, South Sudan Alexandre Ali M. Bili and Longying Zha
Inadequate education and the lack of efficient diabetes care centres compounded by high costs are common barriers for diabetes care. This study assesses the level of knowledge and adherence to guidelines for management of type 2 diabetes in South Sudan.

Knowledge, attitude and willingness to accept Caesarean Section among women in Ogbomoso, southwest Nigeria Olumuyiwa A Ogunlaja, Idowu P Ogunlaja, Samuel E Akinola, Olufemi O Aworinde
Caesarean Section (CS) is a common procedure in obstetrics and has contributed immensely to improving maternal and foetal outcome. The study which seeks to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and acceptance of women about CS in Ogbomoso, Nigeria, concludes that mothers should be educated on the process involved in Caesarean delivery.

Obstetric fistulae, birth outcomes, and surgical repair outcomes: a retrospective analysis of hospital-based data in Dodoma, Tanzania Athanase Lilungulua, Balthazar Gumodokab, Mzee Nassoroc, Patrice Sokac and Kibusi Stephen
Obstetric Fistula (OF) among pregnant women remains a widespread condition with devastating consequences and poses a significant challenge in a community as well as globally. The study concludes that timely fistula repair by experienced fistula surgeons will improve outcomes and limit the clinical insult and distress that OF invariably causes.

CLINICAL GUIDANCE
How to repair a vesico-vaginal fistula Brian Hancock
Most fistulae are caused by ischaemic necrosis of the genital tract and adjacent organs through prolonged obstructed labour. This article provides a brief overview and refers the reader to resources that cover the practical aspects of the surgery and holistic care of the patient.

MAIN ARTICLES
Ebola Virus Disease: epidemiology, management, prevention and control Gasim Abd-Elfarag
Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) is part of the group of illnesses known as viral haemorrhagic fevers, and was previously known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever. Infection with EVD is acute, severe and often fatal in humans. The paper provides an outline of what is known about EVD.

Ebola on our doorstep: Ebola Virus Disease preparedness in South Sudan Richard Lako and Otim Patrick Cossy Ramadan
South Sudan has previously experienced three EVD outbreaks in 1976, 1979 and 2004. With recent outbreaks in DR Congo, it is possible that a sporadic outbreak can happen in South Sudan, and so the country is always at risk. Preparedness is key.

COMMENTARIES
Internship training in South Sudan: the challenges and way forward Jessry Pasquali Oboya
The House Officer is the professional whom the patient meets most often when entering hospital and will remember for a long time. The extraordinary commitment and work load of the House Officers at Juba Teaching Hospital has received little recognition by the authorities despite the challenges they face in the course of their training.

The current crisis of human resource for health in Africa Brian Madison
Brain drain has been a source of despair for developing countries, and the healthcare sector arguably bears the biggest brunt imposed by this growing problem. The author argues that if Africa is to counter the healthcare human resources crisis, member states may need to adopt radical reforms in the healthcare sector.

SHORT ITEMS
Caesarean Section acceptability and rate in South Sudan
Call for submissions
Obituaries

BACK COVER
Neonatal resuscitation chart
This chart is designed with the ‘Helping Babies Breath’ training in mind. However, it incorporates external cardiac massage, which can be effective in some cases.

All previous issues of the journal are in the Archive section, and you can ‘search’ for particular articles.

Please support the journal by submitting items for future issues. We are interested in articles on your research, case reports, and clinical guidance, as well as news of projects, and relevant photographs. We can help you prepare these for publication (see our ‘Authors’ Guidelines’). We welcome letters to the editor and questions. Send your contributions to the Editor-in-Chief, Dr Edward Luka admin@southernsudanmedicaljournal.com

If you are not already a member, join our Facebook Group and share your news and experiences and ideas.

You can follow us on twitter: @SSMedJournal. Other people can be added to our mailing list by clicking here.

SSMJ is a member of African Journals Online – see who is downloading SSMJ abstracts and articles here. We are listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), you can find and search DOAJ for SSMJ articles here.

Kind regards
The SSMJ team

Monday, May 14, 2018

"Bank of England shows green light for mental health drive" c/o The Times

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic ----------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group
Mental Health Awareness Week




Mental Health Funding
Mental Health Green Paper
Mental Health White Paper
Recovery Space



See also:
Money and Mental Health

My source: Green light for mental health drive, The Times. 14 May 2018, p.36.

... back to Drupal! ;-)

Monday, March 05, 2018

c/o BMJ: Rediscovering humanitarianism in the wake of the aid agencies scandal

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

PURPOSE
individual values, ethics...

whistle blower
courage

Psychology of:
bystander as co-worker?

(Good work and the greater good
 excuses
the misdeeds of an individual*)

empowerment vs. exploitation

define: "humanitarian"

natural disasters

"Hollywood to Rochdale"

scale of organisations:
larger = lower costs

monitoring challenge for large organisations in chaotic settings (for all orgs.)
PROCESS


PRACTICE

HUMAN WELFARE

vulnerable persons

Public interest
Private vs. Public

community trust

"football club"

(inveiglement)

Charities (raising money)
Corporations (making money)
POLICIES
Donors
competition
"reputation management"
organisations
organisational governance & values
Leadership
*individuals in positions of power over others
Human Rights

Safeguarding
International Summit
Regulation - not just a ▢ here?



BMJ: Rediscovering humanitarianism in the wake of the aid agencies scandal

My source: HIFA - David Southall of MCAI

Q. What is the first rule of first aid?

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Three Billboards (Some of us are more Alone than others...)

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group

"500,000 dead in Syria"

 "And still no action?"

"How come, Security Council?"




care - Medical and Humanitarian Organizations use Three Billboards to Call on UN to Stop Violence in Syria

Monday, February 27, 2017

Hidden Faces

individual
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
group-population


I-dentity


FACES
https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/richard-mosse-new-film-barbican-853790


HIDDEN


Still source: https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/richard-mosse-new-film-barbican-853790

My source: BBC News Channel

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sahana OSS response in Haiti

My source: Community informatics list [ciresearchers]:
Sahana Software Foundation
Haiti Earthquake Response
Status Report #1
January 17, 2010 00:00 UTC


The Sahana Software Foundation and the Sahana community responded with a massive voluntary effort immediately following the earthquake that has devastated the poor country of Haiti. Working around the clock, we have set up a hosted instance of Sahana (the first deployment of SahanaPy following a disaster!) on a public website that is already filling gaps in the information management requirements of the massive relief operation.

Major Accomplishments

We have a Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal - a live and active website up at http://haiti.sahanafoundation.org which contains a feeds from many of the relief agencies and links to Sahana modules that are actively being used to help coordinate the relief effort.

We have a Sahana Haiti wiki page where we are tracking all of our and others' activites at: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:start

We have a requirements page where we record all the modification, configurations, and changes to Sahana based on the mission requirements at: http://wiki.sahana.lk/doku.php/haiti:requirements

See - https://sahanafoundation.org/products/eden/

The Haiti 2010 Sahana Disaster Response Portal provides the following functionality:

1. An Organization Registry - serves to track organizations and offices working on the ground in Haiti. Organizations are encouraged to self-register and report their office locations - alternatively, individual organization office or lists of offices can be e-mailed to haiti-orgs AT googlegroups.com and we have volunteers to assist with data entry and to aggregate lists from other sources. We have entered data from pre-disaster lists of organizations working in Haiti available from UN OCHA. We can assume that these organizations will be working on the relief efforts, but expect that most of their office locations will be different as most organizations have been forced to move into tents given that few buildings remain standing and usable in the capital. We are working to validate these lists with the organizations directly.

The site serves up both KML for Google Earth users and GeoRSS for everyone else, and will generate reports of organization activities and the gaps (uncovered sectors by geographic location). This site will hopefully become the main resource for accurate information about the organizations working on the ground, where they are located, and what activities they are engaged in, and the resources in terms of staff and equipment that they have available to them. (Currently, data is admittedly sparse but we expect more details to become available as the coordination efforts take root on the ground). We are coordinating with UN OCHA, Google and others on sources of accurate lists and updates.

What are the gaps in our information collection? We have a large and we think accurate list of organizations, but not much office location information. Without this, it becomes hard to generate data that can be used as a layer in a GIS system. We are encouraging people to report this information - preferably by GPS coordinates, but any location information that we can use to manually geo-reference the office is valuable. We hope to be able to enhance our capabilities such that we can produce polygons showing organization's areas of coverage by sector. Please direct organizations working in Haiti to our site to register their offices and activities!

2. A Missing Persons Registry / Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) Registry - we are working with Google and others on an agreed common standard for the exchange of Missings Persons data using the PFIF standard. The Google site at http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/ is the main aggregator collecting all missing and found persons reports and we are encouraging all people to send data to that site. [We are struggling a little as Google's feed is not fully PFIF compliant and the lack of unique record identifiers makes it more complex to set up true synchronization without the creation of duplicate records. We continue to work with Google on this and hope to have a resolution and solution within the next few hours.] We will also be embedding Google's widget on our site for collecting missing person information. Google will be making their data available via a PFIF feed and we will be importing it into Sahana's Missing Persons registry. From there, Sahana can add value to the simple lists being collected.

In particular, Sahana's Disaster Victims Identification registry - or DVI - which is used to management the handling and tracking and tracing of the deceased, dead bodies and their identification. There is currently no other known application for this and we hope that those working in this area will find Sahana extremely valuable. Sahana will have the ability to cross-reference missing persons information with the identified and unidentified deceased, thus facilitating reconciliation efforts. The Sahana Missing Persons registry has additional physical description information fields and we hope to be able to utilize some of the image matching capabilities available to extend these capabilities further. Organizations interested in utilizing these capabilities (which will not be made open for public use) should contact the Sahana team at
sahana-haiti AT lists.launchpad.net.

Any updated missing persons status information will be pushed back to the main Google repository from Sahana.

3. Situation Mapping - Sahana's site is able to map all of the geo-referenced data within Sahana - primarily the organization data, but we have also manually entered a data layer of hospitals and medical facilities. Sahana has worked with members of the OSGeo community to obtain a fast tiled set of the current imagery being made available by Digital Globe. Sahana is also leveraging the constantly updated set of Open Street Map tiles. These are acting as backdrop for the offices that are being entered as part of the Organization Registry. Other data sources that are ready and available to be leveraged by Sahana and SahanaPy for other deployments include reports from Ushahidi, various point layers from Open Street Map, location names, USGS earthquakes, and locations from GeoNames. We will continue to build out these capabilities further as relevant layers are made available.

Capabilities we are working on:

The following capabilities are in the process of being developed and we expect will soon be available:

4. Request Management: We are working with the US State Department, Ushahidi and some other voluntary efforts on a project to process SMS messages with requests for assistance sent from survivors in Haiti. SMS text messages sent to a short code in Haiti will go into Ushahidi, who will have volunteer translators to add some structure to the message, identifying the sender's name, location (to the extent possible), and category of the message - a missing persons report, a request for assistance, etc. The message will go into a Ushahidi GeoRSS feed that will be captured by Sahana and fed into a simple Request Management system where the requests for assistance (such as "send water" to a certain village or neighborhood) can be made visible to relief organizations working on the ground. Organizations can fulfill or claim requests for handling and message the person back that assistance is coming. (Missing persons information will be captured by Google).

5. Translation: In addition, our translation project is now set up for Kreol and French translation and we may utilize a pool of Kreol-speaking volunteers being set up by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to help in these efforts. Interested translators should be directed initially to:
http://translate.hfoss.eu/wiki/Translation to become oriented in the process.

6. Shelter Registry and Disaster Victims Registry: In the coming days, we expect that there will be a requirement to start tracking the location of temporary shelters now being established, and possible registration of the survivors. We will prepare Sahana's existing registries for such purposes, which will produce further consumable data layers as well as additional missing persons reconciliation capabilities.

If you want to help:

We are using the IRC #sahana channel on freenode as our main coordination tool. Join the chat room to volunteer for tasks and someone from our core volunteer team will direct you - this room is actively staffed on a 24x7 basis.

But first, please check out the wiki pages to see what are the current requirements and areas of focus. We have a lot of volunteer Python and PHP programmers already working on the codebase, but we can probably use more. Please review the requirements page in particular to see where you might help.

We also have a large need for non-technical help - particularly for documentation support - user guidelines and instructions in particular - including some nice screenshots.

...

Finally, we could use help maintaining our own wiki - both the main page and requirements... much of this can be culled from the chat room logs - and helping to update some of the common public repositories of information about similar efforts, such as the crisis commons wiki at
https://crisiscommons.org/, although they are doing a pretty good job at tracking us ourselves.

Remember to add yourself to the wiki as part of team, and what you are doing.

Acknowledgements

Personally, I have never been a part of such a collaborative and cooperative effort on the part of different organizations to come together and to help each other and to not replicate efforts. The Sahana community has worked closely and constantly with InSTEDD, Ushahidi, haitianquake.com, Google, the Crisis Camp participants, and others I apologize for not mentioning and we wouldn't have been able to accomplish all that we have without this, and for this I am very grateful.

The around the clock efforts of many of the Sahana community are too numerous to mention here, and at risk of leaving anyone out, I would just like to thank everyone for all that they have done and been able to do while juggling responsibilities such as full-time jobs and families.

This has been a new model for Sahana deployments - rather than waiting for a specific customer to come forward to take ownership of Sahana, we have self-deployed and I think this will be a likely successful model for the future. More and more, technology projects are stepping forward and doing good directly.

So go forth and do good.

Best regards,
Mark
==========
Mark Prutsalis
President & CEO
Sahana Software Foundation