Responsibility – RenegAID.org

What Do We Mean: RenegAID

One of our board members keeps reminding the rest of us to keep our focus on Natural Disaster like a focal point for a laboring mother. A focal point to distract us from the pain and fear that keeps popping into our heads. I am ever grateful for her reminders as our thoughts wonder around the landscape of chaos, expressing our opinions on what we see as haunting.

Last evening I spent time catching up on some inspiration by watching TED talks.

The one I have referenced here made me think…

Shouldn’t RenegAID be to survivors of Natural Disaster what TED talks are to inspiration and ideas? And shouldn’t RenegAID be to survivors of Natural Disasters what Burning Man is to art?

The event of natural disaster is not political. And we are about the event. In a catastrophic disaster, people who spontaneously show up to engage and help on their own volition, their own time, their own risk, their own money are called renegaid. They do whatever presents itself in the world of absolute chaos. They are not bound by policy and procedure and insurance clauses like volunteers who arrive from relief organizations such as Red Cross, etc. They are not bound by their schooling and corporate level. They are the off duty neighbors who drop what they are doing and run in to help, led by the spirit and not by rules. Rules don’t work well anyway in pure chaos. Corporations and governments exist awhile and then change but neighbors are forever.

In her TED talk, Nora Atkinson calls the Burning Man experiment in collective dreaming, off the grid, anti consumer community an “active collaborative making community.” It exists internationally year round but comes together once a year in the desert… made up of artists, scientists, welders, engineers, garbage collectors, etc. And when their time together is over, they disappear without a trace. Although the art is amazing, what inspires Nora most is why people come there again and again to make. She believes it gets to something that’s essentially human. She says that when people first come to Burning Man, they don’t know how to make this stuff. It’s the “active collaborative maker community” that makes it possible. And when artists stop worrying about critics and collectors and start making for themselves, these are the marvelous toys they create.

I loved the Burning Man people who came immediately and spontaneously to Katrina with bulldozers and tents and set up neighborhood with the Buddhist Temple. Spontaneous, engaging, willing to give of their talents and do whatever needed to be done in the moment, not worried about money or insurance. They were pretty renegaid.

Eunice
Referenced TED Talk: Why Art Thrives at Burning Man by Nora Atkinson

Hosting a Disaster???

The term, Hosting, is used by international government officials when describing nations who have events such as the Olympic Games. For instance, the host nation for the winter Olympics 2010 was Canada. The traditions of hosting go back to ancient cultures. It was the responsibility of the host to “equalize” the stranger. Host is the root word for hospital, a place for a “stranger” to be brought back to health. It is the root word for hospitality – the stranger is fed and lodged and basic needs are met.
Now consider catastrophe. The host is not the location where the event occurred. Nor is it the survivor. The host is the responder, whether individual, organization, government or foreign nation. As responders, what kind of hospitality are we providing?
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This thought is from:
Comprehending Chaos, A Framework for Understanding Disaster, Class #12 Ramifications Part 2, What Am I Dealing With Here?

National and International Disaster Relief Tip

Just a reminder to include a few good used bikes inside shipping containers of relief and medical supplies going into catastrophic disasters. Providing a means of rapid distribution and communication for survivors is just as important as the relief supplies when dealing with broken infrastructure. Good used bikes can be purchased at stores such as Goodwill, Salvation Army, other thrift stores, used bike shops, etc. Only send bikes in good working order, with good tire tread and without rust. They must be ready for immediate use.

Bikes are a disaster response tool. They can be used immediately for:
1. Distributing supplies
2. Communicating information
3. Connecting survivors
4. Generating cell phone power.
Before sending, you can attach a label or tag to each bike suggesting these uses. Be sure to use language familiar to the survivors.

Thank you,
RenegAID.org

Disaster and Rebirth

Eunice takes us to the Gangway this week with some words on how we should view survivors of a catastrophic disaster.. and how we should act to support them.. -dc

A Thought from the Gangway

Disaster and Rebirth are stuck together like two sides of one coin. They are one thing.
Disaster-Rebirth
Power-Weakness
Lion-Lamb
Parent-Newborn Infant
It is imbalances of power- neither good nor evil. It exists. And it is dynamic. It’s our reactions, responses and relation, individually and together, to its existence that makes up the entirety of our lives. And it brings out our humanness.

Survivors of catastrophic disaster are like the lamb or newborn infant. They are in the weakest form of humanness. Do we blame a newborn infant for its weakness and inability to figure life out? Do we expect a newborn infant to understand it’s unfamiliar surroundings? That newborn infant only knows that it is cold for the first time. Hungry for the first time. Alone for the first time. And afraid, needing to be comforted with a blanket and eye contact. So it is with catastrophic disaster survivors. The human senses are all screwed up. Would we leave alone a nursery full of newborn infants with plenty enough formula-filled bottles in the nursery pantry? Or even would we leave them alone with a bottle full of formula in the foot of their individual cribs?

Sending emergency relief and medical supplies into a disaster without the immediate means of local distribution and communication within a broken distribution infrastructure is like leaving the bottles of formula in the foot of the cribs and expecting the newborn infants to make the connection and survive and thrive.

If you have ever been through the process of giving birth, those closest to the situation will remember those sleepless and fearful first days and nights which flowed into weeks and months without surfacing for air. You were in it thick. You were trying to figure out how to communicate with your infant. You cried a lot. But you were also amazed a lot at the little things you were witness to. The most blatantly pure form of imbalance of power and pure potential can be seen in a mother and infant learning how to make the connection in breastfeeding. It is nature’s supply and demand at its best. And it requires a support network of those closest to the situation. When it works poorly, it can mean failure to thrive for the infant and self blame for the mother and support system.

So it is with catastrophic disaster. If supply and demand doesn’t work well, it might mean failure to thrive for the survivors as individuals and as a neighborhood. Their potential may be stunted. And for the rest of us…we are left with a horrendous feeling of guilt and shame and division and blame.

So the moral of this narrative is: Let’s get it right. Even if it takes our lifetime.

And let’s forgive ourselves and others for not truly understanding what we are up against.

-Eunice

Cash is King for Disaster Donations?

A donations food drive feels like a real way to support people in need. Donating cash at a checkout line, or on a website doesn’t usually give that same feeling. In contrast, it feels depersonalized, uncertain. Where’s the money go from there- what’s the impact? Where’s the feeling of solidarity and support?

Collecting donations is something real. It feels like you are already making a difference. This past holiday season my employer did this, and the pyramid of cans that we collected was a visible, in your face display of our solidarity with those who needed that food. The can drive collected food to donate to a nonprofit that handles the logistics of distributing it to a flooded community. It was a great team project, it brought us together, and it felt like we were helping this community. Over the course of a couple weeks, we pilfered our own pantries, cleaned the shelves of the surrounded supermarkets- drove all those cans back to the office and lugged them to the 3^rd floor where we made a pyramid of them. You could see this monument to charity before your eyes.

Beyond our office- what was the impact in the flooded community ? We can’t say for sure, but we do know what happens to a flooded neighborhood. Perhaps no water or power, kitchens largely out of commission, people living in hotels or shelters or out of their car- and those in greatest need lacking the ability to cook and prepare food. Even not in a disaster, cans are usually only a small part of the food source for families. The greatest problem- we don’t really know what happened to the food we donated and if our goal was not just to come together as a company, but to impact a flood-stricken community- then we should care as much about the cans as much as the cash.

In the months after a disaster, interviews with surivors relay a common response: somewhere in that flooded community was a warehouse full of cans- perhaps still is. It’s called the “second disaster” to those in the disaster recovery community- the challenge of making well-intentioned donations available and useable to the community.

The point is that we have to differentiate between feel-good projects, and those which make a difference. Mayne we can zero in on other goods that are essential. Like diapers, medicine, tarps. Maybe outsiders have no idea what that “short list” of useable donations is, on any given day. That sort of analysis would best be conducted in the locality.

This, then, provides a useful intersection of the survivors and the supporters. Survivors provide the analysis, the certainty of what the feel-good support project ought to be- and the supporters do the can drive. Or the diaper drive. Or whatever the case may be. Here there are two issues:

Efficiency- get the rights resources to the right place at the right time, with the right distribution and support.
The Story- give supporters a reason to support. An understanding of what the other person is going through and why a diaper drive has such an impact to that community. You can’t do this with numbers alone. Something as tangible as a pyramid of canned goods.

Sometimes cash is the better donation- it supports the community’s ability to decide for itself what needs are most urgently met. Sometimes those needs can’t be met with cash- and well-intentioned volunteers should be ready to listen for those requests- for time, labor, and other resources they may be able to provide.