Supporter: Ross Hornsey

Five days after the earthquake the survivors of the quake are displaced from their homes and living in open public areas, such as parks, or in vacant lots and unused space around the city. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is focusing on health, clean water, sanitation, psychosocial support and job creation.

The team is comprised of experts from around the world — coming from Africa, Asia, and North America — who have responded to devastating disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the Sichuan earthquake in China and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.

Mercy Corps is focusing on the immediate humanitarian needs on the ground — water, food, temporary shelter supplies and much more. As the most basic needs are met, Mercy Corps’ response team will transition from relief to long-term rebuilding and recovery efforts.

We are focusing on these three critical areas:

Health, clean water, and sanitation

Mercy Corps is helping survivors access vital clean water and sanitation services, through collaboration with two partners.

Psychosocial support

Mercy Corps will provide post-trauma help to kids using Comfort for Kids, a counselling methodology developed by Mercy Corps and Bright Horizons, a global workplace childcare provider. Mercy Corps has used Comfort for Kids to help children process post-emergency trauma everywhere from Darfur to Gaza.

Job creation

Mercy Corps will initiate some form of cash-for-work in Haiti, paying earthquake survivors a daily wage to clear debris, restore buildings and repair basic infrastructure. In post-tsunami Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Mercy Corps employed thousands through cash-for-work, enabling entire communities to rebuild, work together, and have the dignity of earning their own money and getting their economies back on track.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is plagued by hunger and political instability. This disaster has drastically increased the needs of families who had little to lose in the first place.

Donate to our Haiti Earthquake Fund

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An urgent appeal has been launched today to raise funds for the island nation of Haiti after it was struck by a severe 7.3 magnitude earthquake on Tuesday.

Tens of thousands of people are feared to have died and many more have been left injured, traumatised and homeless. Basic services and communications have collapsed, any hospitals that are still standing are overwhelmed and survivors are increasingly vulnerable to disease, hunger and dehydration.

The Edinburgh Disaster Response Committee is calling on people in the city to donate to the appeal via Mercy Corps to help survivors of the disaster.

There is an immediate need for funds to enable us to deliver basic essentials like food, water and shelter. Getting boots on the ground and aid to survivors in the first few days is absolutely critical in terms of minimising further casualties and beginning the helping people get back on to their feet.

Mercy Corps has deployed an emergency response team to Haiti. The team is comprised of experts who have responded to devastating disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the Wenchuan earthquake in China and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.

The team will also focus on Mercy Corps’ strength: Helping communities rapidly transition from immediate relief to long-term rebuilding and recovery efforts.

How You Can Help:

Please Donate Now via the link on the right

If you are interested in organising a fundraising event of your own, there is a fundraising pack below filled with helpful tips and advice.

You can also download the attached A4 and A3 size posters to put up in your place of work.

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Mercy Corps has joined a coalition of 16 leading humanitarian charities and human rights groups to highlight the Israeli blockade that continues to prevent reconstruction and recovery in Gaza.

A new report has been published today calling for more effective action from the international community to resolve this situation ahead of the anniversary of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

The Israeli authorities have allowed only 41 truckloads of all construction materials into Gaza since the end of the offensive in mid-January, warns the report, which has been produced by Mercy Corps, Amnesty International, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medical Aid for Palestinians, and Oxfam International. The task of rebuilding and repairing thousands of homes alone will require thousands of truckloads of building materials.

Little of the extensive damage the offensive caused to homes, civilian infrastructure, public services, farms and businesses has been repaired because the civilian population, and the UN and aid agencies who help them, are prohibited from importing materials like cement and glass in all but a handful of cases.

The blockade has also led to frequent power, gas and water shortages, seriously affecting daily life and public health. Parts of the Gaza electricity network were bombed during the conflict and require urgent repairs, which have still not been allowed to proceed almost one year after the conflict. This, combined with Israel continuing to restrict the supply of industrial fuel into Gaza, means that 90% of people in Gaza suffer power cuts of four to eight hours a day.

Power cuts also cause daily interruptions to water supply, as does the inability to repair water pipes, roof top water tanks and household connectors, because materials and spare parts are not deemed essential humanitarian supplies by Israel and so are prevented entry under the blockade. With the loss of pressure in the pipes, polluted water from the ground contaminates the supply. Together with chronic disrepair to the sewage system, poor water quality is a major concern for aid agencies in Gaza, with diarrhoea causing 12 % of young deaths.

The blockade, which began in June 2007 after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, has sharply increased poverty, helping make 8 out of 10 people dependent on some form of aid. Businesses and farms have been forced to close and lay off workers. An almost complete ban on exports has hit farmers hard, compounded by the offensive which wrecked 17% of farmland together with greenhouses and irrigation equipment, and left a further 30% unusable in no-go ‘buffer zones’ expanded by the Israeli military after the end of the offensive.

The report further argues that, while Israel has a duty to protect its citizens, the measures it takes must conform to international humanitarian and human rights law. By enforcing its blockade on Gaza, Israel is violating the prohibition on collective punishment in international humanitarian law, it says. The report calls on Israel to end the blockade, but it also calls on the international community to do more to end it. It urges the EU, for example, to take immediate and concerted action to secure the lifting of the blockade of Gaza so that the close of Spain’s six-month presidency of the EU in June 2010 does not also mark the third anniversary of the blockade being imposed.
The report’s authors also call on European foreign ministers and the EU’s new High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton to visit Gaza to see for themselves the impact of the blockade on its people. Securing an immediate opening of the Gaza crossings for building materials to repair ruined homes and civilian infrastructure as winter sets in would be an important step towards an end to the blockade.

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Top Edinburgh hotel Ten Hill Place, which is owned by the city’s Royal College of Surgeons, has partnered with Mercy Corps to launch a new initiative aimed at powering essential healthcare services for a remote Colombian village, whilst also reducing its’ own CO2 emissions.

The initiative aims to build a micro-hydro renewable energy facility in Minaflores, a remote community of indigenous families nestled deep within Colombia’s mountainous interior. Harnessing the power of a 62 metre waterfall, the facility would deliver enough clean, cheap, reliable energy to safely store life-saving medicines and vaccines while reducing local energy dependence on the use of diesel and kerosene.

Minaflores is a 5 hour hike from the nearest health clinic. It has no source of electricity and no prospect of being connected to Colombia’s national grid. Currently the village gets by using one gasoline generator for emergencies and local midwives are forced to rely on candles and kerosene lamps, severely increasing the risk of complications during night-time childbirths.

The project would further transform villagers’ lives by allowing them to install electric lighting and cooking facilities and also have mobile telephones for emergencies. Ten Hill Place hopes to raise £33,000 for the project from a discretionary £1 charge per night; a sum which represents the cost of each guest’s carbon emissions.

View details of the carbon-offsetting partnership we have with this Edinburgh hotel.

View the hotel’s carbon-offsetting scheme.

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Dr. Hani from the Lebanese University explaining to the youth in Baalbeck area different parts of the Baalbeck castle during one of the site visits

Daily life in Lebanon and Jordan means contending with a large number of social and economic pressures and many young people — who make up the vast majority of the population — have lost sight of their cultural heritage. As well as finding themselves faced with high unemployment and other harmful effects caused by conflict and political instability, trends show that many value consumer culture much higher than cultural heritage. Yet with Mercy Corps’ assistance and funding from the European Commission, this has begun to change.

The ‘Foundations for a Strong Future’ programme, made possible through funding from the European Union, aims to overcome the challenges of preserving and promoting cultural heritage in Lebanon and Jordan. Through participation in local research, multimedia exhibitions and community outreach programmes, many youths have now begun to rediscover their nations’ rich cultural heritage and identities.

The national museums of Lebanon and Jordan which, due to a lack of funding and resources have previously been prevented from engaging fully with visitors, are now working with Mercy Corps to become more engaged with young people. The museums formerly contained few child- or youth-friendly materials but, under this project, multimedia learning towers will be set up. These multimedia exhibits will contain a wealth of accessible information and activities, including proposed tour routes, scavenger hunts and links to modern aspects of cultural heritage.

Mercy Corps will also provide teachers and students with a ‘Cultural Heritage Toolkit’ that provides background information and lesson plans for making learning fun and accessible to all. These toolkits are helping Lebanese and Jordanian youths to develop their knowledge and discover new cultural experiences

A vital part of this programme is to encourage young people to share their cultural heritage with those outside their own communities and to build awareness through greater interaction. Mercy Corps has already conducted youth programmes in 12 different regions of Lebanon and Jordan. A group of around 150 youths have been selected to participate in a wide range of youth leadership activities and learning programmes. Activities include photography and filming workshops, participation in focus groups and visits to cultural sites.

On one such visit, 12 youths visited the Assaha traditional village in the Beirut suburb of Bourj el Barajneh. The participants spent the day tasting traditional foods, learning about traditional crafts and taking a guided tour around the museum.

To ensure the level of interest in cultural heritage is maintained and can continue to grow, Mercy Corps is also conducting cultural heritage training. In August, youth training courses were conducted in several areas across Lebanon and Jordan, including a two-day course in each of the 12 areas. The training course was specifically designed to be interactive, and the participants showed great enthusiasm for developing their own multimedia projects, grasping the medium as an ideal way to discuss further ideas and share with each other their fears, hopes and expectations for the future. In October and November, this culminated with youth in the 12 areas proudly exhibiting their multimedia cultural heritage projects to their communities and peers.

www.euromedheritage.net

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