March is Red Cross Month

From the American Red Cross website:

"Honoring a tradition dating back to 1943, President Bush has issued a proclamation recognizing March as Red Cross Month and lauding the 'remarkable achievements and contributions' of the American Red Cross."

Many of us know the Red Cross as the place we donate blood, or take our First Aid and CPR classes. But the Red Cross is so much more.

For instance, the Red Cross, though more than 700 local chapters, is positioned to respond quickly to disasters -- whether it's a single-family home fire or a major catastrophe. Red Cross "Disaster Action Teams" provide food, shelter, emotional support and emergency assistance to those in need more than 70,000 times each year.

The American Red Cross works solely through the generosity of its donors and volunteers, and provides all of its disaster services free of charge -- without any federal funding. I encourage you to contact your local Red Cross chapter and ask how you can volunteer your time. Or, to contribute to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, go to http://www.redcross.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767).

Together, we can save a life.

Reconstruction and Stability Ops

Several Bloggers have described the value of simple solutions for complex problems. Last summer, at the STRONG ANGEL III Humanitarian Relief Exercise in San Diego, I met Vinay Gupta. Vinay has the complexion of a south-central Asian, and the voice of a Scottish Highlander. His innovation, the Hexayurt, is another great innovation to provide rapid, relevant relief to people in need:





Vinay is addressing the most overlooked element of Maslow's Hierarchy of Need: the middle tier of "Affiliation".

While many focus on the bottom tiers (food & shelter; security), and post-modernist look at the top (esteem and actualization), the quickest path to stability is by allowing people to preserve their own affiliations.

The irony is that the relief mechanisms of the world do not allow this. The U.N. drops a 100-lb. bag of rice, and the refugee camp grows where the sustenance is delivered. This creates a spiral of disaffect that creates greater security challenges, and delays the restoration of stability.

A better approach, like those postulated by Vinay, is to provide people the means of achieving the lower tiers of Maslow's hierarchy -- while also preserving their native affiliations.