What is the role of an NGO in the aftermath of a huge disaster?

Question

I'm interested in learning what kind of people it deploys to a disaster zone, and what they actually do on the ground.

Answer 1

There are both local and international NGOs that respond to a disaster zone. The first thing they do is access damage, access injuries, and access what *most* needs to be done. They coordinate with local officials and even the military regarding what areas need what, and the best ways to get food, medicine, medical staff, and other resources to an area. They have to coordinate the distribution of aid. They may have to coordinate evacuations.

NGO staff that responds to disasters tend to have expertise in logistics, emergency medical care, emergency nutrition, security, engineering, emergency communications, and/or search and rescue.

As days pass, NGO staff have to continue to evaluate the situation -- access to clean water *quickly* becomes a problem after disasters, and unsanitary water leads to disease. NGOs have to work to make sure people know not to use unsanitary water, no matter how tempting, and how to preserve what clean water they have access to. They have to constantly evaluate the security and health situation and communicate this to other NGOs, the government, the military, and others responding to the disaster.

Answer 2

Hey Sarah,

I've been watching your posts for a while. I like your view of the world and find you interesting. I just thought I'd take this opportunity to say hey.

Now to your question, what NGO's do you mean in your question? Organizations like the Red Cross, and other aid organizations or were you thinking of something else?

Additional info:

Yea, sorry about the stalking thing, but don't worry I'm a nice stalker. LOL

Well my experience with NGO's is limited, but I can tell you that when I served in the U.S. Marines, the Red Cross was the major organization that was used to handle humanitarian missions. They are usually very focused on helping as many people as they can, and the work to restore all of the basic needs in the order that they are most immediately needed and then the work up the needs chain. The Red Cross is an amazing organization and they help so many people.

The reason that I asked which ones you were speaking of is that I have a much different view of most of the environmental NGO's. For the most part I believe that they started out with good intentions. However, most of them have lost their way and care more about creating sensational concerns that don't exist in order to feed their voracious fund raising appetites then they do about solving problems that do exist.