USEFUL
Links
General
·
American
Red Cross The mission of American Red Cross Disaster Services is to ensure
nationwide disaster planning, preparedness, community disaster education,
mitigation, and response that will provide the American people with quality
services delivered in a uniform, consistent, and responsive manner.
· Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness -CCEP- The Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness was incorporated in 1993 as a partnership between the Regional Municipality of Hamilton- Wentworth and Hamilton's Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technology. Its mandate is to assist communities, governments and private business to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from man-made or natural disasters. The CCEP has emerged as one of the most recognized emergency response educational organizations in Canada. Through its affiliations and partnerships, it has gained recognition in the United States and throughout the world. In addition to the World Conference on Disaster Management held annually in Hamilton, the CCEP provides emergency planning services to neighbouring municipalities, training and professional certification for disaster recovery/business continuity planners and emergency response managers, and is currently establishing an International Emergency Preparedness Training Centre. The CCEP is financially self-sufficient through its own revenues.
·
Colombian Red Cross National
Societies embody the work and the principles of the International Red Cross and
Red Crescent Movement. They provide relief and development activities tailored
to each country's individual needs. They act as auxiliaries to their countries'
public authorities by providing a range of services: from disaster relief to
social assistance to first aid courses. Its
goals are to protect life and health and ensure respect for the human being,
particularly in times of armed conflict and other emergencies; To work for the
prevention of disease and for the promotion of health and social welfare; to
encourage voluntary service and a constant readiness to give help by members of
the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and a universal sense of
solidarity towards all those in need of its protection and assistance.
·
Doctors Without Borders MSF
is the world's largest independent medical aid agency and is committed to two
objectives: providing medical aid wherever it is needed, regardless of race,
religion, politics or sex and raising awareness of the plight of the people we
help.
·
International Committee of the Red
Cross The International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose
exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims
of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance. It directs and
coordinates the international relief activities conducted by the Movement in
situations of conflict. It also endeavours to prevent suffering by promoting and
strengthening humanitarian law and universal humanitarian principles.
Established in 1863, the ICRC is at the origin of the International Red Cross
and Red Crescent Movement.
·
International Decade for
Natural Disaster Reduction The
purpose of this effort is to strengthen the response capacity of the
humanitarian relief community through the timely dissemination of reliable
information on prevention, preparedness and disaster response.
·
International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent Societies The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is
an international humanitarian organisation with a unique worldwide network.
The International Federation exists to improve the situation of the
world's most vulnerable people. It provides assistance without discrimination as
to nationality, race, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.
The International Federation, founded in 1919, has a presence in almost
every country in the world today through its national Red Cross and Red Crescent
societies. The Red Crescent is used in place of the Red Cross in many Islamic
countries. Our strength lies in the global network of National Societies and the
Federation Secretariat with its delegations strategically located to support Red
Cross and Red Crescent activities in various regions. This network allows us to
be there - on the spot - so we can respond to crises effectively and rapidly.
The Federation provides humanitarian relief to people affected by
disasters or other emergencies and development assistance to empower vulnerable
people to become more self-sufficient.
·
Latin American Disaster
Net This database provides information about several natural disasters that
have affected Central America in recent years, as well as current threats.
It provides links to other organizations that deal with natural
disasters.
·
NASA
Disaster Finder Disaster Finder is a
service developed and maintained by the NASA Solid Earth and Natural Hazards
Program (Code YO), NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C., USA. This service was
created for the disaster community at-large so that the best links in disaster
information could be found quickly and easily.
If you're
looking for the latest links in disaster information, the Disaster Finder finds
them for you, and even lets you preview your selections with brief site
descriptions. All sites are clickable from the Disaster Finder's category
screens. The Disaster Finder also allows you to perform quick or detailed
searches of its links database.
·
PAHO/WHO In
1976, the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean asked PAHO to create this
technical program to help the health sector to develop a disaster preparedness,
response and mitigation program.
Disaster preparedness includes
institutional strengthening, which supports the creation and enhancement of
disaster programs in the Ministries of Health and promotes coordination with
other sectors involved in disaster reduction. The program also includes
training, preparation and distribution of training materials, disaster
mitigation, and disaster response. PAHO has established a Voluntary Disaster Relief Fund to
support post-disaster emergency needs and activities.
·
Pan-American Center of Sanitary
Engineer and Environmental Sciences The Pan American Center for Sanitary
Engineering and Environmental Sciences, CEPIS, is the specialized center for
environmental technology of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO),
Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Center was established in 1968 and is located in Lima, Peru. The
Peruvian Government provided CEPIS premises and finances some of its operating
costs. CEPIS is part of PAHO's Division of Health and Environment and develops
its activities with the support of PAHO/WHO Country Representative Offices.
CEPIS mission is to cooperate with the countries of the Americas to
evaluate and control environmental risk factors that, directly or indirectly,
affect the health of the population.
·
Red de
Estudios Sociales en Prevención de Desastres en América Latina The
“Network of Social Studies for the Prevention of Disasters in Latin America”
was create in the Costa Rican city of Limón in 1992 by members of ten
institutes of Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, and Canada.
These institutions conduct research on prevention and management of
disasters in Latin America from a social perspective.
Its goal is to contribute to strengthen the links among researchers in
Latin America, to promote comparative research within a multidisciplinary
framework, and to create instruments to publicize their research among several
actors in academic, scientific, technical, and political fields.
·
Reuter Foundation The
Reuter Foundation, drawing on Reuters experience in information and
communications, is acting as a specialist news supplier and neutral information
broker to the international disaster relief community, via the Internet.
·
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency
Response Agency The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) is
an inter- governmental regional disaster management organisation established in
1991 by an Agreement of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community
(CARICOM). Its headquarters are located in Barbados. Following the
region's disaster experiences during the past few decades and the conclusion of
the Pan Caribbean Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Project (PCDPPP) in 1991,
Caribbean governments decided there was need for a permanent regional mechanism
to coordinate regional disaster management activities. At present, CDERA has
sixteen (16) Participating States.
·
The Environment
and Latin America Network By Communications for a Sustainable Future (CSF).
CSF was founded on the idea that computer networking could be used to
enhance communications with the objective of working through disparate views and
ideologies to secure a more promising future. The contents of the archives and
the quality of communications on CSF are intended to reflect this purpose.
·
US National
Earthquake Information Service The National Earthquake Information Center
(NEIC), a part of the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, is
located in Golden, Colorado, 10 miles west of Denver. The NEIC has three main
missions. First, the NEIC determines, as rapidly and as accurately as possible,
the location and size of all destructive earthquakes that occur worldwide. The
NEIC disseminates this information immediately to concerned national and
international agencies, scientists, and the general public. Second, the NEIC
collects and provides to scientists and to the public an extensive seismic
database that serves as a solid foundation for scientific research, principally
through the operation of modern digital national and global seismograph networks
and through cooperative international agreements. The NEIC is the
national data center and archive for earthquake information. Third, the NEIC
pursues an active research program to improve its ability to locate earthquakes
and to understand the earthquake mechanism. These efforts are all aimed at
mitigating the risks of earthquakes to mankind; and they are made possible by
the fine international cooperation that has long characterized the science of
seismology.
·
US National Hurricane Center
The US National Hurricane Center, at Florida International University, in Miami,
provides timely information about hurricanes everywhere in the world.
Special emphasis is placed on those hurricanes that threaten the US and
the Caribbean region.
· US Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance USAID/OFDA/LAC is the regional office of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean. OFDA is part of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). OFDA/LAC's principal function is to provide technical assistance, emergency relief supplies, and funding for relief programs to the region in response to a disaster. Furthermore, OFDA/LAC provides functional and risk management training for the prevention and mitigation of disasters.