Culturally Sensitive Disaster Response Work

Group photo of Earthbag Building in Nepal – Community Outreach Meetup
Group photo of Earthbag Building in Nepal – Community Outreach Meetup

I had a great talk the other day with a freelance journalist who travels and documents things such as the earthquakes in Nepal. One of our common concerns is how NGOs, and foreigners in general, respond to disasters. Aid work is fraught with well-intentioned people and innovative solutions that often go terribly wrong. Remember the emergency food dropped to war refugees by US military planes? It was unrecognizable to them and so they ended up feeding most of it to their animals.

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