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Greetings!
The Harvard Humanitarian is a monthly e-newsletter compiled by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) to publicize news, publications, and events in the Harvard community related to advancing responses to humanitarian crises of war and disaster. Please help us make this a robust resource by contributing your Harvard community news items via email.
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SPECIAL FEATURE: EYES ON SUDAN
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HHI partners to avert war in Sudan
 HHI has begun analyzing satellite images and crowd-sourced data from Sudan as part of an effort to avert massive human rights violations and possibly, civil war stemming from an upcoming referendum between northern and southern sections of the country. The vote to divide the oil-rich country will take place on January 9th, 2011. The Satellite Sentinel Project is being funded by George Clooney's human rights organization Not on Our Watch, and is an unprecedented collaboration between the Enough Project, UNOSAT (the United Nations UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Programme), the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Google, and Internet strategy and development firm Trellon, LLC. It marks the first sustained, public effort to systematically monitor and report on potential hotspots and threats to security along a border, in near real-time, with the aim of preventing a humanitarian crisis before it occurs. The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative will contribute its expertise in Crisis Mapping and Early Warning to the project by analyzing satellite images collected by UNOSAT and by researching and evaluating the system's effectiveness. "We welcome the opportunity to use research in a way that can immediately save lives," shared HHI's Director of Programs and Administration, Vincenzo Bollettino. "The Project is bringing together seasoned experts in humanitarian response and human rights like Dr. David Yanagizawa-Drott and Charlie Clements for the purpose of preventing an outbreak of genocide. A collaborative effort of this scale has never been attempted before." Click here to read more about Harvard's role in the Satellite Sentinel Project. Click here to read the Time Magazine article on the project.
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
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Sheri Fink explores the rationing of health around the world
 As part of a PRI's The World production, HHI Fellow Sheri Fink served as the lead reporter on how health care is rationed in four different countries: Zambia, India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. In India, Dr. Fink considered how health care is rationed in disasters when a scramble to care for all patients can cause some to go without. In Zambia, health care rationing is considered through the lens of implicit impediments to AIDS care. Click here to read more about the case studies and to listen to the four complete PRI stories which originally aired from December 14-17, 2010. In addition, we congratulate Dr. Fink for being recognized by The Daily Beast as one of the "Smartest People of 2010" for her contribution to the study of health care during Hurricane Katrina and for her role in influencing policy change within the United States in the disaster's wake. Click here to read more.
HHI Faculty Member, Brian Sorensen, recently returned from Iraq where he worked with Mercy Corps to establish early conflict warning systems to help solve conflicts before they escalate. As part of this project, Dr. Sorensen met with Iraqi ethnic, political, and religious leaders in Anbar, Baghdad, Erbil, Diyala, Kirkuk, Salah, Din and Salaymaniyah, listening to issues and offering strategies that might help defuse situations without the use of violence. Click here to read an article about the project in the Brigham and Women's Hospital December 13, 2010 Bulletin.
Women in War Program begins two projects in eastern DRC
 Jocelyn Kelly is currently in eastern DRC working on two projects for the Women in War program. The first examines which factors - societal, financial and health-related - influence men's behaviors towards survivors of sexual violence and seeks to identify the barriers towards acceptance and reintegration of survivors into their families and communities after rape. The findings from this project will inform evidence-based interventions that can prevent rejection of survivors in the future. Jocelyn will be working on this project with two students, Sunkyo Im and Michelle Kissenkoetter who are in the MPP program at the Harvard Kennedy School and are graduating the summer of 2011. The second project will take a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach to bring together Congolese and international partners to conduct qualitative research that will more effectively examine how communities are affected by complex factors related to protracted instability and violence.
HHI begins its annual Humanitarian Studies Course at HSPH
From January 3-January 14, students who have enrolled in the 2011 Humanitarian Studies Course offered by HHI will begin learning essential crisis management skills. As in other years, the two-week seminar will be followed by a disaster simulation. This year's field simulation will take place from April 15-17 at the Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover, MA. To volunteer at the simulation, please contact Brian Daly at bdaly1@partners.org.
For more information visit our website here. Kelly McQueen and students return to Liberia and Uganda
HHI Fellow Kelly McQueen has returned to Liberia and Uganda with two surgical HHI fellows and two HSPH students to assess surgical infrastructure in the two low-income African countries. This trip is part of an ongoing effort of the Burden of Surgical Disease Working Group to assess global unmet surgical needs.
HHI announces openings for term-time and summer student interns
HHI offers paid internships each year to undergraduate and graduate students interested in learning about the role of academia in humanitarian response. Interns support the staff, faculty, and fellows of HHI by participating in the daily operations of the organization.
HHI is currently seeking term-time and summer student interns. To read job descriptions of the available internships, visit the Student Employment Office website (Harvard I.D. required).
For more information, click here. Please direct inquiries to Sasha Chriss.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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| Event times, dates, and locations listed here are subject to change without notice. Please contact the event host for more information.
Technology in Humanitarian Crises: An Invitation from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory
January 12, 2011, 12-1:30pm
E40-196
Lunch will be provided.
Topics will include:
ALIRT 3-D Laser Radar Participation in Haiti Relief Operations, Dr. Richard Heinrichs
Development and Use of a Comprehensive Humanitarian Assessment Tool in Post-Earthquake Haiti, Dr. Marc Zissman, Mischa Shattuck, Amanda Schiff
Information as Transition Enabler in Post-Earthquake Haiti and Other HA Missions, Michael Hartnett
Click here to view a pdf poster for the event.
Global health emergencies course
February 7-18, 2011
Weill Cornell Medical College
New York-Presbyterian Hospital
The Global Emergency Medicine Program at the Weill Cornell Medical College Division of Emergency Medicine, and the New York Academy of Medicine are pleased to announce a two-week unique state-of-the art CME course aimed at healthcare providers engaged in international work. The Global Health Emergencies Course will focus on providing participants the tools and knowledge necessary to engage in high-impact interventions in a variety of global health crises.
World conference on humanitarian studies: changing realities of conflict and crisis
 The Second World Conference of Humanitarian Studies (WCHS), organized by the International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) and hosted by Tufts University (in collaboration with Harvard University, Columbia University and the Social Science Research Council) will take place June 2-5, 2011. The conference marks a major step in ratcheting up the quality of our understanding of social dynamics in crisis and the greater use of evidence-based humanitarian programming. As with other professional fields, having a forum where cutting edge research can be presented and critiqued is a vital tool in moving the profession forward.
For more information, please visit the conference website.
2011 Humanitarian action summit
The 2011 Humanitarian Action Summit will take place March 4-6, 2011. The  Summit will bring together over 200 strategic level leaders from NGOs, UN agencies, donor agencies and federal agencies to discuss complex issues that face the NGO community. The Summit will build directly upon the momentum from prior Humanitarian Health Conferences, utilizing the network of humanitarian leaders, and developing an expanded agenda of critical topics facing the humanitarian health community. The 2011 Summit will follow a similar work-plan from that developed in 2009. Visit the Humanitarian Action Summit webpage for more information about the summit.
2011 Humanitarian Studies Course
 Save the date to volunteer! The field simulation for the 2011 Humanitarian Studies Course will take place from April 15-17 at the Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover, MA. Please email Brian Daly at bdaly1@partners.org if you are interested in volunteering.
For more information visit our website here.
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PUBLICATIONS & PRESS
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- Azuri, Calvin,"New research 'Disaster Relief 2.0' Launched to increase DNS information sharing efficiency," TMCNet, December 7, 2010.
- Bailey, Michael,"Harvard group joins effort to monitor Sudan," The Boston Globe, December 28, 2010.
- Benjamin, Mark, "Clooney's 'Anti-Genocide Paparazzi': Watching Sudan," Time, December 28, 2010.
- Clarkson, Frederick, "Giving peace better chance in Sudan," Centre Daily Times, January 5, 2010.
- "Collaborative southern Sudan monitoring puts emphasis on potential of commercial remote sensing," ReliefWeb, January 4, 2011.
- Gotbaum, Rachel, "Celebrities, Academics Band Together To Stop Sudanese Genocide," RadioBoston interview with Charlie Clemens, December 29, 2010.
- Karimi, Faith, "Clooney, UN, Google team up to monitor Sudan border using satellite," CNN International, December 29, 2010.
- Lee, Matthew, "Clooney, Google, UN team up to watch Sudan border," Washington Examiner, December 28, 2010.
- Shiner, Cindy."George Clooney and Friends Fund Eye-in-the-Sky to Avert War," AllAfrica.com, December 28, 2010.
- Fink, Sheri, "Rationing health: Who lives, who dies," PRI's The World, December 2010.
- Fink, Sheri, "How South African doctors make life-and-death choices," BBC News, December 27, 2010.
- Fink, Sheri, "Life and death choices as South Africans ration dialysis care," Propublica, December 15, 2010.
- Seo, Jane, "Harvard researchers monitor violence in Sudan," Harvard Crimson, January 5, 2010.
- Steiner, Pam, "Dilemmas in Resolving Inter-communal Conflicts" speech delivered at Clark University conference, "The Psychology of Genocide," October, 2010.
- The 3rd Annual TEAC Symposium, "From Haiti to homelessness: The changing face of disaster relief," at Temple University School of Medicine with remarks by Gregg Greenough and Stephanie Rosborough, December 4, 2010.
- "The smartest people of 2010," The Daily Beast featuring HHI Fellow, Sheri Fink, December 2010.
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About The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
HHI fosters interdisciplinary collaboration at Harvard University in order to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian strategies for relief, protection, and prevention; instill human rights principles and practices in these strategies; and educate and train the next generation of humanitarian leaders. In 2005, the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative was established as a University-wide interfaculty academic and research center, supported by the Office of the Provost and the Harvard School of Public Health with the participation of faculty from Harvard schools and affiliated hospitals. For more information, visit www.hhi.harvard.edu.
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