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Issue 34October 2012
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.

 

SPECIAL FEATURE 

HHI Faculty Members Facilitate Emergency Medicine Training in Bhutan

 

From Kuensel Online
HHI faculty, Drs. Pooja Agrawal and Brian Sorensen, facilitated the National Emergency Medicine and Trauma Care Training Course in Mongar, Bhutan from September 10-14. The training was conducted by HHI faculty, along with Bhutanese specialists. 
 
The five day course, which was organized by the Bhutanese Ministry of Health and The Bhutan Foundation, has been developed over the last few years by HHI and Bhutanese experts in order to train local physicians in basic emergency care and trauma response. The course has been adopted by the Ministry of Health of Bhutan as a national training course and will be used annually to train new physicians in basic Emergency Medicine skills and knowledge.
 
For additional information, please see this article.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Humanitarian Academy at Harvard and Centre for Safety and Development Present: The HQ Security Management Course
 
November 15-17, 2012 
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
 
Good security management is vital for stable programing and enables work in emergencies and volatile or unsafe areas.

This three-day HQ Security Management Course is intended for all management, security focal points, and programme and HR staff with security responsibilities. The course enables participants to improve organizational security management, develop and maintain a security management framework and policy, and develop or improve organizational monitoring and decision making processes. Course participants will engage in discussions on essential organizational security management issues, with special attention for vital issues such as crisis management, stress management, and duty of care. 

 

Click here to view the course program.

 

To register, and for more details, please click here.
 
 
HHI Faculty Member Discusses Urban Violence in Online Seminar
                                                       
HHI faculty member Dr. Ronak Patel was a panelist in an online seminar entitled "Dangerous Cities: Urban Violence and the Militarization of Law Enforcement."  The event, which was sponsored by the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research (HPCR), featured discussion by panelists on the challenges of understanding and addressing urban violence in the context of humanitarian law.   
 
To watch a recording of the seminar, please click here.

To learn more about the event, please click here. 

 

 

HHI Fellow Develops Standard Data and Documentation Reporting Forms for Humanitarian Crises

 
Following large-scale disasters and major complex emergencies, especially in resource-poor settings, emergency surgery is practiced by Foreign Medical Teams (FMTs) sent by governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These surgical experiences have not yielded an appropriate standardized collection of data and reporting. 
 
Dr. Frederick Burkle and colleagues, with the support of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, have published a paper describing their development of a patient-centric form and an International Standard Reporting Template for Surgical Care to record data for victims of a disaster as well as the co-existing burden of surgical disease within the affected community. 
 
The purpose of the standard data format is fourfold: (1) to ensure that all surgical providers, especially from indigenous first responder teams and others performing emergency surgery, from national and international (Foreign) medical teams, contribute relevant and purposeful reporting; (2) to provide universally acceptable forms that meet the minimal needs of both national authorities and the Health Cluster; (3) to increase transparency and accountability, contributing to improved humanitarian coordination; and (4) to facilitate a comprehensive review of services provided to those affected by the crisis.  
 
To read the paper, click here. 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS                                                              

Event times, dates, and locations listed here are subject to change without notice. Please contact the event host for more information.

 

 

Humanitarian Logistics: Experiences from the Field

 

        

Thursday, October 11

12:00 - 12:50 PM

100 Main Street, MIT Building E62, Room 550

 

The Humanitarian Speaker Series talks, organized by the MIT CTL Humanitarian Response Lab, will be featuring Ian Heigh, the Director of Everywhere Humanitarian Response and Logistics Services. Heigh has been involved in delivering international humanitarian assistance for over 15 major disasters since the mid 1990s, working as a logistician and response manager, largely with the International Red Cross (IFRC) and the United Nations. This has been interspersed with a career in commercial logistics.

Ian led a team to re-engineer the IFRC's global supply chain, leading to the European Supply Chain Award for Excellence. He received the best thesis award while completing his MSc in Logistics and Supply Chain Management at Cranfield University. Ian 's work as Logistics Coordinator for the IFRC in Haiti was profiled in the documentary  Inside Disaster Haiti. 

  

For more information, click here.  

 

 

Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Study Group: Susan Murcott, "Innovation in Household Water Treatment and Storage: Experiences from Around the World."

  

Monday, October 15
4:00 PM
Carr Center Conference Room (R-219)

  

Please join the Human Rights to Water & Sanitation Study Group for their next session where Susan Murcott will present: "Innovation in Household Water Treatment & Storage: Experiences from Around the World."
 
For more information, email c[email protected]
 
 
Human Rights and Transitional Justice Seminar Series: Transitional Justice Foundations - The Place of Transitional Justice in International Interventions 

  

 

Thursday, October 25

4:00 - 5:30 PM

Carr Center Conference Room (R-219)

  

The Transitional Justice Program examines the challenges of countries attempting to regain balance and redress legacies of massive human rights violations. It encompasses issues of legitimacy, criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, and various kinds of institutional reform necessary to protect vulnerable segments of a society and ensure stability. Seminars are presented from a practitioner perspective.

  

This seminar will provide an overview of the approach to transitional justice where the international community has supported post-conflict transitions. It will draw on the story of the peace versus justice debate and fate of the transitional justice action plan in Afghanistan.

  

For more information, please click here.  

 

 

Empowering Women: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan

  

Thursday, November 15

11:40 AM

WAPPP Cason Seminar Room, Taubman Building Room 102


This event is part of Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program's Fall Seminar Series. 

 

In societies with widespread gender discrimination, development programs involving gender quotas are considered a way to improve women's economic, political, and social status. Using a randomized field experiment across 500 Afghan villages, we examined the effect of a development program that mandates women's community participation. It was found that even in a highly conservative context such initiatives improve female participation in some economic, social, and political activities, including increased mobility and income generation. In this session, we will explore whether these measures have produced any change on more entrenched female roles linked to family decision-making or on attitudes towards the general role of women in society. Lunch will be provided.  

 

For more information, please click here.

  

PUBLICATIONS & PRESS                                                      
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.