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Resilience Planning for Your Family |
| February ICORrespondence Newsletter |
February 5, 2009 |
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Happy New Year! What? Are you surprised to hear this message in February? The Chinese New Year celebrations just ended last week, so this good cheer is timely for people living in that part of the world!!
Actually, each year much ado is made regarding New Year's Resolutions. However, if your life is anything like mine, not only did I not follow through with my New Year's Resolutions, I didn't even get around to making any resolutions.
But it is never too late! If you celebrate the Chinese New Year then the timing is perfect, if not now is as good a time as any.
As business continuity, crisis management and risk management professionals the focus of your job in the private sector is to mitigate risk and to keep your organization running during a crisis or disaster.
As emergency managers and police and fire first responders your job is to protect the public during a disaster that affects the community.
But one of the most important things you can do is to ensure that your family is safe and secure in the case of a crisis or disaster. But like many New Year's Resolutions, this often gets put to the side as it seems like too big a job to get done right now.
Do 1 thing is a 12-month program that makes it easier for you to prepare yourself, your family, and your community for emergencies and disasters.
Most people are aware of the need to prepare for emergencies and disasters, but don't get started because emergency preparedness is such a big job. The do1thing program breaks the job of emergency preparedness into 12 smaller pieces:
Each month, the program focuses on one area of emergency preparedness and provides a variety of actions that you can take to become better prepared.
If you do 1 thing each month, by the time a year has passed, you will have taken big steps towards preparing yourself, your family, and your community for emergencies and disasters.
The program cycle repeats each year so you can jump in anytime.
I, for one, am not going to miss the opportunity to get my family ready. The site also encourages you to Do 1 Thing for someone else. Who can benefit from your expertise? Family members? Neighbors?
If you know of an organization or a topic that deserves the attention of ICOR readers, please submit them to my email below.
Sincerely,
Lynnda Nelson, President
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience
866.765.8321 US/Canada +1630.705.0910 International Calls |
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Do 1 Thing |
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About www.do1thing.us
We are all aware that we need to prepare for disasters and emergencies. Many people never get started because the job of emergency preparedness is so large and they don't know where to start. The do1thing program is designed to help make the job of emergency preparedness easier by breaking it into 12 smaller pieces. Each month, the program focuses on one of those 12 pieces and provides actions people can take to prepare themselves or their families.
Each month has a different focus:
January: Risk Assessment
February: Water
March: Shelter
April: Food
May: Connecting with the Community
June: Special Items (pets)
July: Communication
August: Taking Care of Others
September: Getting Information
October: Power
November: Emergency Supplies
December: First Aid
Included in each month's suggestions are fact sheets and references and websites where you can go for more information.
The program is a success because of their partnerships with community groups, agencies, and businesses.
The do1thing toolkit can help your organization get involved with the program.
In addition to the calendar and fact sheets, the following are also available:
Posters & Brochures
Calendar
Bumper Stickers & Advertisements
Partner Handbook
Posters
PowerPoint Presentation
Sample Press Release
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| New Tool to Measure a Resilient Household |
| In an article published by IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there is a new analysis tool that measures how resilient a household is under severe stress. The purpose of this tool is to help humanitarian agencies design aid for beneficiaries based on the extent of their vulnerability.
The concept was developed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the Florence University, in Italy, using data from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
"The Palestinians have been living under incredible stress for a long time; everyone is vulnerable there. Despite that, they continue to live and work in that situation - they are a particularly resilient community," said Luca Alinovi, a senior economist at FAO, explaining why they used the OPT to develop the tool.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics also provides "incredible amounts of data - the bureau conducts at least two to three surveys every year, unlike most countries," he added, which contributed to refining the analysis tool.
The early warning systems approach tries to predict crises, while the resilience framework tries to assess the current state of health of a food system and hence its ability to withstand shocks should they occur
Resilience in humanitarian terms is a "measure of the ability of a system to withstand stresses and shocks in an uncertain world" and has only recently started being applied as a concept in food security issues, according to a paper by Alinovi and his collaborators on the project.
"The idea is that this concept could complement the early warning systems (EWS) approach. The EWS tries to predict crises, while the resilience framework tries to assess the current state of health of a food system and hence its ability to withstand shocks should they occur," said the paper.
Data is collected according to the five pillars of the conceptual framework of the tool: existing social safety net, access to public services, assets, income and food access, households' capacity to adapt, and stability of food supply.
The data is then converted into numerical variables, which help present the level of resilience on a logarithmic scale.
"The level of resilience, as calculated, can help determine the kind of interventions needed in acute food shortages - cash or food aid - in that particular country," said Alinovi. "It also helps design long-term aid interventions."
The FAO plans to implement the tool in Kenya and perhaps Sudan in the coming months.
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If you would like to submit an article or presentation for a future ICORrespondence Newsletter submit it to Lynnda@theicor.org.
Sincerely,
Lynnda Nelson, President
The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience | |
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