Foreign humanitarian aid workers in Japan comment on two aspects of the disaster: the indescribable destruction the tsunami wrought, and the impressive response of the Japanese government.
“It’s hard to describe the desolation left by a tsunami, because there is so little left that is nameable. The word that comes to mind is wasteland: A static marsh of mud, wooden planks, torn up land, unidentifiable fragments of metal,” wrote Malka Older on her blog. She is team leader for Mercy Corps’ response in Japan.
Aid workers say how quickly that wasteland is changing is impressive. The progress of a few days is noticeable. Working in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, the Japanese government was able to respond almost immediately after the tsunami, providing people affected with shelter, food, and water. Now, three weeks later, the government is already building temporary shelters, wrote Older.
“I find it refreshing to see a country that has this capacity with its own resources to provide such leadership and structure,” said Randy Martin, who directs Mercy Corps’ global emergency response. He is in Japan working with Mercy Corps’ Japan-based partner, Peace Winds.
But because the Japanese government is running the relief operations, Martin says foreign workers are out of the loop. Coordination meetings are held in Japanese, documents are in Japanese, and everyone is speaking Japanese.
He says this is very different from disaster relief in developing countries, where the United Nations and foreign aid workers are coordinating the response, they usually impose English as the language of aid—key information and coordination are in English.
This is what happened in French-speaking Haiti, where the International Council of Voluntary Agencies estimates that 3,000 to 20,000 aid groups were providing assistance after the earthquake.
The Haitian government had very little capacity to do anything. The government infrastructure was devastated in the capital of Port-au-Prince. And, as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti was already relying on international aid to provide many services to Haitians.
When the quake and tsunami struck Japan, about two dozen countries immediately sent search and rescue teams to help—but few have stayed for longer-term relief work.
Those groups still there are the ones that were already there to begin with. Organizations Red Cross, Save the Children, CARE, and World Vision have long-established Japan branches with local staff—although the focus of their work was fundraising and supporting aid in other countries.
More than 70 local Japanese staff had to “turn their attention to their own backyard,” said Casey Calamusa from World Vision, a group that has been working in Japan since 1987. Calamusa landed in Japan 36 hours after the quake to help.
Oxfam America, for example, decided not to go to Japan. Although they say they’re ready if needed, press officer Maura Hart said they don’t want to be a burden. “Particularly in the midst of a nuclear crisis—we do not want the demands of coordinating the work of outside aid providers to draw on the resources of the government,” said Hart.
“The Japanese government has a tremendous capacity for responding in crises, and a clear commitment to using its resources to the fullest,” she said.
Japan has a highly educated population. The government is rotating firefighters, nurses, doctors, and teachers in from unaffected areas to help with relief work. Plus volunteers are arriving from different parts of the country and are getting plugged into the assistance infrastructure.
In Haiti, “it was just real chaos,” says Dr. Steve Boyer, who spent four weeks in Haiti with Medical Teams International.
“Human resources were buried in the rubble. Health care providers, teachers, government officials, police and other public employees, and U.N. employees were gone with the rest. Water and electricity were gone. Office buildings, hospitals and clinics, schools, and homes were completely destroyed or damaged beyond use,” wrote Boyer in report on the relief mission.
Poor infrastructure in Haiti hindered transportation, distribution of goods, and clean up of rubble. Even before the quake, Haiti lacked roads good enough to support bulldozers or construction equipment.
The importance of infrastructure “didn’t become viscerally clear to me until I was in Haiti,” said Lisa Hoashi of Mercy Corps.
What the international groups in Japan can do is fill in the gaps, says Martin, her Mercy Corp colleague in Japan. One thing Peace Winds and Mercy Corps are planning is to operate a voucher program with businesses in Kesennuma of Miyagi prefecture.
When evacuees are moved into temporary housing, the organization will provide them with vouchers redeemable at local businesses for the goods they need to fill their homes. Mercy Corps will then reimburse businesses for the voucher.
Martin said this a way to help restart the local economy and help people get the items they need, rather than just receive handouts of items they may or may not need.
With reporting by Kremena Krumova
“It’s hard to describe the desolation left by a tsunami, because there is so little left that is nameable. The word that comes to mind is wasteland: A static marsh of mud, wooden planks, torn up land, unidentifiable fragments of metal,” wrote Malka Older on her blog. She is team leader for Mercy Corps’ response in Japan.
Aid workers say how quickly that wasteland is changing is impressive. The progress of a few days is noticeable. Working in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, the Japanese government was able to respond almost immediately after the tsunami, providing people affected with shelter, food, and water. Now, three weeks later, the government is already building temporary shelters, wrote Older.
“I find it refreshing to see a country that has this capacity with its own resources to provide such leadership and structure,” said Randy Martin, who directs Mercy Corps’ global emergency response. He is in Japan working with Mercy Corps’ Japan-based partner, Peace Winds.
But because the Japanese government is running the relief operations, Martin says foreign workers are out of the loop. Coordination meetings are held in Japanese, documents are in Japanese, and everyone is speaking Japanese.
He says this is very different from disaster relief in developing countries, where the United Nations and foreign aid workers are coordinating the response, they usually impose English as the language of aid—key information and coordination are in English.
This is what happened in French-speaking Haiti, where the International Council of Voluntary Agencies estimates that 3,000 to 20,000 aid groups were providing assistance after the earthquake.
The Haitian government had very little capacity to do anything. The government infrastructure was devastated in the capital of Port-au-Prince. And, as the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti was already relying on international aid to provide many services to Haitians.
When the quake and tsunami struck Japan, about two dozen countries immediately sent search and rescue teams to help—but few have stayed for longer-term relief work.
Those groups still there are the ones that were already there to begin with. Organizations Red Cross, Save the Children, CARE, and World Vision have long-established Japan branches with local staff—although the focus of their work was fundraising and supporting aid in other countries.
More than 70 local Japanese staff had to “turn their attention to their own backyard,” said Casey Calamusa from World Vision, a group that has been working in Japan since 1987. Calamusa landed in Japan 36 hours after the quake to help.
Oxfam America, for example, decided not to go to Japan. Although they say they’re ready if needed, press officer Maura Hart said they don’t want to be a burden. “Particularly in the midst of a nuclear crisis—we do not want the demands of coordinating the work of outside aid providers to draw on the resources of the government,” said Hart.
“The Japanese government has a tremendous capacity for responding in crises, and a clear commitment to using its resources to the fullest,” she said.
Japan has a highly educated population. The government is rotating firefighters, nurses, doctors, and teachers in from unaffected areas to help with relief work. Plus volunteers are arriving from different parts of the country and are getting plugged into the assistance infrastructure.
In Haiti, “it was just real chaos,” says Dr. Steve Boyer, who spent four weeks in Haiti with Medical Teams International.
“Human resources were buried in the rubble. Health care providers, teachers, government officials, police and other public employees, and U.N. employees were gone with the rest. Water and electricity were gone. Office buildings, hospitals and clinics, schools, and homes were completely destroyed or damaged beyond use,” wrote Boyer in report on the relief mission.
Poor infrastructure in Haiti hindered transportation, distribution of goods, and clean up of rubble. Even before the quake, Haiti lacked roads good enough to support bulldozers or construction equipment.
The importance of infrastructure “didn’t become viscerally clear to me until I was in Haiti,” said Lisa Hoashi of Mercy Corps.
What the international groups in Japan can do is fill in the gaps, says Martin, her Mercy Corp colleague in Japan. One thing Peace Winds and Mercy Corps are planning is to operate a voucher program with businesses in Kesennuma of Miyagi prefecture.
When evacuees are moved into temporary housing, the organization will provide them with vouchers redeemable at local businesses for the goods they need to fill their homes. Mercy Corps will then reimburse businesses for the voucher.
Martin said this a way to help restart the local economy and help people get the items they need, rather than just receive handouts of items they may or may not need.
With reporting by Kremena Krumova
