REBUILDING COMMUNITIES TOGETHER

Welcome to Disaster Aid UK & Ireland

Disaster Aid UK & Ireland is one of the founding partners of Disaster Aid International (DAI). DAI is an international organisation, involving Rotary Clubs around the world, with the mission to:

Respond to disasters with the supply of humanitarian aid to the affected communities and/or individuals.
Work in partnership on humanitarian projects funded by other organisations including Rotary clubs and Rotary districts.

In contrast to many other disaster-response groups, our aim is also to provide an infrastructure that allows affected communities to regain their normal lives.

If your organisation, club or group would like a speaker for your meetings, we would be very happy speak about Disaster Aid UK & Ireland, and answer any questions they might have.

Please contact chairman Pam Joyce giving details of the time and date of the meeting.

Contact Pam

HAITI APPEAL

The Caribbean nation of Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake of 7.2 magnitude on the morning of Saturday 14 August 2021. The earthquake’s epicentre was in the South of the country in the Departments of Nippes, Grand’Anse and Sud and was followed by a number of aftershocks. The death toll at the time of writing is over 2,100 but expected to rise. Thousands are injured and missing and many thousand homes and public buildings have been destroyed or damaged resulting in many families becoming homeless.

A state of emergency has been declared in the impoverished nation; the situation being exacerbated by the political situation following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July. It will be further compounded by the arrival of Tropical Storm Grace which is expected to cause flooding and landslides in the affected areas and further damaging infrastructure and transport links.

The initial aid response has indicated an urgent need for clean water and shelter amongst other emergency items. Along with our partners in Disaster Aid International, we have been liaising with agencies and authorities in Haiti to ascertain how we can help.

Can you imagine waking up on a Saturday morning and realising you have lost everything … loved ones, your home and all your possessions? The people of Haiti desperately need our help. Can you donate to help us give ‘a hand up, not a handout’ in their time of need?

Due to our supporters and working with DisasterAid USA we have been able to send so far 50 tents for shelter and 2,000 Mosquito Nets for protection

View video for the role of DARTS

Deployments

In the event of a deployment, Disaster Aid International will send out fully trained Disaster Aid Response Team volunteers (DARTS) to the affected country in order to:

Conduct an assessment of the disaster and local needs;
Coordinate with relevant governments, aid agencies and the affected communities to ensure that aid is deployed where most effective;
Manage the effective distribution of equipment, tents etc. to the sites of deployment;
Train members of the local community so that they can be involved in the distribution and deployment of the equipment, tents etc.;
Work to ensure that deployments are designed to support longer term sustainability;
Monitor and evaluate our deployments to ensure that both the products we are deploying as well as the means of distribution are relevant, effective and reach out to the most vulnerable.

MORE INFORMATION

How you can help - Donate

We have found that people can be incredibly generous once a disaster has struck. In such cases, we usually create a special fund raising campaign and funds raised by this campaign will be used for the specific disaster concerned. However, a real challenge for all disaster aid organisations, ourselves included, is that we need to be able to raise funds in preparation for future disasters.

This enables us to pre-position the stock of aid products in various parts of the world so we can respond quickly to the very urgent need when disaster next strikes. (donations received now are going to restocking tents and other aid products for future disaster aid work)

How you can help - Presenting

We have a full programme of presentations, demonstrations and exhibitions suitable for Rotary clubs, professional organisations, schools etc. We are very interested in both extending our regional cover and increasing our profile with local and national businesses and also younger people by working with schools, colleges and youth groups.

The more people we have on the ground, the more we can do ! We are therefore interested in hearing from anyone who in is interested in becoming an Ambassador for us. We provide a day of training for new Ambassadors and also an experienced ambassador to co-present during the first one or two events.