Structure of the Relief Effort in TN

As I mentioned in my earlier report, the relief work is planned in 3 phases: 

(1)   Immediate Relief - dead body and debris removal, food, clothing, blankets, temporary shelter, medicines and health camps for emergencies and epidemics

(2)   Second Level Relief - Construction of huts and houses and health needs

(3)   Third Level Relief - Livelihood needs for the families affected - forming cooperatives and providing livelihood support like boats, nets etc.

To understand the scope and scale of our work, I will first give you the organizational structure of the relief efforts in TN that has been set up over the last few days.  One must understand that the biggest problem during such times is in coordination.  There is a large amount of goodwill and response to this disaster - lots of volunteers, donations, relief materials, etc.  Without a proper structure, there is a chance that these will not be used effectively.    While others were working on the actual relief collection, and distribution, my focus on the last 6 days was setting up this coordination structure.  This coordination structure has been evolved after looking at the status on the field and our strength and the local needs. Let's take a few minutes to understand this:

1.      Coordination with the outside world: AID Office in Chennai is coordinating with people outside to collect and send materials, funds, volunteers.  We have 4 teams here

a.       Collection Team:  To contact people, coordinate with people who want to help, collect relief materials, donations, inform people about what is going on and what is needed, send out emails and news releases, establish contacts, etc.

b.      Allocation Team: To find out what materials need to go where, divide up the materials, sort them, pack and put them into trucks, distribute volunteers in the trucks and send them to Cuddalore, Nagai, Kalpakkam and Kanyakumari (and of course places in Chennai).

c.       Field Team:  Who stay in field areas and coordinate work there (more on this below).

d.      Volunteer and Work Coordination Team:  There are a large number of volunteers who are coming to help (and more are needed) - but figuring out the best way each one can help is itself a huge task and we have a team for this.