Recent Posts

Haiti will never be a lost cause

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Meg Sattler in Disaster Relief

Haiti, two years later: Never a lost cause | World Vision blog

Last time I flew into Haiti, I was reading Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” I finished it just as the plane hit the tarmac of the broken-down Port-au-Prince airport. As I closed the book, I looked up and realized why it had resonated. The protagonist and his struggles at sea reminded me of this fascinating and broken place I’d come to call home — a country where work happens, struggles continue, and yet “success” or any kind of respite seem so often out of reach. It’s now been two years since the largest earthquake to hit the country in 200 years shook the life out of Port-au-Prince, causing chaos, destruction, death, and leaving more people homeless than...

Do you let the media influence you?

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Elizabeth Ranade-Janis in Conversations

On a recent Friday afternoon, I happily engaged in my favorite nerdy end-of-week work habit, the kind only indulged on a slow week in the world of disaster relief: catching up on the week’s news in disasters while listening to talk radio. While perusing various news sites, I happened to catch an interesting interview with Nobel laureate and psychologist Daniel Kahneman, whose renowned work focuses primarily on behavioral economics, which is more or less the study of why we do the crazy things we do. During this very interesting discussion on cognition and biases, the subject of the media briefly arose, in the context of how we decide what issues are important to us. Kahneman noted that we “tend to...

From heartbreak to hope in Haiti: Two years in photos

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Heidi Isaza in Disaster Relief

From heartbreak to hope | World Vision blog

This week marks the two-year anniversary of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. It was the most powerful quake to hit the nation in more than 200 years. The impact was devastating, triggering an international relief and recovery response. Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere even before the 2010 quake. * * *...

A different kind of day

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Nathaniel Hurd in Advocacy, Stories

I found myself in a hot, dusty camp on the border with Ethiopia, where Somalis who had fled their homes because of violence and the worst drought in 60 years were living. It’s there that I met Habiba. Habiba is a 47-year-old mother of 10. She and her family used to grow bananas and mangoes and raise animals. But the drought destroyed their crops and killed all of their animals: 100 cattle, 200 goats, and 500 chickens, all gone....

Ask an aid worker about Haiti

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Lindsey Talerico-Hedren in Conversations

There are few disaster response efforts that have received the level of public scrutiny that has been focused on the international response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. As a result of the earthquake relief response in Haiti, it’s likely that most Americans have formed their own opinions about humanitarian aid. Questions like these and their answers (or lack of answers) influence our understanding and opinion of aid work: Did my donation really help? Why hasn’t anything been accomplished there? I watched one news channel that looks like everything is progressing quite well, and another that shows everything is in complete disarray. What’s the truth? What’s really happening? Two years seems like enough time to make some progress. Is the aid...