AVPN hosted its second Friday session in November around the topic of collaborating in disaster planning. The key speakers sharing at the event were Parminder Singh from Twitter and Angel Theodora from World Vision. Participants came from various different organizations including representatives from foundations, corporates and NGOs.
Parminder shared his personal story on how he got engaged in the Jammu and Kashmir floods tweeting to his friends and how that organically grew into an informal group of people from various different locations around the world involved in channeling attention and resources to various disasters in India via social media. This group is now called Volunteers online for Impact in Crisis emergencies (VOICE).
Angel brought real case studies of disaster stuck victims from the Philippines and raised various interesting issues that should be considered to make the disaster relief more efficient and effective. How can the legal system be prepared to address property issues in times of reconstruction when many of the vulnerable affected population does not have official land titles for their properties? How can financial institutions be ready to channel donations to the disaster affected victims when many of them do not have regular bank account?
The conversation advanced to talk about how corporates can better engage in times of disaster relief. Participants shared their experiences in raising employees’ awareness on disasters and also exchanged views on whether corporates should partner with NGOs on a case by case basis or rather build long term relationships with a handful of NGOs.
AVPN Friday sessions are a series of monthly casual get together meetings with our community and friends, whereby we choose a topic of interest, and invite some key speakers to kick start the conversation.
Please visit our events page for more details on our next Friday session.