KM in Disaster Response - Nepal 2015 Earthquake

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Summary

This is an ongoing effort - will summarize later

Detailed Description

What can KM4Dev Members do now?

From ICIMOD: Dear All, Greetings from ICIMOD's Knowledge Management Team. We have setup a Relief Fund and will encourage all to help us support local communities in great need of help. Please go to www.icimod.org for more information. Besides this we are busy working with helping the Home Ministry with mapping help and rescue activities, coordinating help provided from different organization. We are in the process of setting up a website with relevant maps, satellite images in collaboration with NASA etc. please see www.icimod.org/nepalearthquake2015 for real time updated information.

Best

Anja M. Rasmussen senior manager ICIMOD

From Nepal Internet Society:

Dear fellows and colleagues,

This is an unfortunate sharing that Nepal is badly hit by a devastating tremor (7.9 Richter Scale) that occurred on 25 April 2015 (Saturday). The aftershock tremors are still going on. Another tremor hit the nation with magnitude of 6.7 Richter scale on Mid-Day of 26th April. Since after the first one, there were at least 70 plus aftershock tremors of magnitude 4.5 and more. There has been massive loss of lives and physical property. So far, the death casualties have reached 4500 plus and the number of injured is more than 6,000. This figure may go very high. The rescue and relief operation are on full-swing mobilizing all possible means and resources. The humanitarian assistance regarding the rescue operation and relief package has started coming in from our immediate neighbors and friends all around the world.

In this catastrophic disaster, The Internet Society Nepal community is closely working on how we can contribute to the society. We are focusing on restoring communicational channels and raising funds for the same.

In this regards, people and organizations who want to contribute to the fund for the support of #Victims of earthquake in Nepal are requested to send amounts in the name of Internet Society Nepal bank account maintained at Bank of Kathmandu Limited, Kamal Pokhari, Kathmandu, Nepal. Internet Society Nepal will mobilize the fund in coordination with Nepal Police, Telecom operators and ISPs.

Bank Details:

Below is Beneficiary Account Information

Beneficiary's Name: Internet Society Nepal

Beneficiary's Address: Anamnagar, Kathmandu, Nepal

Beneficiary's Account Number: 010000061584524

Swift Code: BOKLNPKA

Also, Please email us info@isoc.org.np after fund transfer in ISOC Nepal account.

Thank you

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With Best Regards,

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Advocate Babu Ram Aryal President, Internet Society Nepal

P.O.B. 15103 House #45 | Mirmire Marga Kathmandu-32, Anamnagar | Kathmandu | Nepal Phone: +977-1-4243071 | 4245841 Cell: +977-9851048401

From Luca Servo: become #DigitalJedis and join Micromappers.org. This can help the effort of checking/filtering thousands of pictures and tweets about the earthquake and support the assessment of the situation. It's very useful, it's a brand new way to afford disasters and it helps a lot, especially if many people join together, this effort to afford the new big-data deal.

From Davide Piga: The initiative is part of UN/OCHA's activation of the Digital Humanitarians Network aimed at augmenting their disaster damage and needs assessments. More info here: http://digitalhumanitarians.com/about

"The purpose of the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHNetwork) is to leverage digital networks in support of 21st century humanitarian response. More specifically, the aim of this network-of-networks is to form a consortium of Volunteer & Technical Communities (V&TCs) and to provide an interface between formal, professional humanitarian organizations and informal yet skilled-and-agile volunteer & technical networks."

It couldn't be more relevant to KM4Dev! I would be curious to know what other analogue initiatives are out there.

Advice on donating: "Some very good advice on how to help ‪#‎Nepal‬ - don't donate all your available funds now, divide into 3: ‪

Dear friends who have been asking about contributing to help Nepal:

The advice I am now giving is:

Decide how much you can give and divide it into three allocations (you decide what % for each) and make your first donation to one an immediate relief agency (see A below), then to B & C:

A. Immediate relief through a reputable international agency that does emergency relief; such as: i. Oxfam (UK is already there, USA is arriving) http://www.oxfamamerica.org/… ii. Global Giving (supports many smaller initiatives in Nepal—see http://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/content/search.html?fq=%7Ccountry%3ANepal&rows=20&sort=score%20desc&q=partners%20in%20Nepal&advancedSearch=false&profileId=default.user&la=paginate&documentType=project&vo=true&hl=true&start=0 iii. Doctors without Borders http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/country- region/nepal or the America Nepal Medical Foundation http://americanepalmedicalfoundation.com/

B. Reconstruction assistance through a smaller, more local organization that has been working in an affected area: remember that the worst damage has occurred outside of the cities, particularly to the areas between Gorkha and Kathmandu (from personal contacts I know that most of Dhading, Rasuwa & Nuwakot in the west were completely leveled; Sara Shneiderman and Mark Turin report extensive damage in Dolakha; this suggests that, but I don’t have direct information, Helambu has likely also been hard hit). The organization we will be working closely with: i. Educate the Children http://www.etc-nepal.org/ works in Nuwakot & Dolakha mostly

C. Personal connections: find out how to send money directly to people you know in affected areas; ask those people the best way to send money to them (Western Union or Bank transfer) i. Our government and other governments will be providing aid through government channels; rest assured that significant portions of that aid will not get into rural communities or meet individual needs. ii. In this emergency, everyone who has been affected will need more resources than they have or than the government is likely to provide. iii. If you know and trust a particular personal connection, you can also ask them to share your gift with others in need as much as they can. iv. If you don't know anyone and want me to get money to individual people in need, just contact me.

If you are a Cornell-connected person, please consider making a donation through "Cornell for Nepal"--more information to follow soon. Kath"

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