Humanity First helped Wilson and others to receive firsthand information on the disaster from United Nations estimates and models within hours of the Nepal earthquake.
Source/Credit: The Moose Jaw Times Herald
By Corey Atkinson | June 15, 2015
Wilson volunteers to help in Nepal
It shows the power of an earthquake to realize a big one can move people thousands of miles away.
Such was the case for Moose Jaw deputy fire Chief Brian Wilson, who volunteers for Humanity First, an international non-government organization dedicated to helping in disasters.
“Earthquakes are devastating,” said Wilson. “I spent five weeks in Haiti after the devastating earthquake there in 2010 so I’ve seen the devastation and destruction firsthand, particularly in developing countries or third world countries.”
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit around noon Nepal Standard Time on April 25, striking an area near capital Kathmandu and Mt. Everest. The death toll has reached 8,800 and the number of injured is 23,000.
Humanity First helped Wilson and others to receive firsthand information on the disaster from United Nations estimates and models within hours of the Nepal earthquake.
“Our organization is a first believer in a co-ordinated response to the approach,” Wilson said. “We don’t want to just jump on a plane and say ‘Hey. We’re coming to help.’ We want to make sure there’s an invite asking for assistance before we run.”
They waited for the government in Nepal to put out a plea for assistance through the UN, and then were able to mobilize within hours. Wilson was flying back into Regina after getting some fire training in the United States when news of the earthquake broke. While taking a break on connecting flights, he was on the phone to Humanity First’s offices trying to figure out how best to mobilize.
“We found out about the earthquake on a Saturday, and I was on a plane out of Regina on Tuesday,” Wilson said. “Our U.K. team also deployed on a Tuesday and they had a shorter travel time than I did, so they were there about 24 hours ahead of me.”
The organization deployed their volunteers into one of the clusters set up for international relief. Humanity First deployed with a medical team to help with the health cluster and also with water and shelter.
“My role was to act as the co-ordination piece, as the plug-in to the UN and to participate with the United Nations in the co-ordination piece of that,” Wilson said. “(I would) try to make sure the efforts that Humanity First was engaged in wouldn’t overlap with what somebody else was doing. Hopefully we could have a co-ordinated response to deliver aid in an international community to as many people as possible.”
The role was largely administrative, he said.
“I essentially never left Kathmandu. My deployment in Nepal was focused in Kathmandu and attending meetings.”
Coupled with that, the organization provided a 26-person medical team assigned to the Gorka district, a remote area with much devastation towards the epicenter of the original quake. Another shelter team worked north and east of Kathmandu, towards the epicentre of the second quake.
As a comparison to Haiti, the devastation he personally saw was less.
“We saw a number of walls tumble into the streets, but I didn’t see near the amount of devastation that I saw in Haiti,” he said. “The international community as a whole responded on statistical data on what we expected to see. That was significant population close to the epicentre in an urban setting. I think most of the international organizations deployed to Nepal expected to see a much more urban disaster.”
But the most pressing issue was of a much different variety – getting teams where they needed to go in mountainous terrain where many roads were severely damaged.
“We quickly realized this was a rural disaster. It impacted urban areas, but a lot of it was focused in the rural regions,” he said.
In Haiti, he said there was a convenience of being able to drive just about anywhere you needed to go. Not so in Nepal.
“Access was an issue and it continued to be an issue for the ongoing effort down there,” said Wilson.
The Nepalese government, not one of the world’s richest governments, doesn’t have a lot of resources, so things like the number of military helicopters available to move foreign medical teams would be limited. Wilson’s organization was asked to respond to the Gorka district, and then they were sent even deeper into remote terrain.
“It would be a three day hike to get in there with doctors and surgeons with medications on their backs, having to be self-sufficient with food and water for three days in and out, and have the ability to treat people in there,” Wilson said. “Those are some challenges that not many organizations are set up to try and tackle.”
In total, Wilson spent a week in Nepal with the organization, but then the issue comes for any relief aid: how do you know when to come home when there is still a need for services from the ground?
“It’s the part that I continually struggle with to this day,” said Wilson. “I’ve been on three fairly significant international deployments with Humanity First, starting in Haiti, following up with the Philippines in 2013…
“Each one of those is always a challenge. I joined the fire service because I wanted to help people. The challenge with international response is that I want to help people. I take vacation away from my family so I can work and go and help people.”
As a firefighter, Wilson will leave when a fire is resolved and the family has a place to stay.
“The difference in an international response like this is the emergency is far from over,” he said. “You show up to a large-scale emergency, you do a tiny little bit and ... often I feel torn leaving to come back. You know there’s so much more help that’s needed and so much more work that needs to be done.
“But at the same time, you realize there’s a lot of international partners there and organizations like our own and many others trying to work towards a common goal.
“Although my deployment was short, we still have people there working towards delivering that aid.”
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Corey Atkinson can be reached at 306-691-1265 or on Twitter @MrCoreyAtkinson
Read original post here: Canada: Humanity First volunteer And Moose Jaw Deputy Fire Chief Brian Wilson Moved by Nepal earthquake
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