Humanity First

Humanity First is an international charitable organisation established since the early '90's in the UK to promote and safeguard the preservation of human life and dignity. The organisation works with vulnerable communities in over 35 countries spanning 5 continents, and is now registered in over 25 countries. The organisation is run by volunteers around the world, and even in operations, expert medical, engineering and technical staff often pay their own way to support international projects. The organisation cites efficiencies through the extensive use of volunteers, partnerships and global sourcing resulting in 93% of funds going straight to projects, and the actual aid value (including free manhours of doctors, engineers etc) delivered is often 100 times the value of donations received.

Humanity First is a humanitarian organization that has sent huge consignments of non-perishable food, clothing, and medicine to many countries including Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra leone, Liberia, & Tanzania. Hundreds of physicians from USA have volunteered their time to go to the worn torn countries to provide urgent medical help and to perform eye surgeries.

The organisation is actively providing help to the needy and the poor in Third World countries. It also provides assistance to victims of natural or man made disasters. After the devastating earthquake in Turkey in August 1999, which took the lives of 15,000 people, the organisation gave large sums of donations to the Turkish government. Youth have been at the forefront in giving blood donations in many countries of the world like Canada, Nigeria, Indonesia, & Pakistan.

Origins

The concept of Humanity First originates from the Balkans conflict when UK aid convoys were being sent to the Balkans in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict. The volunteers were shocked when refugees assumed that aid sent by Muslims was only intended for Bosnians, from Russia and Greece would be for Serbs, and from Italy would be for Croats. Since then, the organisation adopted the name Humanity First meaning that aid is delivered on the basis of need only, irrespective of race, religion or political allegiance.

In two decades, Humanity First has grown into a multi-national aid agency and non-profit charitable organisation, regularly working alongside many other agencies such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, MSF and others. The organisation has access to thousands of volunteers across the globe. Humanity First also now has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The organisation splits its work into two areas; disaster relief and long-term sustainable projects.

Human Development

"Restoring Communities, Building a Future" are the guiding principles for Humanity First USA. Humanity First works to assist people afflicted by natural disasters, war, and poverty by first providing the needed disaster relief services and then by building capacity of these communities. Our aim is to restore dignity by providing the resources to help people get back on their feet quickly.

Approach: Humanity First approaches its human development projects with sustainability as the overarching goal. The projects are rooted in a community deeply affected by a natural disaster, war, or poverty. After the relief phase of the project has subsided, Humanity First works with the community to identify viable opportunities for growth and recovery.

Programs: Human development programs can be categorized under the categories of: 1) Health & Medical Programs, or 2) Educational & Vocational ProgramsHealth & Medical: Designed to provide much needed health and medical services and supplies to some of the world's most vulnerable populations.

Educational & Vocational Programs: Designed to help create capacity and self sufficiency through providing support for primary education for children and vocational training for adults in various under-privileged communities in the US and around the world

Disaster relief

Disaster relief covers the provision of humanitarian aid, medical relief, shelter, food and safe water in response to both man-made and natural disasters. Examples in the last 10 years include responses to the following: Kobe earthquake in Japan, Kosovo Civil war, Izmit Earthquake in Turkey, Asian Tsunami in Indonesia [ [http://www.indonesia-relief.org/mod.php?mod=bank&op=infobank&bankid=355 Tsunami Relief Database - Humanity First International ] ] [ [http://www.independentsector.org/relief/main.html Independent Sector | Charitable Organizations Respond to Tsunami Crisis ] ] and Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/07/america/NA-GEN-US-Katrina-Qatar.php "International Herald Tribune" news report on Katrina] ] , and the Kashmir [ [http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/campaigns/2005/11nov/051102aid.shtml Journalism jobs and news from Holdthefrontpage.co.uk ] ] [ [http://www.nato.int/shape/graphics/2006/01/23/060123a.htm SHAPE Media Library: Sweets and X-rays - 23 January 2006 ] ] earthquake in Pakistan. More recently, they have responded to catastrophic flooding in Suriname, Guyana [ [http://www.gina.gov.gy/archive/daily/b050317.html Gina | Government Information Agency | Guyana ] ] (Latin America) and Kenya.

The table below illustrates disasters that HF have been involved in and level of assistance they have provided to local victims:

Long-term projects

Humanity First runs a number of long-term projects largely in Africa and Asia:

*Feed a Family - provision of basic necessities to deserving and vulnerable families, normally for a fixed period of 6 months. Over 700 Tonnes of food and aid has been shipped to Africa for poor families.
*Water for Life - set up or repair of water pumps to provide clean and safe drinking water to remote villages in the 3rd world. Humanity First are working on these projects with Water Aid and have activated over 100 pumps in West Africa.
*Learn a Skill - training in IT or tailoring. IT training results in certification, and tailoring leads to the provision of a sewing machine and assistance in setting up a tailoring business. In both cases, the aim is to leave students self-sufficient. So far, over 13,000 students have graduated from the IT Centres.
*Orphan Care - running and support of orphanages covering the needs of orphans including accommodation, education, food, clothing and health. Orphan programmes are currently running in the Gambia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Burkina Faso and Benin.
*Gift of Sight - work with a network of hospitals to provide sight treatment ranging from glasses, treatment of infections and in extreme cases, operations to rectify cataracts.

References

[http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/article_general_news?id=56515954 New IT Centre in Guyana] [http://partners.guidestar.org/controller/searchResults.gs?action_gsReport=1&partner=networkforgood&ein=20-0464012 US Affiliation & Registration] [http://www.tiffin.kingston.sch.uk/main.asp?page=school_newsletter.htm UK School Donor to HF] [http://orgs.takingitglobal.org/17859 Sierra Leone youth affiliation] [http://www.pr.com/business-directory/1290 US Charity Directory listing] [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_First German Wikipedia entry]

External links

* [http://www.humanityfirst.org Official website]
* [http://usa.humanityfirst.org/ USA Branch]
* [http://www.humanityfirst.org.uk/ UK Branch]
* [http://www.humanityfirst.ca/ Canada Branch]