ブックタイトル人道ジャーナル第3号

概要

人道ジャーナル第3号

The Journal of Humanitarian Studies Vol. 3, 2014This took some time to eventuate.Japanese Red Cross identified that 4,000 volunteers had participated in“hands-on”activities during the operation.Most were not disaster management trained and most were not deployed during the early period of the operation.By way of contrast, almost 500,000 volunteers were mobilised by the Japan National Council of Social Welfare.Following Hurricane Katrina, American Red Cross volunteers made up 97% of the workers who supported themillions of evacuees who fled New Orleans and, further, the Society had a recruitment system in place whichaccepted and orientated 60,000 new volunteers who came forward to offer their assistance. Following theQueensland Floods, 1,400 Red Cross volunteers were mobilised to manage evacuation centres, emergencyshelters, assist in recovery centres and were deployed as outreach teams to affected communities.The role of volunteers as first responders and to provide immediate surge capacity for a National Red CrossSociety to respond at community level cannot be over emphasised. It is a challenge for many National Societiesin some high income countries where volunteer numbers are declining as the nature of our societies change. TheGEJET operation highlighted the need for Red Cross to build and maintain a more extensive trained volunteerbase as a key component of contingency planning and the delivery of humanitarian services following any majordisaster. They are the foundation stone of Red Cross work in the community.Human nature motivates many people to offer assistance for those less fortunate following a disaster. As theAmerican Red Cross has systems in place to recruit volunteers, orientate them to the Red Cross and its values andthen to support them in carrying out tasks, the evaluation team recommended to Japanese Red Cross that itsability to scale up its activities post disaster would be well served by putting such systems in place.Use of Information TechnologyRed Cross also needs to take account of new information technology. Its potential was well illustrated after theChristchurch Earthquake when a university student managed to recruit 3,000 young volunteers in 24 hoursthrough the use of Facebook. This so-called“Student Army”was deployed for some weeks helping people cleartheir homes and land of liquefaction, clean up flooded and badly damaged houses and open up access in debrisstrewn streets.Japanese Red Cross used social media well for its communications and information sharing but, along with theRed Cross Movement in general, needs to be more innovative in using this technology for operational purposes.The International Committee of the Red Cross has a well-established programme, called“Restoring Family Links”（R F L）,for the registration of people separated by conflict and disaster. Though the Japanese Red Cross set this up afterGEJET, the procedures for form filling and getting access to people in the disaster affected areas meant there wasmuch delay. When the communications networks were re-established nationally, several of the agencies andGoogle set up web sites for the posting of information about the whereabouts of people who were trying tocontact family and friends. These initiatives proved to be much more nimble and well adapted to the situationthan RFL and met much of the need for reuniting people at the domestic level. The RFL system, on the otherhand, did successfully handle many of the international inquiries.72人道研究ジャーナルVol. 3, 2014