NEALE HILL AND IMTIAZ SOOLIMAN: Make sure the helpers have all they need

The earthquake that recently devastated large parts of Turkey and Syria at the cost of nearly 60,000 lives affected more than 14-million people. Our reactions to such horror are telling and can help us to deal better with similar events in future.  

We are naturally geared towards empathy and helping others, and hundreds of millions worldwide watched in horror one of the most powerful earthquakes to strike the region in centuries. In Turkey it was the deadliest quake since 526AD, and we wondered what we could do, as individuals, social groups, families and societies.   

Also, our innate yearning for hope in the face of such a cataclysm was leavened by news of those who survived almost unimaginable odds, of people such as Hakan Yasinoglu, who had  been trapped under a flattened building in the Hatay province for 278 hours — 11 days — before being found alive.  

As humanity we also rejoice at our collective response and capacity for co-operation: more than 141,000 people from 94 countries — SA included — joined rescue and relief efforts. They worked shoulder to shoulder, without thought of race, gender or ideology, often amid damaged buildings during serious aftershocks, knowing that every minute could make a difference.

In some ways our response in such situations represents the best of us as a species, and every effort must be lauded. But we must also harness the other aspects of what defines us, in addition to our capacity for empathy: resourcefulness, co-operation and learning.  

In an example of the latter, Forrest Lanning, an earthquake and volcano expert with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency and a structural engineer, says communities’ capacity for managing disasters must be beefed up worldwide. Why? When disaster strikes, neighbours and community members are the first on the scene. In a localised emergency, EMS professionals may arrive within minutes, but a wider event may mean that emergency relief takes hours or even days before they are able to act effectively.

A large-scale event will spread relief efforts more thinly. That may spell the difference between life and death for the injured or trapped, and those without shelter and sustenance. That in turn will aggravate the longer-term humanitarian and economic impact of the disaster for communities.  

Empowering communities to be more resilient becomes all the more important as climate change drives the increased likelihood of more frequent and severe extreme weather events.  

We know we will face an increase in more powerful storms that trigger flooding, and multiyear droughts and prolonged heatwaves that bring crop failures and fires. Already constrained professional and volunteer EMS teams may simply be unable to cope. And while some local government bodies help communities prepare, business and civil society must ensure that all have the resources they need. Waiting until disaster occurs is too late. 

Relief organisations such as Gift of the Givers are harnessing advances in renewable energy to help communities become more self-sufficient through for example boreholes. Those efforts will become more crucial in the future.

The UN has noted that communities can become more resilient and climate-proofed through off-grid technology such as solar water-pumps, refrigeration and irrigation. The SA energy crisis already drives home this imperative daily, and many areas globally that are affected by climate change are racing against time to put such measures in place. 

Often, such measures are simple but far-reaching. Through its philanthropic arm, the Ford Motor Company Fund, Ford has partnered the Gift of the Givers Foundation to tackle pressing issues. One was disaster relief after the catastrophic flooding that claimed more than 440 lives in KwaZulu-Natal, devastated parts of the province and brought misery to thousands. The aid included food parcels, water, mattresses, blankets and care packs. 

Ford also funded Gift of the Givers’ installation of boreholes, as well as much-needed plumbing repairs and upgrades in the drought-stricken Nelson Mandela Bay metro in the Eastern Cape.  

After the Groenvlei lake in Sedgefield, Southern Cape, was infested with an illegally introduced and environmentally damaging species of carp, the Oceana Group donated a refrigerated trailer so that the fish can be processed and distributed to the local community. So far more than seven tonnes has been shared and eaten. This is the élan of which humanity is capable: environmental sustainability and food security improved in one stroke.    

‘Look for the helpers’

None of these examples is presented as virtue signalling for any of those involved, but rather to illustrate the importance of business and civil society in addressing poverty, unemployment and inequality, as well as providing emergency humanitarian relief.  

Humans are capable of terrible things. But our capacity for helping outweighs that. It evokes the words of Fred Rogers — better known as Mister Rogers — a television host, author and minister: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news. My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”  

It’s a reason that aid organisations continue to get support. It’s a reason the Gift of the Givers Foundation is the largest disaster-response NGO of African origin on the continent, with R4.5bn in aid distributed in 35 countries over 30 years.  

The efforts of those wanting to help must be lit with pragmatism. Lanning’s suggestion that communities must be empowered to better deal with disaster is sound, of course. It makes sense for every village to have basic facilities and people trained to operate them, without need to equip and train everyone in advanced first aid. 

In years past well-intentioned efforts to help have had limited benefit. Occasionally they have even hampered relief efforts. In one case, donated clothing gathered at an airport obstructed aircraft. So we learn, adjust, realign and co-operate.   

Disasters such as fires and floods are likely to be more frequent as climate change alters the weather and the ecosystems that sustain us. 

For every Hakan Yasinoglu there must be someone with water, food and a first-aid kit. Business and civil society must ensure they have the resources they need.  

• Hill is president of the Ford Motor Company: Africa, and Sooliman founder and chair of the Gift of the Givers Foundation.