Comments on: Don’t just do something. Stand there!

By: John

John — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 19:12:42 +0000

Thanks Catherine. You’re right. This applies to many aspects of life. This is an elaborate way of saying what we’ve all heard, “The Road to hell is paved with good intentions” Our methods have to be as wise as our intentions are pure in order to be effective. It was after having worked in man disaster efforts (the war in the Balkans, NYC after 9/11, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina) that led me to design a system that could act both as a system to build capacity after a crisis, but also to act as a kind of innoculation in a community to minimize the effects of any kind of disaster once it occurs. This, again, by building local capacity to work together toward service.

By: catherine chapman

catherine chapman — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:05:51 +0000

Great observation about helpfulness. This could be applied to any aspect of life’s many relationships whether between individuals or groups – but there is no doubt that the difference between the instinct to help and real help becomes obvious in emergency situations, big and small. The instinct to want to help is a vital instinct for collective life. But being able to reflect on how to be most helpful in a given situation takes restraint, humility and a special kind of intelligence in my opinion – and in an emergency or chaotic situation, that moment of reflection has to be instantaneous as things happen so fast!

By: Bridgette

Bridgette — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:28:12 +0000

There is a bit of me that hopes some or even most of these volunteers flew down out of the truest unbounded desire to sacrifice with no thought of self for the healing of those in need-a quality to which I humbly and respectfully tip my hat. A pity indeed that they were so caught up in this desire as to not ask your questions and thus ended up being inadequate to serve or worse yet, detrimental to the plight of the nation.