World Vision International is a faith-based disaster aid organization that began in 1950 and now has more than 33,000 employees, 1 million volunteers, with offices in more than 100 countries, and a yearly budget of more than $2 Billion. We heard from Christopher Shore, director of the organization’s climate change response initiative at yesterday’s ESRI Senior Executive Seminar.
World Vision is beginning to embrace the use of GIS to ad in emergency preparedness planning, and is looking for help to expand this effort. The mission of the organization is to overcome poverty and injustice by reducing the impact of natural disasters with area development programs that concentrate efforts with a long-term commitment to maximize their impact.
There is a direct correlation between poverty and areas of high risk from natural disaster, with more than 60% of their work in areas frequently hit by hurricanes/tsunamis, flooding and other natural disasters. Their climate chance work indicates that there has been a 400% increase in annual weather-related disasters and a 600% rise in annual number of severe floods over the past ten years.
World Vision sees a huge need for increased investment to combat this increasing threat, and they see GIS as a critical tool in detecting hazards and vulnerabilities and mitigating risk. Shore indicated that most loss of life in disasters is due to poor preparation and planning, and that in the United States studies have shown a 400% ROI on disaster mitigation investments with that number easily reaching 1,000% in the developing world.
The group conducted a mobile GIS case study recently in El Salvador along with the University of Mississippi and LumiMap. The project tested field mapping solutions for disaster preparedness and mitigation, with hosting on www.lumimap.org. The handheld GPS units with custom forms put GIS tools in the hands of those without much education, but the product proved to be very intuitive. The teams were able to gather 300 data points on average for 75 days with data collected reliably and accurately.
World Vision International (Monrovia, Calif.) is now beginning to use GIS for everyday activity with plans to roll GIS in this gigantic organization with the goal of saving lives and preventing loss of life. We’ll be sure to report more on this broad effort, and can help you connect you to World Vision if you’re interested in participating.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
A great supporter of World Vision is AIDtoCHILDREN.com.
AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a dual-purpose site for building an English vocabulary and raising money for under privileged children in the most impoverished places around the world.
Check it out at http://www.aidtochildren.com
Hi, I am a graduate student at San Diego State University. I am obtaining the GIS Certificate, as well as an MS in Global Emergency Preparedness and Response. I currently have 2 years of training and experience in GIS. I am very interested in connecting with World Vision and being a part of their GIS efforts. I would like to discuss the possibility of doing a Field Placement/Internship with them in Summer 2009 and helping with a GIS project as my Thesis Project. Would this be possible?
Thank you,
Rochelle Burright