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A Citizen’s Eye View of Public Preparedness

Another Terrible Disaster & Another Inspiring International Response From The Citizen Volunteers Of CrisisCommons — Task List Now Available For Those Interested In Working On Pakistan Flood Relief

August 22nd, 2010 · No Comments

Another major international disaster and another swift international response from the citizen volunteers of CrisisCommons.

CrisisCommons, as has been covered frequently on the blog, is, according to its website, “a global network of volunteers who help people in times and places of crisis. If you can use the Internet, a word processor, a cell phone or any other kind of technology, you can help.”

And in the wake of the catastrophic Pakistan floods, that growing network has mobilized itself throughout the world to help, just as it did after Haiti earthquake and the Gulf oil spill.

After a couple of CrisisCamp meetings and cross-continent calls, the CrisisCommons website has just posted a long list of tasks for individual citizens can contribute to remotely at http://wiki.crisiscommons.org/wiki/Pakistan/2010_Floods/Tasks, including contributing to the excellent mapping and reporting work of Open Street Map, Ushahidi, Sahana, and Tweek The Tweet.

Once again, after the Pakistan flood, CrisisCommons has displayed the incredible asset that is the average citizen, and the desire for those citizens to help out in an emergency. For an organization that is little more than a year old, it is doing amazing things and growing meteorically from disaster to disaster.

If you want an excellent video summary of the development of CrisisCommons and its future, I’d recommend watching the presentation given by Heather Blanchard (the organization’s one full-time employee) at the Red Cross’s Emergency Data Summit which was taped by C-SPAN here.

And if you would like to contribute to their work in Pakistan, check the tasks page here.

(UPDATE 8/23: On the CrisisCommons website, there is now an update on the activities of this weekend, including CrisisCamps London, Cambridge & Chile.

CrisisCampDC Chile at the World Bank 3-6-10

CrisisCommons volunteers working at the World Bank earlier this year.

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Tags: International · Preparedness Events

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