Bob McKerrow - Wayfarer

2013-05-21T06:43:00.004-07:00

Historian dies hours from rescue

MISSED: Les Wright was loved by his family.

t historian Les Wright’s family has revealed he died only hours before searchers found him after surviving four days lost in dense North Island forest.

His partner, Deborah Carden, said today searchers found a small bivvy near his body that he had erected for shelter and lined with fern fronds to stay warm in Pureora Forest, near Taupo.

Tragically, it appeared he had got up last Thursday night and slipped down a bank, knocking himself unconscious, she said.

His body was found on Friday morning in the forest about 5km from his car.

The family had been told he might have died from a combination of head injuries and hypothermia.

Carden said he would have heard the police helicopter overhead during the frantic search last Thursday.

It was particularly heartbreaking knowing they had been so close to saving him, she said.

‘‘Les would have done everything that a person lost in the bush should have done except staying put until we got there.

‘‘It’s conjecture he got up that night because he heard someone.’’

Wright, 63, of Punakaiki, went missing on May 13 after heading out tramping.

He and Carden had been staying at the Waitomo Top 10 Holiday Park with a friend and she had alerted police after he failed to return that night.

A huge search was launched in the area, ultimately spanning a 300km radius, and was initially hampered because Wright failed to let anyone know where he had planned to tramp that day.

Last Wednesday, a power meter reader noticed a car parked on a forestry road and she called police that evening after media coverage made her realise it was the missing man’s car, narrowing the search to Pureora Forest.

On the evening before he went missing, Carden talked to him about a conservation project in the forest to protect kokako, a rare native bird.

Wright, a well-known author, had told her it was one of about five areas he was keen to visit during their stay, but earlier searches failed to find his car because it was off the beaten track.

He had never seen a kokako and Carden believed he had set out on the 30 minute Waipapa loop track in the forest in his search.

‘‘I suspect that he saw one. It’s the obvious answer.’’

She suspected he had launched off track to follow the kokako and got lost in the old podocarp forest, despite being an experienced bushman.

His funeral will be held in Greymouth on Saturday.

What a tragedy! I worked with Les Wright in Hokitika for the Department of Conservation for some years and also with his partner Deborah Carden at Franz Josef Glacier for two years. My thoughts go out to Deborah and her family and may we keep Les's memory alive.

A wonderful tribute to Les Wright, West Coast historian and conservationist.

2013-05-20T04:34:00.000-07:00

by Simon Nathan

Posted 20 May 2013 // Simon Nathan

Les Wright explaining some of the mining relics uncovered from excavations around the opencast mine near Reefton

It was a terrible shock to hear of the recent death of Les Wright in Pureora Forest. Les was an adopted West Coaster, and since his arrival there in 1973 he made an enormous contribution to heritage conservation through his broadcasting, writing and dedicated work behind the scenes.

When I was asked to write the regional entry on the West Coast for Te Ara about five years ago, a visit to Les was high on my priority list. I have happy memories of an afternoon spent in his home near Punakaiki as Les generously shared his experiences and answered questions while I scribbled notes.

When I asked him about distinctive West Coast artists he mentioned a number of contemporary names, then added that he had always had a soft spot for an almost unknown Czech photographer called Joseph Divis, who recorded life in mining towns in the early 20th century. I was enthralled by the images he showed me, and this was the start of a temporary obsession that was to dominate my life for about 18 months. I chased up Divis images and archives from Dunedin to Waihi. Throughout this period Les was constantly supportive through regular emails and long phone calls. When a bookwas eventually ready for publication Les declined to be included as a co-author, saying that he hadn’t written the text – but he had certainly provided much of the inspiration and background. We reached a compromise, with his name on the title page.

Les always had an interest in people and communities, especially mining towns. He was an excellent listener and oral historian, gathering memories from older residents who were overlooked by others. His books include accounts of the Rewanui settlement, the Powells of Charleston, the Big River quartz mine and most recently the short-lived mining settlement of Brighton. He also co-authored a history of cave exploration in New Zealand, which was an important resource for the Te Ara story on Caving.

Although Les had wide interests, the abandoned gold-mining town of Waiuta was particularly close to his heart, and he worked on different aspects of its history and conservation for over 30 years. He was a long-term supporter of the Friends of Waiuta, and had edited their newsletter since it started in 1985.

One of his recently published books, Our own fun: childhood memories of Waiuta is a delightful gem, and I know that it was a source of great satisfaction to him. It collects together memories of people who grew up in Waiuta and presents a composite view of childhood in an isolated mining town. Many of the contributors have now died, and their memories would have disappeared if Les had not painstakingly recorded their oral histories.

Les played an important role in the preservation of the West Coast’s mining heritage, but much of his work was behind the scenes. Among other things, he was a long-standing member of the West Coast Conservation Board and local file-keeper for site records for the Archaeological Association. For several years he produced West of the Alps, a local monthly tourist newspaper. In recent months he had been working on a mining heritage trail in the Nine Mile area north of Greymouth. His name was on many heritage or conservation plans for sites all over the West Coast as author, contributor or reviewer.

Les was often consulted about mining relicts uncovered during excavation of an opencast mine near Reefton. The mining company established a central site where relicts were deposited – nicknamed ‘Les’ Ironmongery’ – and he delighted in identifying and cataloguing pieces of rusty machinery. The photograph at the top of this post was taken while Les was showing a group some of the relicts that fascinated him.

Les Wright is mourned by his family and a wide circle of friends and colleagues. We remember someone with a passion for conservation and history who did so much to preserve and document the mining heritage of the West Coast.

Thanks to Te Ara for getting permission to run this excellent article written by Simon Nathan . Here is the link. to the Te Ara blog

Salute to Les Wright

2013-05-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

A giant Totara has fallen. The body of my old friend Les Wright was found a few hours ago in the forests he loved. Aged 63, Les and I worked together in DoC in Hokitika where he was an historian and writer. Les knew the forests of New Zealand's better than most and wrote many books on bush, gold mining, coal mining, forestry and regional history. Tane Mahuta, the God of the forests has taken Les to do a more important job to help him be a guardian. R.I.P Les Wright and thanks for the literary treasures you left us.

Nga mate, nga aitua o koutou ara o matou
Ka tangihia e tatou i tenei wa
Haere, haere, haere

My thoughts go out to you Deborah for you have lost your dearest and nearest. I grieve with you. Kia Kaha!

Les moved to the West Coast in 1973 as a radio journalist and in the last 25 years, earned a reputation as a historian and author, and has penned several books, including Waiuta and latterly Brighton. I have scattered some of his book covers throughout this posting. For a number of years he owned and published a free newspaper called West of the Alps and did so much to promote tourism and conservation.

Here is the latest new on Les.

Searchers have discovered the body of 63-year-old Leslie Wright, who went missing in the King Country on Monday. Wright's body was located in bush about 5km from where his car had been found, Sergeant Phil Bell of the Waikato Search and Rescue Squad said. "It is anticipated that it will take about two hours to recover Mr Wright's body from where he was found," he said.

Wright, of Punakaiki on the West Coast, had been staying at a Waitomo camping ground with his partner, Deborah Carden, and another friend. He decided on Monday morning to head off tramping for the day while Carden spoke at a caving conference, his son, Nick Wright, said. Wright's vehicle was recovered off Waitaramoa Rd yesterday containing his cold weather kit, sleeping bag and food. Twelve search and rescue teams as well as a helicopter, specialist tracking dogs, and a visual tracking team had been deployed in the Pureora Forest near Barryville, between Benneydale and Mangakino. Wright's death was not considered suspicious and had been reported to the Coroner.

Thanks Les for knowing you and for all the books you left us. Many of our ancestors were forgotten until you came along, dug, dug even deeper, researched and kept their name alive in the scores of books you wrote.

Kiwi in Kabul

2013-05-16T18:42:00.001-07:00

I have delayed posting this video for many years, but feel it adds a piece of history that is missing from Afghanistan's history. During the Soviet occupation, the West supported the Mujaheddin and gave them every possible weapon from SINGERS to SAMS to be their proxy army, and when the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the freedom fighters were totally abandoned by the West. This is where Osama bin Laden and others with the Al Qaeda dream, used Afghanistan for a training ground. The Talibans rose during this period of western abandonment, supported by Al Qaeda. We were visited in Kabul by Robin Raphel a career US diplomat in 1996 and I personally warned her that the West/US would pay for their misguided foreign policy on Afghanistan. Then came 9/11 which was of no surprise to me, nor should it have been to US diplomats. At some stage, your chickens come home to roost. In my book on Afghanistan (Mountains of our Mind)I said," For over two thousand years Afghanistan has been penalized by its geographic location." It is the crossroads of civilizations. Where do you think the main mountain range, the mighty Hindu Kush got its name; meaning 'The Hindu killers'. No one, yet no one has conquered Afghanistan for every Afghan is a King as the old proverb goes.

Beating wild weather in Sri Lanka

2013-05-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Drought has take its toll

COLOMBO, 9 May 2013 (IRIN) - Planners in Sri Lanka should do more to mitigate the effects of extreme weather in order to help those most likely to be affected, experts say.

According to Sri Lanka’s Disaster Management Centre (DMC), in 2012, 1.2 million people were affected by drought and over half a million by floods, while in early 2011, floods affected over a million and displaced more than 200,000 - a trend expected to increase in the future.

“There is nothing to indicate that this trend will slow down. All the signs are that it will increase,” Bob McKerrow, head of delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Sri Lanka, told IRIN.

In 2012, the island nation experienced two dramatic back-to-back weather events. Between January and October, the island’s Northern, Eastern, Southern and North Western regions suffered a severe drought. A mid-year forecast by the Socioeconomic and Planning Centre of the Department of Agriculture released in August 2012, when the drought was at its worst, warned of a loss of around 23 percent of the seasonal paddy harvest due by September.

The drought was only broken by the onset of heavy rains in the first week of November, made worse by Cyclone Nilam which struck Sri Lanka and southern India on 1 November, killing 45 people, temporarily displacing 80,000 and resulting in damage to over 10,000 houses, DMC reported.

According to an assessment by the ministries of economic development and disaster management, and the World Food Programme (WFP) in January, around 20 percent of the island’s main paddy harvest of around 2.6 million tons was lost to the floods. Of the 550,000 people affected by the floods, some 172,000 - 31 percent of surveyed flood-affected households - were severely food insecure, while 44 percent were borderline food insecure, the report said.

Photo: Contributor/IRIN

Tens of thousands were affected by flooding in 2012

Sixty-seven percent of the surveyed flood-affected people had also been affected by the drought, the report noted.

Migration up

At the same time, Sri Lankan officials report that with extreme weather events increasing in frequency, people are increasingly migrating to cities in the hope of securing a stable income.

“We have seen that when the harvests fail, the migration to nearby cities increases with people looking for temporary income,” Sarath Lal Kumara, DMC deputy director explained.

Regional experts say the situation in Sri Lanka is not dissimilar to what is happening elsewhere in the region.

“If one asks, ‘is displacement by weather-related events a serious issue in South Asia?’, then the answer is `yes’,” Bart W. Édes, director of the poverty reduction, gender and social development division at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), told IRIN, noting the risk of increased migration.

“Combined with large and growing populations living in vulnerable areas - and a forecasted increase in extreme weather events - South Asia is likely to confront continued environmentally driven displacement and migration,” he said.

Need to build resilience

IFRC’s McKerrow said humanitarian agencies should look at increasing community resilience against natural disasters as a core requirement when carrying out projects in vulnerable areas.

The SLRC is currently building around 20,000 new houses in Sri Lanka’s former northern conflict zone, the same region hit by severe drought and multiple floods in 2012.

“Wherever we build houses, we now look at two main things - either to control flood water or to provide water where there is not enough,” McKerrow said. He said the requests for such work had come from beneficiary surveys.

Kumara, the DMC deputy director, also noted that preventing victims of natural disasters from abandoning their homes was increasingly featuring in policy discussions among government and humanitarian agencies.

ADB’s Édes said policy planners should look to increase income generation opportunities, as well as build safety and early warning capacities in vulnerable regions.

“The aim should not be to stop human mobility, but rather to reduce the number of situations where people move because environmental factors force them to.”

To read full story, here is the link.
IRIN Asia | Beating wild weather in Sri Lanka | Sri Lanka | Environment | Food Security

The Great New Zealand Race is sold. Coast to Coast.

2013-05-10T02:03:00.000-07:00

Every time I go back to New Zealand I look up my good friend 'Juddy', Robin Judkins. Above is a photo I took of him in 2009 on a trip to Arthur's Pass. Every time I see Juddy, I ask him " When are you going to sell the Coast to Coast?" Well he finally did it. This was in the New Zealand headlines today.

The longest running multisport event in the world, the Speight's Coast to Coast, has been sold.

The iconic event's colourful founder and race director Robin Judkins, is teaming up with new owner, Queenstown-based Trojan Holdings Limited after 31 years staging the race from Kumara Beach on the West Coast to Sumner in the east.

"Since 1983 I've enjoyed the ultimate challenge and seeing around 20,000 competitors battle themselves, each other and the environment over 243 kilometres from the Tasman Sea to the Pacific Ocean," Judkins said.

"It's a reflection of New Zealand at its finest, just brilliant - it really is New Zealand's great race. But it's time for me to look to a new era with a lesser role."

Each Coast to Coast event has about 3500 people directly involved, generating economic activity and international profile.

"We strive to have a world-class event in harmony with our special environment and wildlife, a passion I will continue to pursue," he said.

"I deeply appreciate the fun and support over 30 years of so many wonderful people - DOC, our managers, volunteers, sponsors, competitors, support crews and local communities.

"I love the event to bits and am really excited about its future.

"I intend to still be there in a supporting role for years to come, at the start to fire them up and at the finish to hand out well deserved cans of Speight's"

The event fits with iconic adventure and tourism-based businesses already operated by Trojan Holdings interests, including the Milford and Routeburn tracks, the Mt Cook Hermitage, AJ Hackett Bungy and NZSki (Coronet Peak, Remarkables, and Mt Hutt ski areas).

Thanks to Stuff.co.nz for permission to use this article.

Reflection on Robin Judkins.

I got to know Juddy well in the 1980s when I competed three times in the Coast to Coast. Then John Woods and I decided to write a history of the Coast to Coast, which we called the Great New Zealand Race. It was fun interviewing Juddy on numerous ocassions and as the years passed, we have become very close friends.

I meet my old friend Juddy every time I go to New Zealand and below are a few extracts from old blog articles.

We stopped at Mt. Rolleston, and gazed at the Bealey Face. Photo: Bob McKerrow

In 2008 my Christmas and New Year present were two spanking, brand new knees that work so well and I feel no pain. The joy of striding across green fields with a strength in my knees is a feeling I have been devoid of for many years, and, to cap it off, no pain.

On Thursday 8 January 2009 I felt I was back to normal seven weeks after the operation as I did totally normal things such as day outings into the mountains and to be in the thick of beech forests in Arthur's Pass.

My good friend Robin Judkins, the creator of New Zealand's famous Coast to Coast endurance event, pulled up in his BMW yesterday, and said, "we are off to do my pre-Coast to Coast checks and PR." Being the owner of one of the largest, longest-running, and potentiallly dangerous mountain triathlon, Robin Judkins and his team leave no stone unturned when it comes to organisation and safety. With his car stacked with his sponsors products, Speight's beer, we headed off towards Arthur's Pass.

The first stop was at Jim Adams farm near Sheffield. Jim is a sheep farmer with a large land area and stock, provides a paddock on the road as a car park, during the Coast to Caost. Robin drops off a few crates of beer and talks to him about the car park and how it will be organised. Robin has the common touch, and mixes freely in a warm and endearing manner.

Robin Judkins discussing carparks and safety with farmer Jim Adams. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Looking towards the high peaks of Arthur's Pass. Mt. Avalanche is the prominent one in the left. Photo: Bob McKerrow

How I enjoyed driving up towards Porter's Pass with temperatures soaring up to 35 oC and the wind blowing in my hair. We visited Castle Hill village and beyond that we struck the view of the high peaks of Arthur's Pass. This is part of the mighty Southern Alps that string almost the length of the South Island.

I always pay a visit to Oscar Coberger ski depot which is now the Wobbly Kea. It is a pilgrimage to a great mountain man who brought the European alpine village concept to New Zealand and was a ski instructor, mountain guide and gear hire depot at Arthur's Pass. His grand daughter Annelise won a silver medal in slalom skiing in the 1992 winter olympics, the first and only New Zealander to do so.

The brief story of Oscar Coberger's shop. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The memorial tablet to those in the Corberger family who have passed away. Photo: Bob McKerrow

This larger building was built by Hans Bohny, a Swiss mountain guide and is now the Wobbly Kea. Photo: Bob McKerrow

After pulling over at the Mt. Rolleston car park, we took in the amazing view of the Otira Face of Rolleston. There were many cars with kayaks and racing cycles on the tacks and the owners were here for training on the kayak section on the Waimakariri River. Robin stopped to talk to the competitors who all knew this living New Zealand treasure.

As we drove, Robin Judkins studied the landscape carefully. Being an artist he's always looking for inspiration. Here is one of his paintings of this area.

Robin Judkins pointing up the mouth of the Mingha River (thanks Jamie) which is where the mountain run finishes. Photo: Bob McKerrow

We then inspected the situation at Klondyke Corner. Robin was delighted one strand of the river came right to the foot of the carpark. He checked all the facilities and talked to competitors who had just run form the West Coast over the Goat pass via the Minga and Deception rivers.

We called in at the Bealey Pub which was built and still owned by Paddy Freaey mountaineer, publican and the 'man who rediscovered the Moa'. Robin and I have known Paddy for years and he came from his house across the road with his wife Rochelle to join us. Here is a living legend. An Irishman who joined the SAS in the UK and rose through the ranks to be an outstanding soldier and an even greater mountaineer. From his base at Arthur's Pass he inspired and trained many of New Zealand's great climbers such as Russell Bryce and Rob Hall. Paddy who is in his early 70s or more, is still actively climbing and doing trips to Patagonia, and other major trips with Rochelle.

At the Bealey Pub, L to R, Robin Judkins, Bob McKerrow, Rochelle and Paddy Freany

Robin with the new manager of the Bealey Pub. During the Coast to Coast, he books out the entire pub for the weekend. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Next it was onto Mt.White bridge the change over from the cycling leg to the long kayak stretch down the Waimakariri River. Here Robin goes in for a swim to check out the kayak landing. To keep his clothes dry he swims naked, not a pretty sight.

At Mt. White bridge, Robin surveying the landing point. Photo: Bob McKerrow

One of the other key people in the region is station master and rail repair man at Cass, Barry Drummond. Cass is an isolated spot on the railway line between Christchurch and Greymouth and its Barry's job, to maintain the track. After Cass, we drove down from Porter's Pass to be blasted by a hot furnace as Christchurch was sweltering in 35.7 oC. As we came into Christchurch the car swayed and lurched in a dangerous manner. We skidded to a halt to find the rear tyre had blown open. Never a dull moment with Robin Judkins. A day where I met Jim, Barry, Rochelle, Paddy and lots of Coast to Coast competitors. Above all, I renewed my relationship with Tane Mahuta and the high Maunga.

December 2011 Meeting Juddy after the earthquake.

Juddy (Robin Judkin's) shows me the gaps and cracks in his house which sustained much damage during the February earthquake. His hillside section has a faultline running through it and there is an errie feeling of 'what next.' Juddy has been severely traumatised by the damage and the uncertainty that awaits him, and other Christchurch residents. I walked along the beach with him, and climbed up to his hill-top house and enjoyed a pot of tea and bisciuts. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Although having a damaged house, a section that may crumble away in the next quake, Juddy was able to find some humour. As we walked along Sumner beach we came to a decapitated Shag Rock, he said " let's try and do the first ascent of Shag Rock," now headless and renamed by Juddy as 'Shag Pile.' So Judkins asked me to join him on the first known ascent of 'Shag Pile," a difficult climb on shattered rock. Juddy led up a steep gulley, almost to the summit, which we reached, almost together. From the top of Shag Pile we could see Ed Cotter's shattered house, pictured below. Bizzare humour for bizzare situations.

World Red Cross Day. 150 years. The work of the Sri Lanka Red Cross

2013-05-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

World Red Cross Day 2013

150 years ago, an ambitious idea became reality with the establishment of the ICRC and Relief Societies, known today as National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Sri Lanka Red Cross volunteers celebrate 150 years of Red Cross

Shortly afterwards, the first international treaty of modern humanitarian law was adopted.

To mark these cornerstones, we are highlighting the richness of our past and engaging in a global conversation about today’s humanitarian challenges and how to make a real difference for people affected by ongoing and emerging humanitarian crises.

In Sri Lanka we are marking the event by organizing a mini marathon and a fun run in the City of Matara on May 8, 2013 to highlight the work done by the Sri Lanka Red Cross , Under the guidance of Sri Lanka Red Cross Society Chairman Jagath Abeyasighe, in the years past. The event is organized in collaboration with the ICRC in Sri Lanka and the IFRC Sri Lanka Delegation.

A SLRCS livelihood project in a village near Trincomalee includes micro-credit and many livelihood projects such as fish-drying projects, which has strengthen the community immeasurably.

Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS) has an extensive network of volunteers and a branch in each of the 25 districts of the country. It has experience in community-based health activities including first, health promotion, blood donor recruitment and HIV/AIDS.

The role of Red Cross Red Crescent is to support and contribute to strengthen the linkage between communities and health services by facilitating contact when and if needed, provide essential health messages in remote and rural areas, conduct health prevention and promotion activities and to empower people to make informed decisions about their own health. It is to promote healthy life styles and encourage healthy practices and behavior the following diagram shows the relationship between Red Cross Red Crescent and Ministry of Health (including district health services), and the roles of each

SLRCS has been providing health services to the targeted communities through supply of water and sanitation facilities, promoting hygiene, improving psychosocial wellbeing and generating awareness on primary health care issues such as immunization, nutrition, family planning, communicable diseases and also special emphasis to the development of First Aid skills, blood donation camps/drives and HIV/AIDS Programmes.

Many partner national societies like the Japanese Red Cross have supported many community resilience projects. Photo: Bob McKerrow

SLRCS is working very closely with the vulnerable communities in establishing healthy living habits with special reference in bringing down the disease burden of non-communicable diseases. Emergency First Aid programme and provision of mobile health facilities in conflict affected areas and health in emergency programme is also initiated.

CBH is one of the key successful projects for SLRCS in the past covering 17 Districts. The other strong health Programme is the first aid Programme having an island wide coverage both in community first aid as well as general first aid.

HIV prevention project started in two districts covering mainly the neglected estate communities now after achieving its expected results it has expanding in to more districts and wider target groups. One of the key areas for the SLRCS is to strengthen its relationship with PLHIV networks.

First Aid activities are run by the SLRCS since its inception. Emergency First Aid (EFA) services were also initiated to provide prompt and effective First Aid services in conflict-affected districts. SLRCS is now in the process of establishing First aid teams to provide first aid services, rescue and evacuation support in times of emergency, internal violence, natural disasters and other emergencies. SLRCS have now its training curricula in general first aid trainings. SLRCS is in the process of adopting CBHFA new approach to all our community health projects in order to make this approach a success.

Standardized SLRCS is now rapidly scaling up its commercial first aid sector having a more dedicated team both at central and branch level, are also in the process of developing new materials to support this new initiatives.

SLRCS has now build up capacity in addressing psychosocial issues after completing a three year Programme in six Tsunami affected districts, and now planning to utilize the present capacity in conflict affected areas.

In future through its CBHFA programmes and IPA, SLRCS is looking forward to address the emerging health issues such as issues due to global warming, change of demographic pattern, and migration.

The objective of the disaster management programme of SLRCS is to improve community resilience to cope with and manage disasters while continuing to maintain organizational readiness to respond to natural and man made disasters. Overall DM programme focuses on two thematic areas i.e. institutional preparedness for disaster management and Community preparedness for disaster risk reduction. There are 5 types (components) of programmes are implemented under these 2 thematic areas namely institutional preparedness for response, community Based Disaster Risk Management, Early Warning systems, recovery, livelihood and development and development of skilled human resources and SLRCS has established training infrastructure.

The Red Cross Post Conflict Recovery Programme (RC – PCRP) in Sri Lanka has been implemented successfully with the SLRCS since April 2010, having a partnership with IFRC and other Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners.

The programme contributes to the sustainable rehabilitation and reconstruction in the North of Sri Lanka, an area of the country, which remains in great need of development assistance. It primarily supports people who have been displaced due to the conflict and are now resettling.

The programme is an integrated IFRC intervention with overall coordination by IFRC, with the support of bilateral and multilateral partners. The aim is to build 20,000 houses for the people who are returning to the conflict zones.

From 13 July 2012 onwards, the RC PCRP entered a new partnership with the Government of India receiving funding for the repair of 2,800 and construction 14,000 new houses. Through this additional assistance 19,776 families will be provided shelter assistance based on the owner-driven approach utilising direct-beneficiary cash transfer mechanisms helping to empower beneficiaries and improve a sense of community ownership.

Since the inception of the programme, the Kilinochchi and Mulathivu branches of the SLRCS have been re-established, electing their governance and deploying key staff. The evolving RC PCRP has been able to attract youth and professionals of the area helping to re-establish a strong Red Cross volunteer network.

The adverse weather affected many districts in Sri Lanka from November 2010 to February 2011 resulting in mega scale catastrophe. Heavy torrential rain poured down causing floods and landslides shockingly almost all over the country. Initially, the damage was beyond to be assessed as it caused vast environmental and human devastation. The normalcy of the lives was overturned.

In response to this disaster, Sri Lanka Red Cross Society is currently supporting over 60, 000 people with following assistance mainly in Ampara, Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Matale, Monaragala, Polonnaruwa, Trincomalee and Kegalle districts.

Distribution of 164 two-wheeled tractors (Sifang GN 12) and 1370 tool kits, as a livelihood support assisting 8200 families, through farmer organizations. Valued at LKR 60 million.

92 tractors have already been distributed. Arrangements to distribute another 72 tractors are in process. Shelter grant to 1,285 families (Rs.50, 000/=per family) to repair/rebuild houses. Valued at LKR 70 million

1285 families in all eight districts have received their shelter grants. Livelihood grant (Rs. 30,000 per family) to 2,800 families. In view of uplifting their living conditions, training in tools, equipment and services. Valued at LKR 84 million.

Livelihood grants were disbursed among 2799 families.

Restoring Family links is a core activity of SLRCS, designates by the SLRCS Constitution on Chapter 2 article 6. General objectives and tusks, notes SLRCS to Organize and explore a tracing service in peace time, in time of natural disaster and in case of conflict.

There are needs in our communities for this service.

Auxillary to the Government, the Sri Lanka Red Cross has to work in a coordinated manner with the Government and diplomatic missions. Here is Tissa Abeywickrama DG of SLRCS with badge on left with Indian High Commissioner Ashok Kantha on his right and Minister for Economic Development, Basil Rajapaksa centre, at the launch of the Indian Housing project. The Indian Government is funding 43,000 owner-driven houses and Red Cross in an implementing partner for 16,800 houses.

One of the first houses completed under the Indian housing project in the North of sri Lanka. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The Geneva Conventions provide the legal basis for tracing and Red Cross Message services offered by the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

SLRCS is recognized by the Government of Sri Lanka as having a special role in Tracing and Family Reunion during times of disaster, specifically mentioned in the National Disaster Management Road map under Preparedness and Response Plans of the Emergency Response Networks.

The RFL Services are provided to conflict affected groups, to migrants workers and their family members, to people affected by natural disasters and particularly vulnerable people (children, the elderly and social cases). The SLRCS branches are joining their effort with the national headquarter to carry out activities of restoring family contact to these separated families.

SLRCS Tracing Service is member of the International Red Cross & Red Crescent tracing network and aims to restore family links for vulnerable families who have been separated due to migration, Disaster & conflict.

The tsunami that struck on the 26th December 2004 caused the worst disaster ever in Sri Lanka. The SLRCS and its volunteers, all over the affected districts, were among the first to provide immediate support and relief to victims. Due to the unprecedented magnitude of the catastrophe and the subsequent need to rebuild lives of tens of thousands of people, the SLRCS made a courage commitment to face the challenge. With the support of various RC/RC Movement partners, it rapidly scaled up its capacity to not only give back a home to the victims, but also rebuild their livelihoods in a sustainable manner.

During the project, the Sri Lanka Red Cross managed to rebuild 33,000 houses, 69 hospitals, 20 water and sanitation projects and 12 schools.

Article from Daily News May 8 2013. Photos added by Bob McKerrow IFRC.

Fight on Everest between Sherpas and Western climbers.

2013-05-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Being woken up on a frosty morning at first light by Ang Tharkay (below) with a mug of hot tea at his farm, south of Kathmandu, on 23 April 1975, is a memory that remains vivid in my mind. With a broad smile he handed me the tea, made in the Sherpa manner with tea, sugar and milk boiled together. He greeted me in English and Tibetan.

Ang Tharkay (right) with Bob McKerrow

I somehow had a flashback to photos of Eric Shipton in the 1930s and this is how he must have been woken up on his expeditions by the very same man. We had a breakfast of chapati and eggs from his farm. He had risen before day break and had milked cows and goats. Ang Tharkay was about 69 and I twenty seven.

We talked of the great climbers he went on expeditions with: Eric Shipton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, Lionel Lachnel, Lionel Terray, Cmdr. Kohli and others. You could see he had a soft spot for Shiption and the French expeditions he had been on.

I was fortunate to know Ang Tharkay, who would be considered Father of the Sherpas. I also knew Tenzing Norgkay See the articleI wrote on Ang Tharkay

Therefore the fight between a group of Sherpas and a small band of Western climbers high on Everest last week has raised some basic questions about the nature of the Sherpa-climber social contract, and about the culture of Sherpas. Although the term "Sherpa" has long been a part of the popular lexicon, outsiders generally know little about the role they play in Himalayan climbing.

Mt. Everest. Taken in 1975 from Kalar Pattar by Bob McKerrow

An article written by Broughton Coburnfor National Geographic News yesterday really sheds light on who the Sherpas are.

The Sherpas are a small ethnic group that share many cultural, racial, and linguistic features with Tibetans, who live to their immediate north. About 3,000 Sherpas reside in the drainage areas immediately below Everest; a population of 20,000 or more live in villages to the south.

Until the early 1950s, no high Himalayan peak in Nepal had ever been climbed—at least by mortals, the Sherpas say. Then, as now, they saw the Himalayan peaks and foothills as the realm of a cavorting pantheon of gods. Presciently, a prominent Sherpa Buddhist lama predicted 80 years ago that much attention would come to be focused on Everest, and that people would "suffer hardship as a result of negative deeds generated in her vicinity."

The Buddhist lamas, the spiritual leaders of the Sherpa community, say that one's motivation in climbing Everest and the nearby peaks is of key importance. Foreign climbers, when asked why they climb mountains, offer a range of responses: Testing one's limits. Personal achievement. Companionship in a shared challenge. Escape. Fun. Spiritual understanding. One Everest climber admitted that he merely wanted a bullet point on his resume.

By comparison, Sherpas share a rather straightforward motivation: Mountaineering is their livelihood, and they do it to support their families. It's tough, seasonal work—similar to the role of commercial fishing in Alaska for enterprising college students. They approach the task with good cheer, and the pay is exceptional by Nepal's standards (high-altitude Sherpas earn several times the prime minister's monthly salary).

Nonetheless, wives of Sherpas who climb are known to hike to Base Camp to persuade their husbands to give up expedition work.

"Climbing is exciting, but dangerous," a young Sherpa named Lhakpa recently told me. "It's best left to young, single men." Like many high-altitude Sherpas, Lhakpa plans to retire early, build a lodge, and invest in the "bigness"—business—end of climbing and trekking. And as the Incarnate Lama of the Tengboche Monastery pointed out, "You can't eat climbing awards, or numbers of summits." (Read more about National Geographic's 2012 Mount Everest expedition.)

Besides, Buddhists feel that casually placing one's precious human body at mortal risk is irresponsible, especially for a frivolous, recreational pursuit such as climbing. The Tengboche Lama has admitted that he doesn't always feel comfortable offering traditional blessings to foreign expeditions, saying that he's tempted to counsel them to take up other pursuits instead. But most Sherpas, for their part, need the work and the money. As everywhere, pay and profit tend to prevail over religious pursuits, though the latter are a close second.

The summit of Mount Everest

The Sherpas and the sahibs—the Sherpas' generic, not necessarily deferential, moniker for foreign climbers—share an extremely close relationship. And it's an unusual one, in cross-cultural terms, given that they originate in such different worlds. They have found a near perfect symbiosis on the side of Mount Everest. Each provides for the other what they lack: manpower for the sahibs, money for the Sherpas.

But the dynamic goes beyond this. They each embody the romantic human idealthat each is striving for: The sahibs see the Sherpas as spiritual, grounded, resourceful, self-effacing, and light-hearted. To the Sherpas, the well-educated sahibs have an enviable command of technology and organization. In many ways, they want to become more like each other.

For Sherpas and foreign guides, the job of establishing and fixing a route up Everest can be described as a tense work situation. They toil long hours together or beside each other (or above and below each other—hence the falling shards of ice that initiated the recent scuffle). The stakes are high. They need to establish a safe route over difficult terrain for hundreds of climbers and guided clients.

Briefly put, arguments happen, as they do in most workplaces among sahibs, among Sherpas, and occasionally between Sherpas and sahibs. The Sherpas are fiercely loyal (they are often related to each other), and they have a keen sense of fairness. They are also aware that the anger that naturally develops in such work situations should be tempered with understanding.

The understanding part comes in because the south side of Everest is regarded as a béyül—one of several "hidden valleys" of refuge designated by Padmasambhava, the ninth-century "lotus-born" Buddhist saint, revered by the Sherpas as Guru Rinpoche.

And a full-on deity resides on Mount Everest herself: Miyolangsangma, the "Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving." The mountain is her palace and playground, and Sherpas view climbers and themselves as only partially welcome guests, all of them having arrived without invitation. It is this goddess's power, one Sherpa Buddhist monk said, that has delivered to the Sherpas great bounty—in the form of climbing expeditions and foreign travelers, to begin with.

In 1975 I traveled with fellow New Zealander Murray Jones and we were accompanied by Domalay and Neema, Sherpas from Kunde. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Thus, Everest and her flanks are blessed with spiritual energy, and the Sherpas say that one should behave with reverence when passing through this sacred landscape. Here, the karmic effects of one's actions are magnified, and even impure thoughts are best avoided. When climbing, opportunities for fateful mishaps abound.

The scuffle that occurred at Camp 2 on Everest may have merely been a garden variety of professional jealousy. Simone Moro and Ueli Steck are skilled, professional, thoughtful climbers. And now—after a half-century of struggle, training, and experience—the Sherpas are exactly that too. Eastern-minded Westerners are intersecting with, well, Western-minded Easterners.

During the 1963 American Mount Everest expedition, Sherpas and Americans alike experienced a mutual loss of innocence. Arguments broke out then too—serious ones. And then everyone came to terms and returned to work in a spirit of professionalism and good cheer. It's the Sherpa way: fairness and forgiveness on an equal footing.

So, in the years to come, who will wind up as kings of the mountain? Sahibs or Sherpas? Don't be surprised if the Sherpas abandon the race to the summit altogether, and cede Everest to the designs of the recreation-obsessed sahibs.

The Sherpas have demonstrated a remarkable ability to learn, adapt, and excel. In less than two generations, they have traversed a staggering cultural arc. They have gamely followed the natural progression from noble savage (of romantic proportions) to renaissance men and women. Many have targeted careers as doctors, airline pilots, scientists, and professionals.

Along the way, they have seen the world and found it to be a big place, where there's room for everyone—and no need for fixed ropes. The Sherpas of tomorrow have already embarked on a path toward goals that are bigger than Everest and its squabbles.

Editor's Note: Broughton Coburn contributed a chapter to National Geographic Books' forthcoming The Call of Everest, to be released May 14, and he is the author of the recently released The Vast Unknown: America's First Ascent of Everest, from Crown Publishers.

Why celebrate May Day?

2013-04-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

Mr. May Day, 1840, New Zealander: Samuel Parnell

The USA, and many other countries claim they pioneered the 40 hour week, but an unsung New Zealander, Sam Parnell, should claim the title for in 1840 he won the right to a 40 hour week.

Labour Day or May Day commemorates the struggle for an eight-hour working day. New Zealand workers were among the first in the world to claim this right when, in 1840, the carpenter Samuel Parnell won an eight-hour day in Wellington. Labour Day was first celebrated in New Zealand on 28 October 1890, when several thousand trade union members and supporters attended parades in the main centres. Government employees were given the day off to attend the parades and many businesses closed for at least part of the day.

Above: Dunedin Labour Day parade, 1894.
Dunedin is my home town and I was brought up on heavy socialist/labour diet of 'better conditions for workers', and recall my Uncles and my Dad recounting the oppression from successive liberal/conservative Governments against workers in the the Depression of the 1930s when they were told by the Prime Minister of New Zealand at the Dunedin Town Hall, " If you are hungry, eat grass." They mobbed together after this discriminatory speech and broke into all the major food stores in Dunedin. Where did I get my radical streak from. then, when the whiskey came out, the spoke passionately of queuing up for food during the depression for food handouts for a family of 12, and all they got was rotten fish. My Dad, James William Godfrey McKerrow, quitely told me in old age," We didn't waste the rotten fish, we planted it under the apple tree."

Early Labour Day parades drew huge crowds in places such as Palmerston North and Napier as well as in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. Unionists and supporters marched behind colourful banners and ornate floats, and the parades were followed by popular picnics and sports events.

These parades also had a political purpose. Although workers in some industries had long enjoyed an eight-hour day, it was not a legal entitlement. Other workers, including seamen, farm labourers, and hotel, restaurant and shop employees, still worked much longer hours. Many also endured unpleasant and sometimes dangerous working conditions. Unionists wanted the Liberals to pass legislation enforcing an eight-hour day for all workers, but the government was reluctant to antagonise the business community.

What the Liberals did do was make Labour Day a holiday. The Labour Day Act of 1899 created a statutory public holiday on the second Wednesday in October, first celebrated in 1900. The holiday was 'Mondayised' in 1910, and since then it has been held on the fourth Monday in October.

In the first decade of the 20th century industrial unrest reappeared. The Liberal government was in decline, prices were rising and the Arbitration Court was seen as reluctant to raise wages. The more militant labour movement that emerged from around 1908 rejected the Liberals' arbitration system and condemned the increasing commercialisation of Labour Day parades. Many floats advertised businesses as well as temperance organisations, theatres, circuses and patriotic causes. Some socialists promoted May Day (1 May) as an alternative celebration of workers' struggles. Although unionists and their supporters continued to hold popular gatherings and sports events, by the 1920s Labour Day had begun to decline as a public spectacle. For most New Zealanders, it was now just another holiday.

Hemingway and Gellhorn. How I met Martha Gellhorn

2013-04-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

Image Credit: Karen Ballard/HBO

I met Martha Gellhorn in 1971.

Tonight I watched the full movie again on HBO of Hemingway and Gellhorn. Memories flooded back of my fortunate meeting with her.

In 1971, sitting in the bar at the Continental Palace in Saigon I met the famous war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn, the woman who changed the face of war reporting by giving accounts of the suffering of real people . A pioneer in journalism, telling the story of war in a unique and personal way, she reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career. Gellhorn covered the Spanish Civil War the Finnish-Soviet winter war, World War II, the Vietnam War and the 1977 Arab Israel conflict.

When I met Gellhorn she must have been 62 going 63 and was a compelling person with a magnetic personality and had just come back from having been with US forces somewhere in the central highlands. I was 23 on my first Red Cross mission sitting at a table with a few other journalist and she joined us. I was unsure of who she was at that moment but I could immediately see the respect accorded to her by journalists that knew her incredible history. I can recall her commenting on the futility of war and the deeper meaning of life...”That spiritual world up or out there,” she described so wistfully with delicate hand movements, and then she dismissed the comment.

A few days ago I started getting a large amount of hits on my weblog and I starting wondering why ? After a bit of research, I found that a new movie by HBO, Hemingway & Gellhorn, was shown for the first time on HBO the other day. I am delighted that the story of Martha Gellhorn, one of the world's great war correspondents, is made into a movie.

I looked at many reviews and the one from the Ottawa Citizen was typical of many, and I copy it below: Towards the end of this post, I write in more detail about my meeting with Martha Gellhorn.

Quiet, studied, cerebral and eerily compelling, the new HBO biopic Hemingway & Gellhorn is both a throwback and surprisingly modern.
The two-and-a-half-hour film, long by TV-movie standards, is a reminder that made-for-TV movies don't have to pander. Increasingly, films made by adults for adults are being seen on cable channels like HBO. If the Hollywood studios had their way, and it weren't for indie filmmakers, summer at the movie theatres would be one long superhero movie. There's a reason A-listers like Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman choose to slum in TV. Increasingly, that reason is movies like Hemingway & Gellhorn.
As directed by seminal filmmaker Philip Kaufman - few film directors can claim credits as distinctive and differing as The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Invasion of the Body Snatchers within a few years of each other - Hemingway & Gellhorn is a reminder, too, that, long before Arwa Damon, Marie Colvin and Christiane Amanpour, women were at the front lines of the world's most prominent, respected war correspondents. Gellhorn, considered by the Daily Telegraph to be one of the greatest war correspondents of her generation, covered nearly every major conflict that occurred during her storied 60-year career.

Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway Nicole Kidman as Martha Gellhorn from the movie Hemingway & Gellhorn. Photograph by: The Movie Network

Although Hemingway is the more familiar name, Hemingway & Gellhorn is Gellhorn's story. It's a cliche to describe Gellhorn as a woman before her time, but consider this: Shortly after meeting Hemingway in 1936 in Key West and becoming his third wife in 1940, Gellhorn chafed at being cast in the shadow of the renowned novelist and ladies' man, famously remarking to a friend that she didn't care to be "a footnote in someone else's life." Extramarital affairs followed - on both sides - and the marriage fractured, as the saying goes: "We were good in war. And when there was no war, we made our own."

Kaufman, Kidman and Owen faced the press at a meeting with TV critics in Los Angeles earlier this year. Predictably, perhaps, it was Gellhorn, not Hemingway, that commanded the most interest, and Kidman who fielded the most questions.
"(Gellhorn) found her voice when she was with Hemingway," Kidman explained. "He was a big part of helping her to, as he says in a line in the film, 'Get in the ring and start throwing punches for what you believe in.' The great thing about Gellhorn was she was the first female, really, war correspondent. She wrote about people's lives, and she wrote with direct truth. That's hard to do.
"During their relationship, you see her formulating who she is as a writer. She's not Hemingway. She didn't want to write novels. She wanted to be a correspondent. I love that she was the first woman to really do that. In the film, you see her on the front line, you see her hands bloody. She's a sponge, and then she's able to feed that back to America and the world. She was a trail blazer."
Is Hemingway & Gellhorn right for you? If the first image that comes to mind when you hear the words Island in the Stream is Kenny Rogers, possibly not. If the image that comes to mind is the posthumous Hemingway novel set in Cuba, Bahamas and the Florida Keys, or the George C. Scott movie with Claire Bloom, you owe it to yourself not to miss Hemingway & Gellhorn. This is the kind of movie that brings history to life and makes you feel better for understanding it.

Martha Gellhorn - War correspondent by Bob McKerrow

In 1971, sitting in the bar at the Continental Palace in Saigon I met the famous war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn, the woman who changed the face of war reporting by giving accounts of the suffering of real people . A pioneer in journalism, telling the story of war in a unique and personal way, she reported on virtually every major world conflict that took place during her 60-year career.Gellhorn covered the Spanish Civil War the Finnish-Soviet winter war, World War II, the Vietnam War and the 1977 Arab Israel conflict.

When I met Gellhorn she must have been 62 going 63 and was a compelling person with a magnetic personality and had just come back from having been with US forces somewhere in the central highlands.; I was 23 on my first Red Cross mission sitting at a table with a few other journalist and she joined us. I was unsure of who she was at that moment but I could immediately see the respect accorded to her by journalists that knew her incredible history. I can recall her commenting on the futility of war and the deeper meaning of life...”That spiritual world up or out there,” she described so wistfully with delicate hand movements, and then she dismissed the comment.

Many years later I found out exactly what she thought about the US engagement in the Vietnam war.
"The American army in Vietnam was an army of occupation, victims and victimizers both," she later wrote. "Victims because they were wrongly sent 10,000 miles from home, to take part - even as mildly as storekeeper, clerk, cook - in a political aggression. Victimizers because they looked on Vietnamese as a lesser breed..."

I find her courage and writing ability as two things I will remember forever about this pioneering war correspondent.

Caroline Moorehead, author of Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life, says Gellhorn remained undaunted for most of her 90 years. "I think she was fearless but she knew what it was like to be frightened," a toughness she got from her upbringing, Moorehead says.

Gellhorn covered wars in a different way than other journalists. "She didn't write about battles and she didn't know about military tactics," Moorehead says. "What she was really interested in was describing what war does to civilians, does to ordinary people."

In 1939 Gellhorn witnessed the first weeks of the Winter War between Finland the Soviet Union. She was in Helsinki when the Soviet air forces bombed the city, as a declaration of war. "An Italian journalist had remarked in Helsinki that anyone who could survive the Finnish climate could survive anything and we decided with admiration that the Finns were a tough and unrelenting race, seeing them take this war as if there were nothing very remarkable in three million people fighting against a nation of 180 million." (Gellhorn in The Face of War, 1959) Gellhorn also met President Svinhufvud, whose name she wrote "Szinhuszue". Svinhufvud offered his guests small apples from his orchard. At the Karelian front Gellhorn interviewed Finnish fighter pilots, astonished by their age: "they ought to be going to college dances," she remarked. Gellhorn's reports emphasized that Finland was not the aggressor and deeply influenced the public opinion in the United States about the war.

Gellhorn married Hemingway on November 20, 1940, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. (photo left) Hemingway's friend, Robert Capa, photographed the ceremony for Life. The author dedicated his famous novel about the Spanish Civil war, For Whom the Bells Toll (1940), to Gellhorn. Maria in the book was partly modelled after her. "Her hair was the golden brow of a grain field," Hemingway wrote of his heroine. In the film version of the book, Ingrid Bergman played Maria, but hair was darker than Gellhorn's. However, Gellhorn had suggested her for the role.

The first years of their marriage were happy, although Gellhorn was never really attracted to Hemingway, or believed in romantic love. Hemingway taught her to ride, and shoot, and fish. In the afternoon they played tennis.

Gellhorn was sent to China by Collier's to report on the China-Japan war. They met General Chiang Kai-shek ("he had no teeth"), and continued to Burma, where they spent some time. Hemingway returned to Hong Kong and Gellhorn left for Singapore and Java. "She gets to the place,"

Gellhorn was sent to China by Collier's to report on the China-Japan war. They met General Chiang Kai-shek ("he had no teeth"), and continued to Burma, where they spent some time. Hemingway returned to Hong Kong and Gellhorn left for Singapore and Java. "She gets to the place,"

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway with unidentified Chinese military officers, Chungking, China, 1941

Since she walked out on Ernest Hemingway in 1943, after five years of marriage, Gellhorn had refused to talk much about him. She was a writer in her own right, a woman who had covered the heaviest of wars, and she wished to be remembered for that. Yet all people recalled was the marriage. That obviously was disappointing to such a talented writer.

After the war she served as a correspondent in Java. Her only play, Love Goes to Press (1947), written in collaboration with Virginia Cowles, did not gain much success. Liana (1944) was a story of a mulatto woman. "True, there is a suspiciously Hemingway-like handling of the dialogue," wrote John Lucas in Contemporary Novelists (1972), "but for the rest there is a sharpness, a truth of observation in the studies of Liana herself and of Marc that would make the novel worth reading if there were nothing else to commend it." The Wine of Astonishment (1948) fallowed a U.S. in Europe in World War II. "Anything at all would do," thinks one of the characters, Lieutenant Colonel Smithers, "except this hour to hour hanging on, with time like a rock in your brain." A young soldier, Jacob Levy, confronts man's inhumanity toward man in Germany. The book was partly based on Gellhorn's experiences - she had been at Dachau a week after American soldiers had discovered the concentration camp.

The Continental Palace in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where I met Martha Gellhorn in 1971.

In 1958 Gellhorn received an O. Henry Award. The sale of a short story to television enabled her to pay in 1962 her own way to Africa. Gellhorn's love affair of the continent lasted off and on for thirteen years. Much of her time she spent in Kenya, where she had a residence in the Rift Valley. Eventually she fond hopeless to try to write about the "natural world where everything was older than time and I was the briefest object in the landscape." One morning she was attacked on a beach - according to her friend, she was raped. Later she wrote a short story dealing with the traumatic experience.

Between 1934 and 1967, Gellhorn published six novels. She covered wars in Vietnam in the 1960s, and the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967 for the Guardian of London. "The American army in Vietnam was an army of occupation, victims and victimizers both," she later wrote. "Victims because they were wrongly sent 10,000 miles from home, to take part - even as mildly as storekeeper, clerk, cook - in a political aggression. Victimizers because they looked on Vietnamese as a lesser breed..." In 1962 Gellhorn made a tour of German universities.

She could describe vividly decades later, how people were dressed and what they discussed on particular occasions. She had a sharp eye for significant details, and her writing was clear, clever, and precise - all qualities of a good reporter. Her article Is there a new Germany ? written in February 1964 shows her accute powers of observation, analysis and committment to truth. She could describe vividly decades later, how people looked like on any ocassion when questioned..

There is an excellent doco on youtube with a Spanish commentary. You'll love it as you see the places she visited and so many photos of her exciting life.

How I enjoy her writings, love her as a person and am so grateful to have met her. R.I. P Martha..

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ANZAC Day - The loss of New Zealand's Innocence

2013-04-23T21:11:00.002-07:00

The Homecoming from Gallipoli by Walter Armiger Bowring, 1916.

On the 15 July 1915 the SS Willochra arrived in Wellington loaded with the first wave of New Zealand wounded from the Gallipoli Peninsula. Bowring's The Homecoming from Gallipoli illustrates the poignant loss-of-innocence moment when civilian New Zealanders first confronted the grim reality of wounds, amputations, psychological trauma and death. The painting is dominated by a seemingly unending line of khaki and bandages zig-zagging down from the ship into the jostling throng of anxious civilians. The flag and coloured streamers all hang limply, suggesting that the families waiting at the dock had expected a victorious celebration but were met instead by parade of exhausted men

ANZAC day is a very poignant day for New Zealanders and Australians as many of us lost relatives in the First and Second World Wars. Tomorrow morning I am going with my two sons to the Commonweath War Graves section of the Kanatta Cemetery in Colombo for the ceremony at 5.30 a.m.

I used to sit on my Grandfather's (Thomas Farrow McNatty) knee as a child and play with a medallion on his watch . After he died my brother was given the watch, medallion and chain and it had the year 1900 engraved on it and showed that his platoon had won a shooting competition in my home town Dunedin. When the 1st World War broke out my Grandfather was too old to go, but five of his brothers went to the war. He told me how his mother (Hannah) and his father (John) hearts were broken when they received news that their son Henry John McNatty had died on 06 August 1915 at Chunuk Bair, Gallipoli, Turkey and buried at Chunuk Bair. Over two year later John and Hannah received word that another son, Walter Ernest McNatty died of wounds, in France, on 03 October 1917. The three other brothers - 4/2202 Sapper Charles Burton McNatty, 65117 Private Frank Kingsland McNatty, 59033 Private Robert McNatty - all survived and I recall vividly meeting two of them in the first 15 years of my life. Tomorrow, 25 April 2013, ANZAC day, I would also like to honour Great Uncle Bert Hodgson, my Grandmother's brother, who left his Southland farm in about 1898-99 to join the Third New Zealand Rough Rider Contingent, as a member of the No. 5 Company, that went to South Africa to join the British Forces against the Boers.

Then to my Father James William Godrey McKerrow who fought with New Zealand's 23rd Battalion in Egypt and later Italy during the Second World War. My Dad had a horrible war, but like many of his generation, seldom talked about it. But during all night long talks I had with him a few years before he died , he opened up and told me of the horrors he witnessed.

Here is a photo of Uncle Bert (second from the left, standing) with the beard, in older age, out hunting with a group of younger men near Waikawa, Southland, New Zealand.

The making of ANZAC day

Anzac Day, as we know it, began to take shape almost as soon as news reached New Zealand of the landing of soldiers on the Gallipoli Peninsula on 25 April, 1915. Within a few years core elements of the day were set and the Anzac story and sacredness of the commemoration enshrined.

New Zealand soldiers bow their heads in prayer at an Anzac Day service at El Saff in Egypt, 25 April 1940.

1915: Gallipoli remembered

The first public recognition of the landings at Gallipoli occurred on 30 April 1915, after news of the dramatic event had reached New Zealand. A half-day holiday was declared for government offices, flags were flown, and patriotic meetings were held. People eagerly read descriptions of the landings and casualty lists – even if the latter made for grim news. Newspapers gushed about the heroism of the New Zealand soldiers. From the outset, public perceptions of the landings evoked national pride. The eventual failure of the Gallipoli operation enhanced its sanctity for many; there may have been no military victory, but there was victory of the spirit as New Zealand soldiers showed courage in the face of adversity and sacrifice.

New Zealand soldiers at Sling Camp, England, created this cover for a publication in 1916. It illustrates how the Gallipoli campaign was celebrated as a source of national pride from the beginning.

New Zealand soldiers at Sling Camp, England, created this cover for a publication in 1916. It illustrates how the Gallipoli campaign was celebrated as a source of national pride from the beginning.

1916: a half-day holiday

Day Gazette notice New Zealanders soon demanded some form of remembrance on the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. This became both a means of rallying support for the war effort and a public expression of grief – for no bodies were brought home. On 5 April 1916 a half-day holiday for 25 April was gazetted, and church services and recruiting meetings were proposed. Returned servicemen wanted something else: 'the boys don't want to be split up among twenty or thirty different churches on Anzac Day, and it is certain they don't want to go to a meeting to hear people who haven't been there [to war] spout and pass resolutions'. Instead, returned servicemen preferred a public service conducted by an army chaplain. Returned servicemen soon claimed ownership of the day's ceremonies. These included processions of returned and serving personnel, followed by church services and public meetings at town halls. Speeches extolled national unity, imperial loyalty, remembrance of the dead and the need for young men to volunteer at a time when conscription loomed. Large crowds attended the first commemorations in 1916. There were 2000 at the service in Rotorua, and in London, there was a procession of 2000 Australian and New Zealand troops and a service at Westminster Abbey. New Zealand soldiers in Egypt commemorated the day with a service and the playing of the last post, followed by a holiday and sports games. Only a year after the landings some people saw potential profits from using the term Anzac to promote their products. On 31 August 1916, after lobbying by returned soldiers, the use of the word Anzac was prohibited for trade or business purposes.

Patriotism and remembrance

New Zealand Returned Soldiers' (later Services') Association, in co-operation with local authorities, took a key role in the ceremony, organising processions of servicemen, church services and public meetings. The ceremony on 25 April was gradually standardised during and after the war. It became more explicitly a remembrance of the war dead and less a patriotic event once the war was over. The ceremony was conducted around a bier of wreaths and a serviceman's hat, and there was a firing party of servicemen men with their heads bowed and a chaplain who read the words from the military burial service. Three volleys were fired by the guard, and the last post was played. This was followed by a prayer, a hymn and a benediction.

Barbara McKerrow, my sister-in-law, visits the graves of New Zealand soldiers who died at Monte Cassino during WW II. My Father fought with the 23rd New Zealand Batallion in this war. Photo: Barry McKerrow

The ANZACS

Homecoming from Gallipoli

The word Anzac is part of the culture of New Zealanders and Australians. People talk about the 'spirit of Anzac'; there are Anzac biscuits, and rugby or rugby league teams from the two countries play an Anzac Day test. The word conjures up a shared heritage of two nations, but it also has a specific meaning.

Anzac is the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. This corps was created early in the Great War of 1914–18. In December 1914 the Australian Imperial Force and New Zealand Expeditionary Force stationed in Egypt were placed under the command of Lieutenant General William Birdwood. Initially the term Australasian Corps was suggested, but Australians and New Zealanders were reluctant to lose their separate identities completely.

No one knows who came up with the term Anzac. It is likely that Sergeant K.M. Little, a clerk at Birdwood's headquarters, thought of it for use on a rubber stamp: 'ANZAC' was convenient shorthand. Later the corps used it as their telegraph code word.

The Anzacs first saw action at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The small cove where the Australian and New Zealand troops landed was quickly dubbed Anzac Cove. Soon the word was being used to describe all Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Eventually, it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier.

After Gallipoli

There were two Anzac corps on the Western Front from 1916, with the New Zealand Division serving in II Australian and New Zealand Army Corps until early 1918. During the Sinai–Palestine campaign the combined Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division was more commonly called the Anzac Mounted Division.

The term continued into other wars. A new Anzac corps was briefly formed during the campaign in Greece in 1941. During the Vietnam War, New Zealand and Australian infantry companies combined to form the Anzac Battalion.

A sacred holiday - Anzac Day

Anzac Day took on a new meaning in a time of peace. Most New Zealanders saw it as a time to express sorrow, not to glorify war. It became a sacred day, but one that was secular in tone and less like a mournful funeral.

A public holiday

The status of Anzac Day was not clear until the early 1920s. Peace was celebrated from 19 to 21 July 1919, but there was no official day of commemoration for the war. The government was prepared to move St George’s Day to 25 April and declare that day to be a government holiday. There was little support for this. Government holidays tended to be religious observances or patriotic occasions, and Dominion Day, the self-styled national day, possessed no emotional appeal.

Anzac Day had strong public appeal. In 1920 the government responded to Returned Services’ Association (RSA) lobbying for 25 April to be declared a holiday; the first was marked in 1921. Legislation making the day a holiday also closed hotels and banks and prohibited race meetings, but this did not meet RSA demands for the day to be ‘Sundayised’. In 1922 the government backed down, and 25 April became a full public holiday as if it were a Sunday.

Nationhood and peace

The features of Anzac Day evolved during the 1920s and 1930s. Public war memorials erected in the 1920s took the place of town halls or churches in the ceremony. In the process, the ceremony itself became less overtly religious. There were occasional protests from churches, but it was RSA leaders, servicemen and local politicians who increasingly made the speeches, rather than clergymen.

Gradually the service became less like a mournful funeral. The laying of wreaths became more central to the ceremony, and there were fewer speeches and hymns. Uniformed members of the armed forces became accepted in many places as participants in the march and service.

New Zealand’s Anzac Day services began to include new features taken, appropriately, from the Anzac partner. The dawn parade, commemorating both the time of the initial landings at Gallipoli and the routine dawn stand-to in the trenches, was an Australian idea. It was widely adopted in New Zealand from 1939 (although some centres, such as Whanganui, had included dawn parades in their commemorations for several years before this). The cold and darkness breaking into sunrise added to the symbolism of the occasion.

Common themes in the speeches were nationhood, national and imperial loyalty, sacrifice and peace. During the Depression, Anzac Day speeches mentioned the ideals of unity and selflessness. As the international situation deteriorated in the 1930s, Anzac Day speeches focused on the need for defence preparations and the importance of not forgetting past lessons. The number of marchers grew as returned servicemen became more interested in commemorating their war experiences through public ritual. Anzac Day began to take on the features of an annual reunion.

My thanks to New Zealand History on Line for permission to use extracts from their site.

When was resilience merged into risk reduction?

2013-04-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

I am convinced that risk reduction as a community resilience concept was put firmly on the global map during the Tsunami operation in Indonesia with Pak Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, then Minister of Tsunami, driving it.

I was proud that the New Zealand Government funded a global workshop on 'Promoting Initiatives on Disaster Risk Management' that embedded both concepts of risk reduction and resilience as an integrated cross-cutting initiative to be a crucial part of all future disaster planning and recovery operations, and was etched forever in the final tsunami report from all Governments:

The Tsunami Legacy: Innovation Breakthroughs and Change

The Tsunami Legacy report, which Pak Kuntoro presented to Ban-Ki-moon, Bill Clinton and Helen Clarke (UNDP) in 2009 in New York is a brilliantly compiled booklet. I was fortunate to be there with fellow New Zealander Jerry Talbot also from IFRC.

The IFRC have since funded a practitioners toolkit on disaster recovery which will be launched soon in New York.

If you want to read Tsunami Legacy click here

Pak Kuntoro Mangkusubroto (left) then Minister of Tsunami, and Bob McKerrow Head of Delegation IFRC Indonesia.

It is worth having a read of the Executive summary of this report to refresh yourself of what was learned from the Tsunami Operation.

In the years and months that have gone by since

the devastating Indian Ocean Earthquake and

Tsunami of December 2004, the affected

communities – from Banda Aceh to Batticaloa,

Puntland to Phang Nga, Noonu to Nagapattinam –

have seen both tragedy and triumph.

Tragedy, because the destructive power of the

tsunami left countless communities without homes or

livelihoods, eradicated key infrastructure in countries

around the region, and irrevocably damaged large

swaths of coastal area. In all, more than 228,000

people – in 14 countries – perished as a result of the

disaster.

Triumph, because while the disaster wreaked havoc

and devastation on the coastlines along the Indian

Ocean rim, it also triggered an overwhelming national

and international response, delivering emergency

relief and recovery assistance through multiple

partners, funds and programmes. Milestone successes

have been collectively achieved in supporting affected

communities to restore their lives and livelihoods, and

to reconstruct their houses and settlements, all with

care to empower future generations to thrive.

Individual citizens, national governments and

international financial institutions around the globe

contributed funds to the recovery, resulting in an

estimated US$13.5 billion in aid.

With an operation of such unprecedented scope, a

number of useful lessons have been learned across the

recovery spectrum about what worked and what did

not. To take stock of these collective and country specific findings,

this report asks if those involved in this massive undertaking were able to achieve takes its cue from former UN Secretary-General Kofi

Annan’s words – “it’s not enough to pick up the

pieces. We must draw on every lesson we can to

avoid such catastrophes in the future” – and from the

call of the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery,

President Bill Clinton, to “build back better.”

“Who Stops to Think?’ The Challenges of

Leadership and Coordination

Both the destruction caused by – and the response to

– the tsunami were unusual in terms of scale. The

unique situation warranted intensive strategic

coordination for the recovery to be effective as well as

considerable pressure to deliver tangible results.

Closest to the epicentre, the Indonesian Province of

Aceh faced one of the most complex situations with a

massive loss of life, extensive destruction of

infrastructure, and an extraordinary influx of actors.

In response, a dedicated body, the Aceh-Nias

Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR), was

set up in April 2005, with a 4-year mandate to

coordinate all recovery activities as well as implement

a number of government projects.

Elsewhere, in Sri Lanka, the tsunami was a catalyst for

creation of the Ministry of National Disaster

Management and Human Rights in 2006. The

Government of Maldives moved swiftly to set up a

similar structure. On the same day as the tsunami, it

created a National Disaster Management Centre

(NDMC) to coordinate activities.

This development of lead governance mechanisms for

relief and recovery, tasked with coordinating

ministries, donors, agencies, communities, women’s

groups and others, and with building national and

local capacities to manage the process, turned out to

be a critical breakthrough in all these countries.

Carefully connecting the local body to a broader,

global coordinating infrastructure – as was done in

Indonesia via the Global Consortium for Tsunami

Recovery, the Multi Donor Fund (MDF) and the UN

Office of the Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias

meaningful development and reform.

(UNORC) – was key to facilitating coordination in a

complex recovery context involving countless

international and national stakeholders. As new

structures, void of institutional baggage, these

agencies also benefited from the ability to be flexible

and quickly adapt to local circumstances.

In India, too, where no new body needed to be

created, the government seized on the moment by

devolving significant authority to local administrators,

a crucial aspect to the Tamil Nadu recovery effort. A

network of state- and district-level knowledge centres

provided the infrastructure for disseminating vast

amounts of information and reliable village-level data;

it also became a focal point for NGOs on how they

could contribute to recovery. The key to coordinating

recovery here and elsewhere was maintaining speedy,

flexible and accountable coordination systems and

procedures, including at the local level.

Recovery partners in Indonesia learned a similar

lesson. By giving the coordination structure full

authority and basing it ‘close to the action’ it was able

to become more responsive to the local context.

Importantly, BRR was given full authority to manage

all aspects of the tsunami recovery in Aceh on behalf

smoother coordination process, devoid of any

potential inter-ministry politics. Significantly, BRR

Headquarters was located in the capital of Aceh, and

not in Jakarta.

Flexibility and know-how, coupled with a culture of

risk-taking, was a central aspect of BRR’s success and

led to several important breakthroughs and

innovations. These included the Tim Terpadu (a one

stop shop for processing all visa, customs, tax and

other clearance requirements for thousands of aid

workers and equipment) and a mandatory Project

Concept Note (PCN) format for all programmes,

which helped avoid unnecessary duplication and

ensured efficient use of funds.

Similarly, when Maldives faced a shortfall of nearly

US$100 million in recovery funds, a number of

innovative partnership strategies were implemented

to secure additional funding. The unique “Adopt-AnIsland” initiative implemented by UNDP, emerged as

a particularly powerful marketing tool under which

donor support could be matched directly to a specific

project. By mid-2006, 44 percent of the US$41

million that UNDP had raised was mobilised through

Adopt-An-Island. In both cases the willingness to be

opportunistic and take risks with “breakthrough

initiatives” accelerated recovery and facilitated

‘building back better’.

In the final analysis, however, lack of local capacity

has remained an issue, throughout. In the Maldives,

the National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC)

was set up to coordinate activities in a similar vein to

BRR. But while the Centre took the lead in many

aspects, being new to disaster management it relied

on outside help to a significant degree. And in the

future, it must be remembered that building local

capacity is an important priority if the purpose-built

recovery agency is temporary and the local

Government is expected to sustain the gains in the

long term.

Seeing Those Who Are ‘Invisible’. Achieving

Equity In Recovery

While international codes and principles guide relief

and recovery efforts, many tsunami affected

communities were still unable to adequately access

assistance immediately after the disaster because of

barriers associated with their gender, ethnicity, age,

class, religion or occupation. Often, tight deadlines

imposed by the need to deliver fast had the effect of

dropping equity issues – or of the wrong projects

being taken up by the wrong organisations for the

wrong reasons.

Many people could not access assistance after disasters

simply because of their gender, ethnicity, age, class,

religion or occupation. In particular, it is women and

the poorest whose needs tend to be overlooked. Yet

the tsunami also provided an important opportunity to

address underlying social inequities and strengthen

human rights protection for vulnerable groups, a task

quickly seized upon by India’s strong civil society and

of the central government, which allowed for a much

vibrant media. Combined with a state government in 11

Tamil Nadu that displayed swiftness, responsiveness

and openness, this made the difference in bringing all

survivors back on the road toward recovery much

faster.

As recovery actors in all five locales quickly realised,

there could be no more business-as-usual when

dealing with a disaster of such unusual proportions.

Responding to the initial exclusion, they were quick

to catch up in innovative ways, many employing a

human rights perspective to create an enabling

environment for participation. In India, the State

openness to working with representatives of different

social groups in addressing flaws stands out as

particularly praiseworthy. Authorities in Tamil Nadu

did not simply respond to practical needs but offered

real opportunities for change, through several key

steps.

Breakthroughs in India included the implementation

of disaster-resistant construction and the institution of

inexpensive, 10-year housing insurance against all

forms of disasters. Houses were built for indirectly

affected families who were also given housing

assistance and rights to land ownership. Women

benefited from opportunities for strategic change in

their status, such as joint housing rights for spouses

and funds for the education and resettlement of

orphaned adolescent girls and unmarried women,

amongst other initiatives.

Across the waters, in Sri Lanka, strong emphasis was

placed on equity and the targeting of vulnerable

groups after the tsunami, especially with regard to

permanent housing, road building and highlighting of

issues such as human rights, participation and the

environment. Along these lines, a number of

successful – and flexible – interventions were

initiated, with many partners coming to see the

importance of addressing conflict and post-conflict

issues in the post-tsunami setting as a consequence.

affected in permanent housing under its Unified

Assistance Scheme or had their houses upgraded.

Hallmarks of the scheme included clear eligibility

criteria, management at local and provincial levels,

and significant community involvement.

For equity gains to be sustained it was necessary to

anchor innovative practices in the institutional

infrastructure of the recovery – good intentions can

only do so much if systems are not in place to track

and identify vulnerable groups. Rather than a

piecemeal approach, then, countries succeeded best

when there was a commitment from high-level

managers to ensure equity. In India, a series of

independent equity audits were carried out in 2005

and 2006, at the request of local and international

NGOs, by the Social Equity Audit Secretariat and

trained auditors. The success of the audits is reflected

in the fact that amongst some NGOs, the percentage

of budget that went to directly support interventions

for the excluded rose from 10 or 12 percent to 60

percent.

Building on women’s grassroots activism, recovery

actors in Indonesia, among other things, sought to

ensure that gender issues were considered in all

development sectors through a special unit that

formulated a comprehensive gender policy. UNIFEM

placed a gender advisor in BRR to provide sustained

input and guidance and BRR also employed genderspecific

data for monitoring and evaluation, developed practical

checklists for use in health, housing, education, livelihoods

and institutional change, and promoted active participation

of tsunami-affected women in plans for their future.

Successes in India and Indonesia underscore the

importance of developing institutional antidiscrimination
capacity by reviewing organisational culture and offering
training to staff on rights-based approaches, including
awareness and understanding of gender-sensitive
international codes, guidelines and principles.

Depending on the context, this was not always an easy

goal to achieve across the board. In Sri Lanka and

Aceh, both regions affected by conflict, there was a

need to also address the victims of conflict as well as

those of the tsunami. However, most post-tsunami

organisations largely ignored the post-conflict

context, in part due to donor-stipulated restrictions

government’s timeliness, responsiveness and

For example, the government resettled the conflict-12

on how they could use their funds. This led to

numerous grievances raised by conflict-affected

communities and perceptions of rising inequalities in

aid provision. If conflict sensitivity had been more

widespread and funds not restricted to tsunami

victims only, building back better could have been

more equitable all along. The provision of ”untied”

donor funds that offer flexibility to modify assistance

packages to suit local needs would have enabled more

flexibility to address these issues in a straightforward

manner.

Creating a ‘Virtuous Loop’: Embracing People’s

Participation

While citizen participation is widely considered a

cornerstone of democratic governance and efficient

programming, too often those most in need after the

tsunami were not seriously consulted about planning

or implementation of relief and recovery. Concerted

efforts were made in all countries affected by the

disaster, however, to curb this initial trend. Perhaps

the most valuable benefit of promoting participation

was something that, in the end, is not easily

quantifiable: a feeling of individual empowerment, of

“ownership” of community resources, and the

unleashing of people’s own capacities to cope.

Efforts to overcome the lack of consultation were

particularly successful in Sri Lanka, Maldives and

Thailand, where recovery actors employed

participation by both women and men, through

extensive people’s consultations, beneficiary surveys,

Help Desks and community monitoring of projects.

The Government of Sri Lanka empowered the

national Human Rights Commission to conduct

people’s consultations in more than 1,100 tsunami
affected communities in 13 districts. Although it was

not always easy to ensure community participation, in

cases where participation was enforced, projects were

more successful.

As a result of the thousands of complaints received

during the people’s consultations, United Nations

could provide support to the Human Rights

Commission in establishing Help Desks in each district

to raise awareness among communities on their rights

and entitlements and to follow up on grievances.

In the Maldivian context, community consultations

had rarely occurred before to the extent instituted

after the tsunami. Beneficiary surveys deepened

knowledge of important qualitative dimensions of

recovery, increasing accountability to affected

communities, and were hailed as “one of the most

significant innovations of the tsunami response.”

Thailand, too, made it a priority to give communities

a strong voice. Local authorities took the lead in many

reconstruction efforts and were supported to improve

community consultation, including training to

strengthen women’s leadership and decision making.

One of the most successful such initiatives was the

restoration of indigenous livelihoods in Koh Lanta, an

island district of 30,000 in Krabi province. Taking

into account the traditional livelihoods of the many

ethnic groups on the island, the island was developed

by community mobilisation, savings schemes, and

cooperatives.

Still, it was not always easy to ensure community

participation, especially as some agencies and

organisations sometimes tended to approach the issue

with only limited enthusiasm. Many, it appears,

tacked on consultations as a programmatic

afterthought, and did not approach it as a key

component of the project’s success. Indeed, several

NGOs have acknowledged that mistakes could have

been avoided if a more participatory approach had

been used earlier on. Many had to readjust along the

way to respond to realities and needs on the ground.

A key requirement for these organisations was to

decentralise authority within the organisation to the

local levels. Both CARE and World Vision, for

example, put their field offices in the driver’s seat,

reasoning that they would be best able to deal with the

needs and demands of the tsunami affected people.

Some other NGOs, on the other hand, found it more

difficult to implement effective participation since

many key decisions were being made back in their

headquarters, rather than in the field.

Similarly, the success in the Maldives did not come

easy. For one, it proved difficult to engage

communities in disaster risk management awareness,

given that many Maldivians saw the tsunami as a “one off”
event that would not recur. Critically, however,

the Government and recovery partners were

persistent, even translating basic disaster risk

management terminology into the local Dhivehi

language.

Countering Corruption and Ensuring

Accountability

From the first days of the recovery, then, steps had to

be taken to ensure anti-corruption and accountability

would inform all levels of operations, starting with

the institutions themselves. BRR set out to pay its

employees competitive salaries to ensure that the best

and brightest were not “poached” by international

agencies – and, more importantly, to break a culture

of gift-giving.

To enable complete transparent access and tracking of

all tsunami-related funds, BRR developed a

comprehensive information management system, the

Recovery Aceh-Nias Database (RAND). All agencies

involved in tsunami recovery were required to

send regular updates on funds committed and

disbursed. Complementing the process-based RAND,

a “survey-based” Housing Geospatial Database (HGD)

was created to provide a snapshot of recovery by

verifying and digitally mapping the vast housing

reconstruction sector. The HGD was recently merged

with a third database, covering all other assets –

bridges, hospitals, schools, roads, etc. – creating a

combined information system which is one of the

most comprehensive and “leak-proof” in the recovery

spectrum.

As Indonesia realised, however, good systems will not

deliver ‘on their own’. Accountability mechanisms

need to be client oriented. After being slow to get off

the ground, international and national partners, and

provincial and district governments were contacted to

identify what types of analytical products, as well as

what information and in which format, would be

useful. Then, RAND changed accordingly – absorbing

a major lesson in ensuring participation.

A strong complaints mechanism is equally important.

Early designation of grievance focal points and an

adequate budget for grievance facilitation are critical

for reporting of abuses and corruption, as is

empowering affected communities, including the

most vulnerable, in understanding and using these

mechanisms. Affected people must be empowered to

articulate community claims, actively monitor and

evaluate reconstruction and make their own choices.

Recovery data, however complex it may be, should be

shared in layperson terms to the extent possible.

In Sri Lanka the establishment of an effective

complaint mechanism through local Help Desks (in

response to input solicited in consultations) was a

particular breakthrough. The public could here

question eligibility for assistance, report potential

cases of corruption, or file a complaint. By October

2006, the DRMU had received 17,000 complaints and

successfully resolved most. In addition, UNDP Sri

Lanka set up an AidWatch initiative to enable

communities to closely monitor projects. Such vital

linkages contributed to increasing responsibility and

accountability toward the community and laid

groundwork for continued networking.

Many organisations, notably BRR, responded to the

threat of corruption by putting in place more

With large amounts of cash and goods in motion,

corruption is always a threat during a crisis. But despite

the influx of billions of dollars in tsunami-affected

countries, corruption levels across the board were

kept remarkably low. Key to this success was a

commitment to view corruption, not as a nuisance or

unfortunate side effect of the recovery, but as a core

threat to the reconstruction effort as a whole. In Aceh,

where an unprecedented US$6.4 billion were pledged

for recovery, Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the

Director of BRR, urged the recovery community to set

the bar high: “We see the fight against corruption in

Aceh and Nias as advancing Indonesia’s wider struggle

against corruption.” A punitive focus on “finding

corruptors” would not be enough.

To tackle graft and fraud, BRR became

the first government agency to have an autonomous

Anti-Corruption Unit (SAK) set up to work with

other government institutions, international

institutions like the World Bank, and civil society

organisations such as Transparency International

Indonesia in carrying out its primary objectives of

prevention, investigation and education. Since its

inception in September 2005, SAK has received 1,530

confidential complaints.

What if it Happens Again? Innovations in

Disaster Risk Management

The tsunami has precipitated a critical shift in the

minds of policy makers and communities alike. It is no

longer tenable to view disasters as isolated events and

respond without taking into account the social and

economic factors that aggravate the situation. The

tsunami drew attention to the importance and

urgency of reducing the enabling causes of disaster. In

all tsunami-affected countries, a newfound enthusiasm

for securing the country and community against future

disasters has engendered the creation of disaster

preparedness institutions and policies, new regional

and national early warning systems, and concerted

efforts at promoting community-based disaster

awareness and preparedness at every turn.

Critically, new disaster preparedness structures have

been established in four out of the five tsunami affected

countries and a regional tsunami early warning system has

been operational since 2006, complementing the global

commitment pledged by 168 governments to reduce

multi-hazard risks and vulnerabilities under the Hyogo

Framework for Action 2005-2015.

Thailand in particular has been a leader in numerous

disaster risk management initiatives, and its early

warning system is well-positioned to become a

regional role model. Through ASEAN, the Thai

government swiftly proposed a regional tsunami early

warning centre that would coordinate with various

nations’ early warning systems to ensure complementarity.
It established a Voluntary Trust Fund and donated
US$10 million in seed money to it; additional funding
came from donors such as Sweden.

Thailand was also quick to create a ‘one-stop map

server’, combining databases that previously could not

be used together into one. This clearing house of

information includes high-resolution satellite images,

aerial photographs and base infrastructure maps, all

available at the touch of a button in an emergency.

Maldives’ first disaster risk profile, created after the

tsunami and based on Geographic Information System

mapping, represents another innovative approach to

profile as a key source for development strategies to

mitigate climate change and future disasters,

particularly in developing a “Safer Islands”

programme, which provides incentives for voluntary

migration to safer islands.

Sri Lanka, too, has come a long way in establishing

comprehensive disaster management-related systems.

Organised around 7 key themes, a “road map” has

been developed, identifying over 100 investments to

reduce disaster risk. Under it, numerous innovative

initiatives have begun toward developing a multihazard

approach for disaster management. In addition, the Disaster

Management Act that had been under discussion for

about a decade prior was passed in May 2005.

Following intensive efforts by 29 governments around

the Indian Ocean, a regional tsunami early warning

system has been operational since 2006 as part of a

coordination plan by UNESCO-Intergovernmental

Oceanographic Commission. However, preparedness is

not just about high-tech early warning systems. Community

participation in disaster risk mitigation is also a necessity.

Women, in particular, are well-placed to participate in risk

assessments and the promotion of disaster risk reduction,

ensuring consideration of gender-specific concerns.

Training of a number of community leaders, teachers, local

disaster managers and media personnel has demonstrated

the use of response techniques.

Even before the tsunami, large community-based

disaster risk management programmes existed in

vulnerable areas in countries such as India – where

disaster management. The government has used the

they have been credited for capacity strengthening in

search and rescue, first and evacuation methods that

resulted in saving countless lives during the disaster as

Post-tsunami, excellent opportunities have been

presented for deepening community disaster risk

management across the region, setting up local and

national partnerships. In Thailand, for example, the

early warning system was taken to the local level,

linked with loudspeakers in rural villages and with

more than 100 warning towers along the coast.

The tsunami, finally, brought an increased awareness

on the importance of natural defence barriers. Healthy

coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, estuaries,

wetlands and sandy beaches, are able to provide good

protection against the force of tsunamis and storm

surges and contribute to disaster risk reduction while

providing diverse livelihoods, sufficient nutritious

food, shelter and access to goods for communities.

Several organisations and programmes, such as

Mangroves for the Future, now focus on the

humanitarian implications of failure to protect coastal

ecosystems. But while most people are aware of the

importance of resource-based industries such as

ecotourism and fisheries to coastal economies, there is

less comprehension of just how important these goods

and raw materials are in terms of their multiplier

effects nationally and locally.

Will We Do Better Next Time?

If another tsunami happened tomorrow, would the

response from governments and the international

community be stronger and better? Can we multiply

our successes, learn from our shortfalls and apply this

in the future for both emergency relief and longer term
recovery?
You only know lessons have really been learned when
you stop thinking about them and simply do them.

Particularly in light of the current global financial

crisis, many believe that whatever innovations we

think are replicable have to be at a low-cost level.

Luckily, the most important lessons we have learned

are not necessarily those that depend on the

availability of large amounts of funding. Effective

leadership and coordination, beginning at the

development organisations alike, can go a long way in

ensuring an efficient and sustainable recovery. And

while coordination and leadership may be more easily

talked about than put into practice, they remain

particularly important in a disaster context where

chaos goes hand in hand with calamity.

respond to the voices of those most affected –

including those normally not consulted, especially

solving the leadership equation. The many delivery

partners who make up the reconstruction community

must also develop the quality and effectiveness of their

leadership.

We have learned that accountability and preparedness

are critical, as is a willingness to take risks and embed

institutional as well as cultural reform amid disaster

response. This must include serious reflection and be

a continuous process through which weaknesses are

overturned and strengths capitalised upon.

Our most important lesson, however, is that disasters

themselves should be seen as opportunities for reform

and improvement. What stands out in this report is

that governments in all five of the most tsunami affected

countries embraced change as a core ethic to confront

this catastrophe. The challenge now is to

constantly build on and improve these new

institutional arrangements. Change must be

embraced, not for its own sake, but rather because in

a disaster, organisational weaknesses are severely

tested and exposed. Continuous improvement is the

only way to ensure all new institutional arrangements

remain robust and relevant.

The Future

2013-04-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

The Future

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD (ALL PHOTOS BY BOB MCKERROW)

A wanderer is man from his birth.

He was born in a ship

On the breast of the river of Time;

Brimming with wonder and joy

He spreads out his arms to the light,

Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.

Whether he wakes,

Where the snowy mountainous pass,

Echoing the screams of the eagles,

Hems in its gorges the bed

Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;

Whether he first sees light

Where the river in gleaming rings

Sluggishly winds through the plain;

Whether in sound of the swallowing sea—

As is the world on the banks,

So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each, as he glides,

Fable and dream

Of the lands which the river of Time

Had left ere he woke on its breast,

Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed.

Only the tract where he sails

He wots of; only the thoughts,

Raised by the objects he passes, are his.

Who can see the green earth any more

As she was by the sources of Time?

Who imagines her fields as they lay

In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?

Who thinks as they thought,

The tribes who then roam'd on her breast,

Her vigorous, primitive sons?

What girl

Now reads in her bosom as clear

As Rebekah read, when she sate

At eve by the palm-shaded well?

Who guards in her breast

As deep, as pellucid a spring

Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure?

What bard,

At the height of his vision, can deem

Of God, of the world, of the soul,

With a plainness as near,

As flashing as Moses felt

When he lay in the night by his flock

On the starlit Arabian waste?

Can rise and obey

The beck of the Spirit like him?

This tract which the river of Time

Now flows through with us, is the plain.

Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.

Border'd by cities and hoarse

With a thousand cries is its stream.

And we on its breast, our minds

Are confused as the cries which we hear,

Changing and shot as the sights which we see.

And we say that repose has fled

For ever the course of the river of Time.

That cities will crowd to its edge

In a blacker, incessanter line;

That the din will be more on its banks,

Denser the trade on its stream,

Flatter the plain where it flows,

Fiercer the sun overhead.

That never will those on its breast

See an ennobling sight,

Drink of the feeling of quiet again.

But what was before us we know not,

And we know not what shall succeed.

Haply, the river of Time—

As it grows, as the towns on its marge

Fling their wavering lights

On a wider, statelier stream—

May acquire, if not the calm

Of its early mountainous shore,

Yet a solemn peace of its own.

And the width of the waters, the hush

Of the grey expanse where he floats,

Freshening its current and spotted with foam

As it draws to the Ocean, may strike

Peace to the soul of the man on its breast—

As the pale waste widens around him,

As the banks fade dimmer away,

As the stars come out, and the night-wind

Brings up the stream

Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.

A chronicle from Delhi

2013-04-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

I did a lightening trip to Delhi this week to have my eyes checked out by one of the best eye specialist teams in the world. Have a read of this article I wrote about them. This pair gave me back my full sight 16 months ago by making special Scleral Lenses for the condition I have known as Keratoconus.

Ajeet Bhardwaj and

Monica Chaudhry

Stopped for tea in Basant Lok.

Anuj Bahri, my bookseller and Pubisher in Khan market.

Our old vegeman in D Block Market Vasant Vihar.

The mobile breakfast man who serves the watchmen in our area, passes the post box outside our old house.

Water is becoming so short. Everywhere I saw people carting water.

Books I brought back from Delhi

This is where we lived for six years.

D 3/7 Vasant Vihar. Lots of good memories here.

Our local movie house. Priyta cinema

Octogenarian aims for Everest third ascent.

2013-04-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

An 80-year-old Japanese mountain climber who has had heart surgery four times is heading to Mount Everest to try for a third ascent of the world's highest peak.

He would become the oldest person to reach the top if he succeeds.

Yuichiro Miura climbed to the summit of the 8850m mountain in 2003 and 2008. He skied down Everest from an altitude of 8000m in 1970.

Miura and a nine-person team will climb up the standard southeast ridge route, pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they became the first people to reach the summit in May 1953.

EVEREST GOAL: Yuichiro Miura believes:
"If you wish strongly, have courage and
endurance, then you can get to the summit
of your dream".

"The record is not so important for me," the white-haired Miura said in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, before setting out for the mountain.

"It is important to get to the top."

The record for the oldest person to climb the mountain is held by Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, who reached the summit at the age of 76, in 2008.

A doctor specialising in heart ailments is in the team to keep an eye on Miura's health. The group hopes to summit in May.

Miura has skied down the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, and is merely following family tradition. His late father, Keizo Miura, skied down Europe's Mont Blanc at the age of 99.

"If you wish strongly, have courage and endurance, then you can get to the summit of your dream," said Miura.

He already has a new dream. He wants to ski down Cho Oyu, the world's sixth highest mountain at 8201m, also in the Himalayas.

"Maybe, when I become 85 years old, and if I stay alive, I want to climb and ski down Cho Oyu," Miura said.

"It is my next dream."

About 4000 climbers have been to the top of Everest and about

World Giving Index 2012

2013-04-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

World Giving Index 2012

A global view of giving trends

This is the third edition of the World Giving Index, the largest study into charitable behaviour across the globe, involving 160 countries in total.

The report is based on over half a million interviews conducted by Gallup since 2007, as part of their World Poll survey.

The Index is based on an average of three measures of giving behaviour - the percentage of people who donate money to charity, volunteer their time, and help a stranger, in a typical month.

This year's report results show that levels of involvement in giving - for all three of these measures - fell between 2010 and 2011, and were also down on 2007. The report shows how this mirrors global economic patterns.

The report includes:

analysis of levels of giving worldwide
an index of all countries ranked by their average on the three behaviours
insight into fluctuations in the three giving behaviours
commentary on changes over time, including by country, by region and across continents
recommendations for what governments, companies, individuals, and civil society organisations can do to enhance giving

The reports

click here to download the report.

The Foreword gives a good introduction to the report.

While many nations continue to see their economies grow, globally the picture remains troubled.

In many parts of the world, household income is being squeezed and job insecurity is on the increase.

We can all think of economies, industries or markets that are currently under stress because of the ongoing financial uncertainty. And, it is at such times, that giving, and support for charity, become more

important than ever.

Through the statistics presented in the latest World Giving Index, we can see to what extent our

engagement in charitable behaviour has been influenced by the economic backdrop.

The 2012 World Giving Index shows how much people around the world have been able or willing to help

their fellow man and woman, through the donation of money, volunteering of time, and proffering of help

to those they do not know.

This, the third World Giving Index, utilises a methodology that has been enhanced to allow a longer-term

perspective of global giving behaviour, reaching back to 2007.

The trend that has been revealed is a disturbing one. The pattern that emerges is one of a global decline

in giving and support for charity.

Whether this is the result of the ongoing economic uncertainty remains to be seen. However, I believe

that, whatever the cause, it underlines the urgent need for leaders around the world to re-double their

efforts to nurture and to support their own charity sectors.

According to our report, hundreds of millions fewer people have helped others than was the case last year.

This has inevitably resulted in a dramatic reduction in charitable support for millions of vulnerable people

the world over.

Starving people who rely on charities for the provision of food, older people who lack the basic care they

need, and the homeless who, wherever in the world they live, are preparing to sleep on the streets tonight, along with countless other vulnerable groups, depend in no small part upon charitable endeavour to survive.

That is why it is crucial that all of us – politicians, business leaders and members of the public – should

support the recommendations contained in this report, and re-double our efforts to support social action

and the charities that operate within every nation.

Dr John Low

Chief Executive

Charities Aid Foundation

Join us on Twitter at #worldgiving.

Mt. Awful New Zealand

2013-03-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

John Nankervis (right) with hat on at old Pioneer Hut in 1975. Bob McKerrow left and Russell Combes centre. Photo: Bob McKerrow

There is something in a name. Mount Awful. My cousin Michael Cooper died on Mt. Awful at Easter 1967 when I was climbing on Mt. Huxley, some 100 km away as the crow flies. It was a dreadful blow to our extended family.

This morning I got the news that my good friend and fellow mountaineer John Nankervis was badly injured on a fall on Mt. Awful last Wednesday.

Mt. Awful in the Mount Aspiring National Park.

This is what the Southland Times reported:

Climber falls 140m; helmet and registered beacon help save him

By Mark Price on Thu, 28 Mar 2013

News: Queenstown Lakes | Your Town: Queenstown

Wearing a helmet may have saved the life of a climber who fell 140m on a rocky peak near Mt Awful,

yesterday, in Mt Aspiring National Park.

The New Zealand climber, whose name was not released last night, was flown by helicopter to
Dunedin Hospital with serious head, back, facial and arm injuries.

Constable Les Andrew, of Twizel, said the man was in a party of four climbers descending and
sidling around a rocky ridge.

His foot slipped on a damp rock and he fell - 3m at first and then another 140m.

After a debriefing of the Department of Conservation alpine rescue team at Mt Cook late yesterday

afternoon, Const Andrew said the man was ''lucky to be alive'' and wearing a helmet might have
saved him.

Rescue Co-ordination Centre search and rescue mission co-ordinator Dave Wilson said the man, in
his 60s, required ''some serious medical attention''.

He was flown off the mountain by helicopter to Queenstown Hospital and then to Dunedin.

The centre was alerted about 11am when a personal locator beacon carried by the climbers was
activated.

A Helicopter Line helicopter flew the rescue team to the scene of the fall, near the Gillespie Pass
at an altitude of about 1300m.

Const Andrew said the rescue was made easier by the actions of others in the party.

Aware a helicopter would be on the way, one member of the party remained at a higher altitude
with bright clothing.

He was spotted from the helicopter and the rescue went reasonably smoothly after that.

The four male climbers are understood to all be New Zealanders ranging up in age from about 20.

Mr Wilson said the incident showed the value of carrying a distress beacon registered on website

www.beacons.org.nz.

''Because it was registered, we were quickly able to establish from the party's emergency contact
the make-up of the party and their climbing intentions.

''It has enabled the injured person to get medical attention as quickly as possible.''

- mark.price@odt.co.n

John Nankervis, 2nd from right, taken with a party comprising L to R, Colin Monteath, Mike browne, Dave Bamford, Chris Bonnington, Nank and veteran Ed Cotter. Photo: Bob McKerrow

This morning Colin Monteath informed me that Nank is recovering in the ICU at Christchurch Hospital. Close friends John Wild and Dave Bamford visited him this morning. I am praying, I am sure along with many other friends, that Nank will make a good recovery for he is such a wonderful human being who has contributed so much to mountaineering in New Zealand.

I now switch back to Easter 1967 when I returned home to Dunedin elated after a successful climb of Mt. Huxley my Mother hugged me and said, “ Michael Cooper, your cousin is dead.” I was numbed.

While we were putting a camp in under Mount Huxley on March 26, 1967, and preparing for our big climb the following day, Michael had camped on a ledge somewhere under Mt. Awful, and as he walked along a ledge to get some water to cook the evening meal with, he slipped on some mountain tussock, and fell to his death over a rocky ledge and down a mountain face. Eighteen years old, academically bright, handsome, athletic and the world was at his feet. A life snuffed out like a flame from a candle.

In the conservative 50s and 60s, we were never encouraged to go to funerals and somehow I never really grieved for Michael.

Sadly for his father and mother, my Uncle Campbell and Auntie Mavis, they had lost their first son, Murray. His death was on the same website I visited this morning.

Cooper, Murray Campbell, Born Feb 15 1940 in Dunedin,, Otago, New Zealand, Died 1945 in Portobello, Dunedin, , Otago, New Zealand

Uncle Campbell lived in Portobello and used to take a small ferry across the Otago Harbour to his work in Dunedin. One night he came home and he looked for Murray, who usually met him at the ferry, and he couldn't see him. A few minutes later his body was found floating in the sea. Campbell and Mavis are dead, but one son, Maxwell survives.

The same year two other close friends who were emerging mountaineers died: Richard Tilley killed by an avalanche on Avalanche Peak in Arthur’s Pass, and Howard Laing, in a car accident. Mt. Awfaul and Avalanche Peak are names that stick in my mind.

I remember writing a poem at the time about the deaths of friends on mountains. Perhaps that is how I worked through my grief:

All stones we learn as children
Are dead inanimate things
But stones falling on a mountain
Are alive with a death that sings

A stone's song is enchanting
Fit for mountain Kings
First it’s high, then low
Lachrymose from the strings

Mountains of our mind.

2013-03-26T22:40:00.001-07:00

The North Face of Mellizos- Cordillera Vilcabamba-Peru. Photo: John Lawrence.

Occasionally I look at photos taken on my first overseas expedition to Peru at the tender age of 19. The photo above was taken by John Lawrence, who lives in North Carolina, USA, of the most technical, and most difficult climb we did during the month we climbed together. The photo was taken 45 years ago.
John is finally digitizing his vast photo collection and we are working together on a book of that amazing expedition to the Peruvian Andes. John and I did the first ascent of the North Face of Mellizos, by the route marked on the photograph.

In the forty five years since we did, from memory, five first ascents in the Andes, we have both gone our separate ways but have kept in touch regularly. John has gone on to be a very respected psychologist and is still very interested in the 'Mountains of our Minds." He has explored the theme rigorously.

I recall John and I on two occasions, being stuck in tents as blizzards raged outside. In the intimacy of a tent at 19,000 feet, where there is no privacy, and your life is in the balance, you think about mountains and the place they have in your mind. In fact, you think a lot about fear when nature takes control of your life and environment.

John was about eight years older than me and had just obtained his PhD in psychology. I remember John telling me that "the mind is limitless," and he quoted the following.

"It is not the chains that bind our body, but the chains that bind our minds that restrict us."

Another view of the North Face of Mellizos

It was John's influence that helped me come up with the title of my second book, The Mountains of Our Mind, a collection of essays, poems and photos I wrote in Afghanistan The cover photo of my book is below.

In 1995 when I was camped under the peak of Mir Samir in Afghanistan, I wrote this poem about the mountains of our mind which explores the way we escape to the mountains from the mess on the plains.

Mountains of our Mind

From the courtyard of our dreams

To the mountains of our mind

We escape the blood and violence

To a white world sublime

Born on the edge of a cloud

I saw snowflakes form

Together we danced a ring of fire

Before the day was born

We travel on a moon ship

Where lunacy dictates

Where love is like a mountain

And where there is no hate

We scud along the summit ridge

Where the updrafts push

I am the King of Kabul

And lord the Hindu Kush

Bob McKerrow (copyright)

The same year as I published my book, Robert Mcfarlane published a book with almost a similar title as mine, 'Mountains of the Mind."

The result is a compelling and affectionate portrait of Man’s changing attitude to Nature at its most extreme.

Bob McKerrow at the top of the North Face of Mellizos, climbing up to the summit ridge. Photo: J.E.S. Lawrence

This attitude started to change in the eighteenth century, when ‘people started for the first time to travel to mountains out of a spirit other than necessity, and a coherent sense began to develop of the splendour of mountainous landscape’. Prior to this, dangerous peaks were to be avoided, and climbing them for the sake of it was considered tantamount to madness (and, to other cultures, such as the Sherpa people, almost sacrilegious).

As the nineteenth century progressed, courting danger at high altitude for the sheer thrill that it provoked became firmly entrenched in society. Ruskin in particular thought that turning back from a dangerous place would result in a slight deterioration of character.

Upon their return to Britain from their exploits, explorers gave lectures to huge crowds in the cities, and it soon became the thing for sons of the aristocracy to be guided through the Alps as part of their Grand Tour.

Gradually, this spirit of adventure, in conjunction with the twentieth century’s advances in transport and communication technology, has conquered almost all the unknown regions of the world. No matter how many people die on mountains every year, climbers will continue to climb, in search of personal fulfillment and victory over the inanimate peaks.

Macfarlane’s book is a classic.

The one we didn't climb in 1968, Pumasillo, Cordillera Vilcabamba, Peru. We got well (over 6000 m) up on this, the north ridge of Pumasillo, and John got snow blind, and we had to retreat. I doubt as if we would have climbed it as the snow was like melting like ice cream, and kept breaking under our weight.

I started this posting with a tribute to John Lawrence who opened by mind to the mountains, to handle fear in a rational way, and above all, to understand the mountains of my mind. Thank you John.

Interview with Sandra D'Urzo - Senior Shelter Officer at IFRC Geneva.

2013-03-23T22:53:00.001-07:00

Sandra D'Urzo IFRC (right) and Jaime Royo-Olid EU (left) two experienced shelter and settlement experts at a PASSA workshop in Colombo last week. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Delighted to have Sandra D'Urzo from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies headquarters in Geneva visit the north of Sri Lanka in the past two weeks. Have a look at her interview on Shelter, Settlement and PASSA.

A permanent house with a transitional shelter attached to the rear in Aceh Indonesia. Red Cross built 20,000 transitional and 20,000 permanent houses after the Asian Tsunami. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Graham Saunders gives an introuduction to PASSA

Shelter and settlement risks and vulnerabilities are on the
increase due to changes in disaster trends, the impact of climate
change, as well as growing social and economic marginalisation
and urbanisation. At the same time, institutional resources to
support safe and adequate housing are declining because of
global financial constraints, the move towards smaller, less
interventionist government, and the scale of the challenges
faced. Households and communities that were previously able
to safeguard their lives and assets using their own resources
and know-how are increasingly finding that the type, scale and
frequency of the hazards they are now being exposed to pose a
severe threat to their safety and well-being.
Major disasters often, but not always, generate sufficient funding
for the required reconstruction and recovery. This can promote
the need to ‘build back better’; however, this is the exception.
With disaster trends indicating a move towards more frequent
small and medium-scale emergencies, the majority of households
affected by such localized disasters have to draw upon their own
limited resources, and invariably rebuild the same vulnerabilities.
There is no active presence to promote better practices in
mitigation and limited or no financial or technical support to
incorporate sustainable approaches to building resilience. What
can be done in such contexts, with unlimited needs but very
limited external resources?

A participatory approach to safe shelter awareness (PASSA)
aims to raise the awareness of the ‘everyday vulnerable’ of the
‘everyday risks’ related to their built environment and foster
locally appropriate safe shelter and settlement practices. It
offers a simple process, facilitated by the Red Cross Red Crescent

volunteers and technical advisors, through which communities International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies can build upon
their own insights, skills and leadership to attain
improved living conditions and safer habitats.

Community participation is a crucial factor to success. here is a grievance meeting in Mannar Sri Lanka where people have a chance to discuss about those who got houses, and those who missed out.

Using a step-by-step methodology, PASSA utilizes three
complementary processes. Firstly, it harnesses the established role
of the National Societies to support community-led and socially
inclusive development activities. Secondly, it enables communities
to identify their own solutions and realistic and comprehensive
strategies for addressing the myriad of problems that include
spatial and environmental planning, local building cultures and
the effectiveness of local construction techniques. Thirdly, it
fosters partnerships between local authorities, communities and
supporting organizations to prepare for, cope with and recover
from disasters.
The expertise of construction specialists is needed throughout
the process, to respond to technical issues arising and to help
manage the expectations of communities and households on
modifications to houses and the surrounding settlement. These
professionals work collaboratively with social mobilizers to
promote awareness, bring coherence to the risk-management
efforts and ensure the technical performance of the safe shelter
and settlement solutions identified.
PASSA draws upon the well-established practice of community
action planning, and the participatory hygiene and sanitation
transformation (PHAST) methodology used by many National
Societies. With IFRC’s vulnerability and capacity assessment
(VCA) to provide an overall analysis of a community’s needs
and assets, PASSA is the participatory tool to comprehensively
identify and safeguard against shelter and settlement risks.9
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Foreword Participatory Approach for Safe Shelter Awareness
The use of PASSA valuably informs both individual and
community understanding of vulnerability related to the built
environment, and leads to the identification and promotion
of locally appropriate measures to achieve safer shelter and settlement.

Farewell to Everest conquering climber George Lowe

2013-03-23T00:09:00.001-07:00

George Lowe is dead. I feel a sense of grief and loss for it is the parting of a team of our greatest NZ mountain sons.. A short time ago I posted on facebook thus:

The super-great New Zealand mountaineer George Lowe died yesterday. Of 1953 Everest fame, George started his adventures in the Ruahines and then made his mark in the Southern Alps with Sir Edmund Hillary, Ed Cotter and Earl Riddiford. His last years were hard ones for friends and family as he had Alzheimers so his passing over the 'divide' is a relief. Ed Cotter visited George and his wife regularly in England and was a faithful rope partner til the end. A photo of George Lowe right, and Ed Cotter last year in the UK.

For a young New Zealand boy brought up on the heroics of Hillary, Lowe, Cotter and Riddiford on the first ascent of the Maximilian ridge of Mount Elie de Beaumont, and later Lowe and Hillary on a successful first ascent of Mount Everest, it is the passing of a 'great.'

For years my family has been close to George Lowe's climbing partner, Ed Cotter. Ed has been George's very close friend and visited England regularly to support George and his wife, as George deteriorated with Alzheimer disease. Here is a photo of George (right) and Ed Cotter.

Here is what his local newspaper the 'Hawkes Bay Today' recorded.

Hastings Boys' High School is likely to permanently commemorate possibly its most famous pupil who has died in England - Everest-conquering expedition climber George Lowe.

School principal Robert Sturch, who last night conceded he'd never heard of George Lowe until he arrived at the school in 2002 and was introduced to the former head prefect returning as guest speaker for its centennial, said the death was marked with a minute's silence at an assembly yesterday.

Sir Edmund Hillary and Mr George Lowe , both members of the successful Everest Expedition , studying a chart of the Antarctic during their London talks .

But "without a doubt" there would be something to mark the life of a man for whom he said there could be few better examples of "courage and commitment".

As the school of 771 boys was told of the death there was a mixture of acclaim and disbelief - the latter mainly from younger students previously unaware of the school's links to the 1953 conquering of Mt Everest, and the role of a former pupil often referred to as the "forgotten" man of the expedition.

He was the man to whom Sir Edmund Hillary about 11.30am on May 29, 1953, announced the conquering of Mt Everest with one of the most famous lines of the 20th century: "Well, we knocked the bastard off."

George Lowe (left) and Edmund Hillary relax at camp near the Lhotse Face, during their 1953 Everest ExpeditionRoyal Geographical society

On behalf of the school, Mr Sturch has passed on condolences to bereaved family members in England where Mr Lowe died in a nursing home, aged 89.

He was born Wallace George Lowe in Hastings on January 15, 1924, one of eight children. His parents were Archie and Teenie Lowe, who operated an orchard off Maraekakaho Rd, Stortford Lodge. Lowe St is named after Archie Lowe, who was a Hastings Borough Council member from 1938-41.

George went to Hastings West School, now known as Raureka, and from 1938-43 was at the then-Hastings High School, where he played lock in the first XV rugby team. An arm injury at the age of nine proved little impediment as he grew up, delivering papers and milk on his bike, and he developed an interest in tramping.

After two years at Wellington Teachers' Training College he returned to Hastings where he taught at Parkvale School, from where he would leave for the Everest expedition - returning to a parade in Heretaunga St.

Moving to England, he made a point of returning to Hawke's Bay for some time at least once a year, often visiting his old school, and on one visit, in 2004, was accorded Freedom of the City in an investiture by Mayor Lawrence Yule.

Until his death he was the last surviving climber from the team that helped establish the final camp 300m below the Everest summit the day before Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the peak.

Sir Ed's son, Peter, yesterday remembered Mr Lowe as a talented man who shared his father's passions for climbing and helping others.

Mr Lowe had contributed to the mountaineering community in New Zealand and overseas, including the education of people living near Mt Everest in the Himalayas. Those people were "were real priorities for George", he told Radio New Zealand.

"That's perhaps one of the really significant thing about today losing George. It just is another stamp of how important this New Zealand connection with Mt Everest is," he said.

He referred to the Mt Everest climbs involving his father and Mr Lowe and their later work building the schools and hospitals. "It's been a long New Zealand involvement with the highest mountain on the planet."

Happy Nowrūz نوروز, Nauroz

2013-03-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Nowrūz (Persian: نوروز, various local pronunciations and spellings) is the traditional Iranian new year holiday celebrated in Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Georgia, the countries of Central Asia such as Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, as well as among various other Iranian and Turkic people in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Northwestern China, the Caucasus, the Crimea,the Balkans and Malaysia and Indonesia.

Nowruz marks the first day of spring and the beginning of the Iranian year as well as the beginning of the Bahá'í year. It is celebrated on the day of the astronomical vernal equinox (start of spring in northern hemisphere), which usually occurs on the March 21st or the previous/following day depending on where it is observed.

As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday, it is also a holy day for adherents of Sufism as well as Bahá'í Faith. In Iran it is also referred to as an Eid festival, although it is not an Islamic feast. Shia Nizari Ismaili muslims, who trace their origins to Iran, celebrate the festival under the name Navroz. In their religious protocol, Navroz is officially recognized as an Eid, as with Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha, although it involves a distinct set of religious ceremonies. Alawites also celebrate Nowruz.

The term Nooroz first appeared in Persian records in the second century AD, but it was also an important day during the time of the Achaemenids (c. 648-330 BC), where kings from different nations under the Persian empire used to bring gifts to the emperor (Shahanshah) of Persia on Nowruz.

The book I wrote on Afghanistan which has a number of photos on Nowruz.

I have celebrated Nowruz many times in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh and India. It is probably celebrated with the most vigor in Mazar I Sharif in Afghanistan, where a huge fertility pole is raised with ribbons tied to it. Each ribbon represents someones prayers.

In Northern Afghanistan the feritliy pole is a pre-Islamic celebration seen as a phallic symbol. Around 20 to 21 March, the winter snows starts to melt and the celebrations and prayers are in the hope that the spring will bring plenty of water to nourish the crops and bring fertility to land and people.

At the Blue Mosque in Mazar I Sharif on Nowruz, the fertility pole is raised. Taken on 21 March 1994. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Nowruz and the Spring Equinox

In Afghanistan, Nowroz festival is traditionally celebrated for 2 weeks. Preparations for Nowroz start several days beforehand, at least after Chaharshanbe Suri, the last Wednesday before the New Year. Among various traditions and customs, the most important one is :

Haft Mēwa: In Afghanistan, they prepare Haft Mēwa (Seven Fruits) instead of Haft Sin which is common in Iran. Haft Mewa is like a Fruit salad made from 7 different Dried fruits, served in their own syrup. The 7 dried fruits are: Raisin, Senjed (the dried fruit of the oleaster tree), Pistachio, Hazelnut, Prune (dry fruit of Apricot), Walnut and whether Almond or another species of Plum fruit.

Along with other customs and celebrations, normally a Buzkashi tournament is held. The Buzkashi matches take place in northern cities of Afghanistan and in Kabul.

In Mazar I Sharif they play Buskashi for the week following Nowroz

So happy Nowruz. The reason it is so important to me is that my birthday, on 21st of March, usually coincides with Nowruz. This celebration has certainly brought fertility to my life as I am the proud Father of seven wonderful children. If you need further infirmation, see a much longer explanation of Nowruz.

Reﬂections on the ICRC’s present and future role

2013-03-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

Reﬂections on the ICRC’s present and future role in addressing humanitarian crises.

Volume 95 Number 889 Spring 2013 International Review of the Red Cross

Matthias Schmale, Under Secretary General of

National Society and Knowledge Development at the

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent

Societies

Matthias Schmale is Under Secretary General of National Society and Knowledge Development at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). During his career with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, Mr Schmale has also served as IFRC Under Secretary General for Programme Services and as IFRC Under Secretary General for Development, and International Director at the British Red Cross from 2005 to 2009.

While writing this opinion note about the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, I fondly remembered many encounters with ICRC colleagues over almost twenty years. During numerous ﬁeld visits to hugely challenging environments, such as Darfur or Afghanistan under the Taliban regime, I have been privileged to witness the ICRC as an action-oriented agency that delivers humanitarian aid. Around the globe there are countless people who will tell you with deeply felt gratitude how the ICRC has saved their lives and helped them cope with immeasurable suffering caused by armed conﬂicts and violence.

An important factor making the ICRC a credible, neutral, and independent actor is its competent and dedicated staff members. Like for so many humanitarian agencies, perhaps the biggest asset for the ICRC– apart from international humanitarian law providing the legal basis for its action, and the protective power of the emblem– is its people. Having got to know a considerable number of ICRC staff over the years, I can testify that, for many of them, working for the ICRC is more than a job: in an almost religious sense, they are committed and totally passionate about what they are doing for the cause of humanity. I remember vividly a cooperation delegate explaining with conviction and credibility many years ago to several Federation colleagues, on a hot evening somewhere in the ﬁeld in Africa, how the ICRC is ‘an organization I would die for’.

The ICRC has come a long way from being a very Swiss, male-dominated organization to being multinational and more gender balanced in its staff composition. Even some years ago, the ICRC’s Director of Operations stated with pride in talks with British government representatives and the British Red Cross in London that among the 200 or so expatriate staff working in the then Sudan, the ICRC had almost ﬁfty different nationalities represented.

For the ICRC, access to the most vulnerable people – often in places that others cannot reach– is based on NIIHA, neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian action. It was particularly during a visit to Darfur that I understood how much effort the ICRC puts into maintaining dialogue with all parties to a conﬂict in order to ensure access to people in need. If I remember correctly, at one point there were– apart from the Sudanese national army – at least eighteen armed factions on the ground in Darfur, with all of whom the ICRC maintained regular and professional dialogue.

The NIIHA approach is often misunderstood as the ICRC not caring about and closing its eyes to injustices. In this regard one of my lasting memories is of a panel discussion in Nairobi in the mid-90 s looking at how to deal with alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide living amongst the numerous refugees housed in camps in north-western Tanzania. The event was organized to discuss the implications of a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report suggesting that ‘humanitarian relief organizations may well be forced to halt their humanitarian relief activities’ due to the deteriorating security situation in the camps. During the panel discussion the ICRC’s regional head of delegation eloquently outlined that neutrality does not mean sitting on the fence, and that in fact the ICRC always takes the side of the most vulnerable. He went on to explain that as long as the Red Cross and Red Crescent could reach the majority of people in desperate need of support it would and should stay and carry out its humanitarian work. He acknowledged the presence of people in the camps who had allegedly committed horrendous crimes against humanity, but insisted that it is not the job of humanitarians but of the police, the military, and governments to hunt down criminals and those violating international humanitarian law (IHL).

At the beginning of my own humanitarian journey, another ICRC colleague explained to me that working for Red Cross or Red Crescent ‘you need to be prepared to do business with devils’. When visiting Taliban-ruled Afghanistan I experienced what this meant in practice: without any doubt the leadership of the Afghan Red Crescent at the time was closely linked to the Taliban regime, and this was hard to stomach for even the most seasoned Red Cross or Red Crescent workers. At the same time, maintaining dialogue and relations with the Taliban and the leadership of the Afghan Red Crescent allowed the ICRC and its Movement partners to reach hundreds of thousands of Afghan people – including very vulnerable women and children– and deliver life-saving and digniﬁed humanitarian aid.

Staying focused on action does not mean that the ICRC shies away from controversy and from trying to inﬂuence opinion leaders and decision-makers. In 2007, the ICRC stopped its humanitarian work in Myanmar and publicly criticized the authorities for not giving it the humanitarian access it needed to be effective (the ICRC has since resumed its activities there). Much of its inﬂuencing or advocacy work happens away from the public limelight and is thus insufﬁciently appreciated.

An example of this is the work the ICRC has been carrying out behind the scenes to work towards more acceptable conditions in prisons for those detained as a result of armed conﬂict and political disagreement. The ICRC’s detention delegates are unsung heroes. When they were released from their long captivity under the apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists acknowledged that receiving visits from ICRC detention delegates were a lifeline to the outside world and an important part of surviving with their sanity intact.

What does the future hold for the ICRC?

Having expressed all these fully meant compliments about what the ICRC does andwhat it represents, the question is whether it will likely stay this way. We have to acknowledge that neutral, impartial, and independent humanitarian action is increasingly under threat, and not just in very recent times. In June 1996 I was working with the Federation’s regional delegation in Nairobi –home to a big ICRC base –when the tragic news of ICRC delegates being targeted and murdered in Burundi came through. This profoundly shook friends and colleagues in the ICRC, not least as this was followed a couple of months later – in December 1996 – by the similarly murderous attacks on ICRC delegates in Chechnya. The ICRC’s privileged access to vulnerable people in armed conﬂict and situations of violence suddenly seemed threatened by the proliferation of armed groups that did not understand or accept international humanitarian law, that were driven by a profound disrespect and disregard for humanity as well as a sense that an organization that has its roots in the West could not be truly neutral.

The ICRC leadership has understood that the world is changing rapidly and that the ICRC needs to adapt – potentially quite radically – if it wants to stay relevant. One of the reasons why the ICRC has increasingly focused on its operational partnerships with National Societies is the realization that access to sensitive conﬂict situations could no longer be guaranteed by relying on its own expatriate staff and its own relations with the respective national and local authorities. For a number of years now, the ICRC has been investing considerable resources into what it calls ‘cooperation with National Societies’. There are many examples in places like Afghanistan or Palestine where successful delivery of the ICRC’s humanitarian services is made possible through the network of National Society volunteers and staff.

A legitimate question is whether the ICRC is instrumentalizing National Societies for operational survival reasons. I share the perception that there is some ‘institutional arrogance’ in the ICRC– deriving from its size and impressive track record – and that it will take time to fully weave into its DNA how to evolve its relationships from that of a donor with National Societies as its delivery organizations to equal and fully transparent partnerships.

There are also inherent limitations to what an organization with an international global mandate can operationally transfer to national organizations.

As local actors, National Societies will continue to face conﬂict and war situations where they –with the best intentions –will not be able to provide fully neutral and independent humanitarian services to affected people. In such situations the responsibility for humanitarian action will likely continue to be with the internationally recognized neutral actor, namely the ICRC.

As it prepares itself for the future, the ICRC appears to be struggling to redeﬁne its role and added value in the context of being part of a larger Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The ICRC’s President and Director General have publicly stated that we have to acknowledge that in the outside world we – that is ICRC, National Societies, and the International Federation– are seen as one and that we have no choice but to work together. Some in the ICRC see it asessential to fully embrace the Movement, as well as to further diversify its portfolio in order to, for instance, include and/or broaden the scope of its operational work to other situations of violence and to diversify its developmental action (e.g. in livelihood protection and agriculture), organizational development, and capacitybuilding. Others advocate for remaining focused on preserving and strengthening the ICRC– almost irrespective of what goes on in the rest of the Movement – and staying as close as possible to its original mandate. Former President Kellenberger clearly expressed this view when I heard him state a number of times that his job was to be President of the ICRC and not of the Movement. He saw National Societies and the Federation as privileged, but not exclusive, partners of the ICRC.

From my perspective, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement will stay strong and relevant if all three – ICRC, National Societies, and the Secretariat of the International Federation–have a constructive dialogue about what the future might bring and what adjustments or changes will have to happen. A conventional view is that we have to keep all three components as healthy organizations, each delivering distinct services and value. And, not least of all given the tightening of ﬁnancial resources, we will have to, at a minimum, avoid duplication as much as possible, provide our services in the most (cost-) effective manner and ensure that we each offer something unique and complementary. From this perspective, there are grounds to caution the ICRC not to give in to what is called ‘mission creep’ by further diversifying its activities. While modernizing and adapting, the ICRC would be well advised to stick to its roots by remaining the international humanitarian organization of choice for neutral, impartial, and independent response in times of conﬂict and violence, giving a lifeline to humanity for prisoners and remaining the guardian of international humanitarian law.

A more ‘out of the box’ view would suggest that what is described in the previous paragraph amounts to ‘ﬁddling while Rome is burning’, and that we need to be more brave and daring in jointly designing a future architecture for the Movement. This approach could entail anything from merging the two international components of the Movement (especially if they were to end up doing more or less the same) to redeﬁning what each one should be doing. It would come with a zero tolerance for duplication by, for instance, having only one of the international organizations carry out operational work and the other – standard-setting and maintaining the joint values and principles base.

Regardless of which one of these scenarios turns out to be more feasible and appropriate, the ICRC should not rest on its well-deserved laurels. If it wants the Movement as a whole to be strong and relevant, it will have to move beyond defending its own institutional interests and agreements outlining roles and responsibilities, such as the one reached at the Council of Delegates in 1997 in Seville. The ICRC should continue to identify and implement the mindset and organizational culture changes that will ensure that at its next major anniversary, it will receive similarly positive feedback on its role and performance as can be found in this edition of the International Review of the Red Cross.

New psychological stresses emerge amongst survivors of Japan’s triple disaster

2013-03-11T21:04:00.002-07:00

This large vessel remains grounded some 800 meters inland in the port of Kesenumma, while arguments continue as to what to do with it. MASAKI KAMEI/ IFRC

Two years after Japan’s triple – earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, considerable progress has been made to help re-establish normal life for the thousands of families affected by the disaster.

The Japanese Red Cross has played a prominent role in recovery efforts, running a variety of social welfare programmes and construction projects. These include provision of a package of household electrical appliances to 135,000 displaced families to help equip their temporary homes. Significant investment has been made to rebuild damaged health infrastructure and temporary medical facilities. Five hospitals and medical centers have now been constructed with Red Cross support and over 300 vehicles have been donated to support transportation needs in 200 social welfare institutions.

But after two years, new psychological stresses are emerging amongst some of the 300,000 displaced survivors, particularly children and elderly people.

“What we are seeing is a scissor split, with most of the children getting better, but a small number of more serious cases emerging,” says child psychiatrist Dr Junko Yagi, who is based in one of the worst affected prefectures, Iwate. She estimates that while some 80 per cent of her caseload is improving, some 20 per cent are getting worse.

Stress of moving forward

“Some patients are only now starting to develop dissociation and depression symptoms. They seem to be actively moving forward with their lives but in reality, they are in a state of hyper-arousal. They are tired and exhausted.”

Dr Yagi is one of the key figures involved in setting up a centre for children’s mental health care in the Iwate Medical University in Morioka, which will be financially supported by the Japanese Red Cross.

Not just children

But children are not the only ones experiencing the psychological impact of prolonged displacement. While businesses and institutions are gradually being re-established, lack of consensus among the various stakeholders and difficulty in finding suitable land are making the reconstruction of permanent housing a slow process. Some people are giving up on it altogether and leaving for other parts of Japan where prospects may be better.

“This year we’ve seen signs of depression emerging amongst a number of people living in temporary shelters,” said Takeshi Ino, director of the Red Cross Chapter in Miyagi. “This is because they see others around them starting new lives, finding jobs or moving on from their prefabricated homes. They feel trapped and uneasy about their own future.”

Much of the work of Red Cross staff and volunteers has been focused on providing a variety of services that are helping to meet the psychosocial needs of survivors in the worst affected prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. These include social activities and physical exercise sessions for the elderly as well as recreational activities designed for children such as summer camps organised for thousands of school children from disaster stricken areas.

The elderly make up a large percentage of people living in prefabricated temporary housing. To prevent them from sinking into inactivity and isolation, the Japanese Red Cross is conducting a broad programme of activities including physical exercise, massage and health checks and events such as tea ceremonies to help build a sense of community.

Fukushima aftermath

The aftermath of the nuclear accident in Fukushima has also brought new issues to the fore. Prompted by media reports, government officials have recently disclosed that decontamination has not been properly carried out in a number of places in the prefecture,

“This makes people both furious and sad, because we feel that our concerns are not being understood,” said Fukushima Red Cross Chapter Deputy Director General Takeyoshi Saito.

As part of its commitment to improve preparedness around nuclear disasters, the Red Cross plans to open a nuclear disaster information centre to gather together data and best practices. Red Cross nurses are also providing health monitoring and psychological support to the displaced survivors of some of the worst-affected areas, such as those from the town of Namie, which is one of the closest to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. From next year the Red Cross will be involved in screening youngsters under 18 years of age for thyroid cancer.

Mixed picture

Taken as a whole, “the picture in the three worst-affected areas is a very mixed one, with a certain amount of real progress being made, but also a feeling that many people, especially the elderly and the young remain in a vulnerable state of mind, so we need to give them our continued support in a variety of ways,” says Japanese Red Cross and IFRC president, Tadateru Konoé.

Japan looks back - two years on

2013-03-11T07:33:00.000-07:00

My mind is dotted with all the disasters I have been part of over the last 42 years, working for the International Red Cross. Today, my old friend from the Japanese Red Cross, Akira Nakata, sent this note to me:

" Today, 3.11 is the special day for all Japanese. At 14h46 JST, a silent prayer is scheduled throughout the nation. It is a rare moment for busy Japanese."

Nakata, like me, has been involved in one way or another, in many of the world's devastating disasters There is something unsaid that we feel. We exchanged other private feelings.

This is a story I got from my faithful New Zealand website, stuff.co.nz, that remembers those who died and still suffer.

The two-year anniversary of Japan's devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe is highlighting the country's continuing struggle to clean up radiation, rebuild lost communities and determine new energy and economic strategies.

More than 300,000 people remain displaced and virtually no rebuilding has begun along the battered northeastern coast, where the tsunami swept away entire communities.

Memorial services were to be held today in Tokyo and in barren towns along the northeastern coast to mark the moment, at 2.46pm (6.46pm, Monday NZT), when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan’s history — struck off the coast, unleashing a massive tsunami that killed nearly 19,000 people.

In the ravaged small fishing town of Miyako, sirens wailed as residents trundled to higher ground in a disaster drill.

In some areas, searches for the 2676 people still missing in the disaster continued, as workers poked through sand and debris along the coastline.

A thin blanket of snow covered the ground in Kesennuma, where houses and fisheries once stood.

Survivors live in temporary housing farther inland on higher ground, while others have decided to move away altogether.

On Monday morning, fishermen, who were trying to get the vital industry back on its feet, lined up rows of tuna and other fish for auction.

‘‘It’s scary (living here) when there is an earthquake. It’s scary, but I don’t plan to go anywhere else. I want to give my own very best, somehow, toward reconstruction of the city,’’ said 75-year-old Kenichi Oi, who had to refurbish his home, just a few hundred metres from the sea, but on higher ground, after the tsunami flooded its first floor.

Throughout the disaster zone, the tens of thousands of survivors living in temporary housing are impatient to get resettled, a process that could take up to a decade, officials said.

‘‘What I really want is to once again have a ‘my home,’’’ said Migaku Suzuki, a 69-year-old farm worker in Rikuzentakata, who lost the house he had just finished building in the disaster. Suzuki also lost a son in the tsunami, which obliterated much of the city.

Farther south, in Fukushima prefecture, some 160,000 evacuees are uncertain if they will ever be able to return to abandoned homes around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, where three reactors melted down and spewed radiation into the surrounding soil and water after the tsunami knocked out the plant’s vital cooling system.

‘‘I don’t trust the government on anything related to health anymore,’’ said Masaaki Watanabe, 42, who fled the nearby town of Minami Soma and doesn't plan to return because the radiation in the ground is too high.

In Kawauchi, one of many towns with varying degrees of access restrictions due to radiation, village chief Yuko Endo is pinning his hopes on the success of a long decontamination process that may or may not enable hundreds of residents to return home.

Much of the area is off-limits, though some restrictions gradually are being lifted as workers remove debris and wipe down roofs by hand.down roofs by hand.

‘‘If I were told to wait for two more years, I might explode,’’ said Endo, who is determined to revive his town of mostly empty houses and overgrown fields.

‘‘After spending a huge amount of money, with the vegetable patches all cleaned up and ready for farming, we may end up with nobody willing to return.’’

Evacuees are torn. They are anxious to return home but worried about the potential, still uncertain risks from exposure to the radiation from the disaster, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986.

While there have been no clear cases of cancer linked to radiation from the plant, the upheaval in people’s lives, uncertainty about the future and long-term health concerns, especially for children, have taken an immense psychological toll on thousands of residents.

A group of 800 people filed a lawsuit Monday in Fukushima against the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility that operates the Fukushima plant. It demands an apology payment of 50,000 yen (NZ$750) a month for each victim until all radiation from the accident is wiped out, a process that could take decades.

A change of government late last year has raised hopes that authorities might move quicker with the cleanup and reconstruction.

Since taking office in late December, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a point of frequently visiting the disaster zone, promising faster action, and plans to raise the long-term reconstruction budget to 25 trillion yen (NZ$315 billion) from 19 trillion yen (about NZ$240 billion).

Hopes for a significant improvement may be misplaced, said Hiroshi Suzuki, chairman of the Fukushima Prefectural Reconstruction Committee.

‘‘There have been no major changes by the new government in response to the nuclear accident, though the budget has been increased,’’ he said.

‘‘If the reconstruction budget continues to serve as a tool for expanding public works spending, then I believe local societies and economies will be undermined.’’

Another lingering problem is that of discrimination against evacuees from Fukushima, Suzuki said: Many fear their children will find it hard to find spouses due to worries over potential long-term harm from radiation.

Watanabe, who used to work for a company maintaining the nuclear plant’s lighting systems, said his sons are sometimes shunned or taunted by classmates who say things like: ‘‘Don’t come near me. You're radioactive.’’

Cricketing history at University Oval today

2013-03-06T21:20:00.001-08:00

Today cricketing history was made at the University Oval in Dunedin. Once a lake, once a great athletic ground in summer, rugby ground in winter and to all Otago primary school children, a venue to have our annual provincial athletic championships. It's a ground I have played 1st grade rugby on, broke athletic records, trained daily for six years, ran the annual interclub Lovelock Relay for many years and under the old stand, courted pretty lasses at dances held there by Otago University.

But today, was a proud moment for the New Zealand cricket team, and especially Hamish Rutherford (pictured left) playing in front of his father, Ken Rutherford, a New Zealand cricket great, and his family, friends and fans. At the end of the day he was 77 not out, and his partner, Peter Fulton 46 not out. Some hours earlier, England finished their horror show, by being bowled out for 167 runs on what seemed a good batting pitch. ESPN website saw it this way:

New Zealand took advantage of one of the most bungling England batting displays of recent vintage to take a firm hold of the first Test in Dunedin. New Zealand were disciplined and willing, but they will be realistic enough to know that England made a dreadful mess of it, dismissed in 55 overs and never summoning the resolve to counter a sluggish and occasionally two-paced pitch.

And tomorrow we await Rutherford's test century and some swashbuckling cricket from Brendan McCullum. Come in Captain McCullum!

ON FIRE: Neil Wagner of New Zealand celebrates the wicket of Ian Bell of England. Getty images.

A captain's homecoming - Brendan McCullum

In a cul de sac close to the Parkside Hotel and a stone throw away from that famous rugby and cricket ground, Carisbrook, in Dunedin, Brendan, and his younger brother Nathan, lived their younger life. My brother and I lived not far away, and remember watching Brendan’s Dad, Stuart, playing for Otago at Carisbrook. So with the England New Zealand test match starting tomorrow, I am hoping that Brendan McCullum will lead the New Zealand cricket team to victory. Here is an excellent article written by Andrew McGlashan, ESPN, which I would like to share.

Like other southern hemisphere cricketers, McCullum could have chosen rugby for his career. And it would not have been the lesser option. He was once good enough to keep Dan Carter out of a South Islands schools team.

There is a story told by those who know him from his days at Kings High School in Dunedin - which has perhaps been slightly embellished over time - that shortly after being selected for a rugby match at about the age of 20, McCullum was hurrying around trying to find a pair of boots to borrow. However, before he could find them, Richard Hadlee, who was New Zealand's chairman of selectors at the time, was on the phone with the message, "Don't give him those boots."

McCullum had already been involved in New Zealand age-group cricket, and Hadlee was understandably reluctant to let one of the sport's most talented youngsters go. McCullum had a decision to make: All Blacks or Black Caps? He picked cricket.

"He was a freak," says Daryl Paterson, who worked at Kings High School during McCullum's time there, and still does today. "I've no doubt he could have played rugby for New Zealand. But he stood out at everything: batting, keeping, scoring tries. I was only involved in his cricket for a short time because I coached Year 9, and Brendon scored so many runs he was soon moved up a level. He was only a little bit taller than the stumps and he was standing up to the fast bowlers."

Now he is New Zealand's captain, a position acquired in a messy turn of events that exposed divisions in the side. On Wednesday he will lead his country on his home ground. He has previously captained in a one-day international here, but that was a far more subdued affair, against Zimbabwe. There are few grander occasions than a Test against England.

McCullum isn't the first New Zealand captain from Kings High School. Ken Rutherford, whose son Hamish is set to make his Test debut this week and is another alumnus, came from the school. "We are very proud about that," says Paterson.

McCullum's mother will be in the crowd, although his father, Stuart, a former Otago player, will miss Brendon's homecoming, as he is on business in Adelaide. But he will be keeping a close eye on his oldest son and speaks with great pride about both him and his brother Nathan, who is part of the one-day and T20 teams.

"You always hoped that they would play for New Zealand," he says, "but to captain them, it's a wonderful honour, and hopefully he will do a fitting job. It will be a very proud day. He's proud of his roots. Any game he plays is special but there's some added significance [to this one]."

Did it hurt to see his son caught up in the melee that occurred when Ross Taylor was sacked? "It wasn't so much how it happened," Stuart says. "Some people don't understand Brendon, some have a false impression of what he is like. Brendon looks upon the captaincy as a privilege rather than a matter of course. He is a team man through and through. He never actively went out and sought the captaincy. He had nothing to do with the process. It took him a long time to decide whether he would accept it.

"He was a freak. I've no doubt he could have played rugby for New Zealand. He was only a little bit taller than the stumps when he was standing up to the fast bowlers"Daryl Paterson, who worked at Brendon McCullum's school

"He has no beef with Ross at all - they are friends. It was disappointing to hear some people casting aspersions over his integrity, but you just have to sit back and listen to it. I admit there are times when you'd just like to get on the phone and ask if they actually know the facts, but it's not for me to get involved. People seem to get the wrong idea of what he's like."

Brendon, his father says, has always had drive and determination. There is also a combativeness about him, which stands out in a New Zealand side that can often struggle to impose itself. "He's always been confident," says Stuart. "He's a 'see ball, hit ball' kind of batsman, but I don't think anyone can play down his skill."

It was towards the end of Stuart McCullum's first-class career with Otago that the cricketing future of the next generation of McCullums started to be forged. When aged about six and seven, Brendon and Nathan would accompany their dad to training, but he was never a pushy father. He didn't need to be, really, as it was clear his sons would chart their own paths.

"They were always around when I was playing, and used to take part in a lot of fielding practice when they were young kids. But it was very much a natural course of events. If they ever wanted extra time in the nets I'd happily go with them."

My 12 year old son, Ablai right, with Brendan McCullum at Queenstown, 31 December 2011. McCullum is a great role model for young crickets and takes time out to talk to them after the match.

Paterson remembers Brendon as someone with vast self-confidence. "He has always carried himself that way," he says, "but it never verged into cockiness. Everyone knew he was something special but he was also one of the lads."

At stages during the T20 and one-day series, it was very much Brendon McCullum v England. He struck three blistering half-centuries in the one-dayers, and a match-winning 74 in the Hamilton T20. If they are to compete in the Tests, McCullum will again have to lead the way.

Do that he will. "He loves challenging himself against the best," Stuart says. "He measures himself against the best. He's never completely satisfied with his own performance, and that's an attitude he has had all the way through his career. He never takes anything for granted."