White Helmets

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Official logo of the White Helmets.

The White Helmets Commission (Spanish: Comisión Cascos Blancos) is a humanitarian aid and peacekeeping agency based on an initiative launched by Argentina in 1993. The organization was presented to the international community at the United Nations General Assembly in 1994. The UN then adopted the initiative into its organizational framework. The Organization of American States did likewise in 1998.

The White Helmets participate in scenarios of natural or man-made disasters and socio-economic crises, employing volunteer work and managing international financial support. It depends on the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Relations. Its central seat is located in Buenos Aires. Within the UN, the White Helmets Commission works closely with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV).

The organization has taken part in the following missions:

Anti-Chagas campaign in Argentina.
Young volunteer training courses.
Containing forest fires in Brazil (1998).
Disaster management in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch (1999).
Humanitarian aid in southern Peru after the series of earthquakes in June–July 2001.
Reconstruction works in India after the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat.
Hazard management program in the Paz River valley in El Salvador and Guatemala (2003).
Humanitarian aid in Bam, Iran after the December 2003 earthquake.
Emergency and flood control in Durazno, Uruguay.
Humanitarian aid to Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Peru and Bolivia after a number of different natural disasters in 2004.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs had begun to develop its own White Helmet organization in 2006, assisting in various humanitarian relief projects both in the Philippines and overseas.