Humanity First

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Humanity First is an international charitable trust established since the early '90's in the UK to promote and safeguard the preservation of human life and dignity. The organisation works with vulnerable communities in over 35 countries spanning 5 continents, and is now registered in over 23 countries. The organisation is run by volunteers around the world, and even in operations, expert medical, engineering and technical staff often pay their own way to support international projects. The organisation cites efficiencies through the extensive use of volunteers, partnerships and global sourcing resulting in 93% of funds going straight to projects, and the actual aid value (including free manhours of doctors, engineers etc) delivered is often 100 times the value of donations received.

1 Origins
2 Disaster relief
3 Long-term projects
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Origins

The concept of Humanity First originates from the Balkans conflict when UK aid convoys were being sent to the Balkans in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict. The volunteers were shocked when refugees assumed that aid sent by Muslims was only intended for Bosnians, from Russia and Greece would be for Serbs, and from Italy would be for Croats. Since then, the organisation adopted the name Humanity First meaning that aid is delivered on the basis of need only, irrespective of race, religion or political allegiance.

In two decades, Humanity First has grown into a multi-national aid agency and non-profit charitable trust, regularly working alongside many other agencies such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, MSF and others. The organisation has access to thousands of volunteers across the globe. Humanity First also now has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The organisation splits its work into two areas; disaster relief and long-term sustainable projects.

[edit] Disaster relief

Disaster relief covers the provision of humanitarian aid, medical relief, shelter, food and safe water in response to both man-made and natural disasters. Examples in the last 10 years include responses to the following: Kobe earthquake in Japan, Kosovo Civil war, Izmit Earthquake in Turkey, Asian Tsunami in Indonesia^[1]^[2] and Sri Lanka, Hurricane Katrina^[3], and the Kashmir^[4]^[5] earthquake in Pakistan. More recently, they have responded to catastrophic flooding in Suriname, Guyana^[6] (Latin America) and Kenya.

The table below illustrates disasters that HF have been involved in and level of assistance they have provided to local victims:

Disaster	Year	Countries Affected	Scale of Disaster	People Assisted	Nature of Help
Kosovo	1997	Kosovo, Albania, Serbia	10k killed, 850k displaced	> 10,000	Medical, Food, Clothing
Izmit Earthquake	1999	Turkey	17k killed, 60k homeless	15,000	Medical, Shelter, Food, Clothing
Gujarat Earthquake	2001	India	20k killed, 166k injured, 600k homeless	5,500	Medical, Shelter, Food, Clothing
Asian Tsunami	2004	Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia	220k killed, 1.6 Million homeless	3,000	Medical, Shelter, Food, Clothing
Hurricane Katrina	2005	USA	1.8k killed, Millions homeless	1,050	Medical, Shelter/ Re-Furb, Food, Clothing, IT
Kashmir Earthquake	2005	Pakistan	80k killed, 3.3M homeless	60,000	Medical, Shelter, Food, Clothing, Counselling
Latin American Flooding	2005-06	Suriname, Guyana	30k displaced and homeless	10,000	Food, Clothing, IT

[edit] Long-term projects

Humanity First runs a number of long-term projects largely in Africa and Asia:

Feed a Family - provision of basic necessities to deserving and vulnerable families, normally for a fixed period of 6 months. Over 700 Tonnes of food and aid has been shipped to Africa for poor families.
Water for Life - set up or repair of water pumps to provide clean and safe drinking water to remote villages in the 3rd world. Humanity First are working on these projects with Water Aid and have activated over 100 pumps in West Africa.
Learn a Skill - training in IT or tailoring. IT training results in certification, and tailoring leads to the provision of a sewing machine and assistance in setting up a tailoring business. In both cases, the aim is to leave students self-sufficient. So far, over 13,000 students have graduated from the IT Centres.
Orphan Care - running and support of orphanages covering the needs of orphans including accommodation, education, food, clothing and health. Orphan programmes are currently running in the Gambia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Burkina Faso and Benin.
Gift of Sight - work with a network of hospitals to provide sight treatment ranging from glasses, treatment of infections and in extreme cases, operations to rectify cataracts.