Responding to Overseas Disasters and Emergencies: How you can make a difference

Case Study: Student Activities

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1. Individually, in pairs or in a small group, imagine you are in charge of an overseas emergency relief project for one of the crises you have investigated. Identify, in a priority order, the five main services or resources you would provide to help the situation. Be able to justify each choice and its ranking.

2. In the introductory activities, you may have thought of ways of helping people in different crises, then considered that there were obstacles to your suggestions.
   1. What were the obstacles? Could they be removed? If so, what would need to happen?
   2. How could people in the crises be helped most to help themselves? What sorts of facilities and services would they need? How could these be provided?
   3. Investigate long term development projects that provide the sorts of facilities and services suggested in b).

3. Critically examine the nature of newspaper reporting of one of the crises you investigated in the introductory activity or, if you have a number of articles on different events for one country, examine what sorts of events in that country usually make world news.
   1. Do literary techniques such as persuasive or loaded language, or the choice of news items over time, create generalised images of life in the country. What are the images?
   2. What effects can constantly reading such reports have on overseas readers?

4. 1. Individually, as a group or as a class, contact a non government overseas aid organisation and find out about its current appeals or projects
   2. Devise a plan of action based on your individual talents or those of your group or class members on how to raise funds for the appeal or project. Consider all the stages of the process, including publicity and education, and everything you will need to organise to ensure the success of your plans. Consider how you will report the outcomes of your activity to others. Build fun into your process!
   3. Conduct the activity and evaluate your performance. Note what worked well and anything you could do next time, or advise others to do, to improve such an activity.

5. Besides giving money, there are many other things we can all do everyday to help influence the kind of world we live in. What are some of those things?

6. Invite a guest speaker from a non government overseas aid organisation, ideally someone who has worked on one or more emergency relief projects. Prepare questions in advance to make best use of the speaker's time and expertise. Find out as much as possible about the organisation and project(s). Perhaps check your responses to some of the above activities with the guest speaker's experiences and ideas.