If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a photo book is worth a million hours of talk explaining and documenting efficient disaster response, solidarity and sustainable recovery with a focus on hope and achievements based on our field experiences in Japan, Haiti and field work in other countries.
The Relief 2.0 photo book is a testimony of the resilience of the Japanese and Haitian people and the effectiveness of disaster recovery strategies based on participation, enabling, empowerment of the disaster survivors with dignity and self-reliance through the promotion of social business and entrepreneurship.
Purchases of the Relief 2.0 Photo Book allow those interested in helping disaster areas to buy and get something back instead of making donations whose destiny is uncertain.
All profits from the series are 100% dedicated to the disaster survivors and the recovery of businesses in Japan and Haiti. A portion of the profits is reserved for printing the next edition of the books, turning the operation into a sustainable initiative.
Sections of the Photo Book
- Disaster Strikes: documents the extent of disaster through the lens of relief worker Robin Low and the early work of Relief 2.0 in Tohoku.
- Efficient Response: Teams of volunteers supported by mobile technologies and social networks.
- Engagement, enabling and empowerment of local stakeholders.
- Crowdsourcing, mobile technologies and social networks.
- Solidarity: Collaboration and engagement of local stakeholders and international volunteers.
- International Activities.
- Local Initiatives.
- TEDx Events.
- The Way to Recovery: Sustainable recovery initiatives and resilience.
- Social entrepreneurship and social business.
- Back on our Feet: Successful recovery initiatives and stories.
- Disaster Preparedness: What can and should be done to be ready before disaster strikes.
Excerpt
1. Disaster Strikes
What happens when disaster strikes is an unfortunate twist of fate.
What happens after is our responsibility...
Some people are never going to be the same again...
Disasters do not create refugees, they create survivors.
It is we who turn them into refugees by putting them on refugee shelters and making them stay put and keeping them from taking care of themselves and creating their own solutions to survive.
Why do we cook for survivors and make them stand in long, annoying lines, when they can cook themselves? Why do we bring volunteers to do menial tasks, or complex ones, that the survivors can do themselves?
2. Solidarity
When disaster strikes, some people are given a burden:
the burden of enduring the disaster and the conditions that follow.
Others are given a gift:
the gift of being spared from disaster.
How can we not use our gift to lift their burden?
3. Back on our Feet
