Greetings! On behalf of WHO Committee on Rehabilition Disaster Relief (CRDR) committe leadership let me take this opportunity to thank those of you who participated in the highly successful first Symposium on Rehabilitation Relief at the 6th ISPRM World Congress in PR in June. The scientific program was excellent and the forum on ‘How Can Rehabilitation Actors Coordinate Better in Disaster?‘ stimulated intense discussion. Please find the symposium program attached and presentations from the scientific session, panel and committee session can be viewed by accessing the link http://www.slideshare.net/gosneyjr (please refer to the symposium program ‘document’).
Based on our symposium’s success, JRM has commissioned a special series on disaster rehabilitation which will be introduced in the November issue with a special report written by committee leadership (final proof available at
http://www.medicaljournals.se/jrm/content/?list_preview=1, attached) and published with one of the invited papers from the symposium (Rauch et al; http://www.medicaljournals.se/jrm/content/?list_preview=1). Other invited papers will follow in future issues and uninvited papers are welcomed as well; please consider submitting and encourage colleagues to do so (see the attachedJRM-ISPRM CRDR Call for Papers) ! This special series is intended to build the evidence base on disaster rehabilitation and to inform and educate the global professional rehabilitation community about needs and best practices in this emerging discipline.
The symposium also proved an ideal opportunity to recruit new members, several representing rehabilitation INGOs. We enthusiastically welcome Claude TARDIF/ICRC, Antony DUTTINE/Handicap International, Stephen Muldoon/Livability Ireland and Raouf Gharbo/Physicians for Peace. Welcome, gentlemen! These new members bring valuable perspective which will enhance our ability to effectively support humanitarian disaster relief efforts. Please find attached a current roster (advise me of corrections or changes) and don’t hesitate to reach out to potential new members!
The committee also convened its second physical session during ISPRM 2011 (the first at the Interim Meeting in Limassol, Cyprus in October 2010). Please see our session agenda, attached, and the committee general agenda outlined in the JRM special report. One item on which your input is kindly requested is development of a dedicated CRDR-hosted ‘disaster’ webpage. (Please see our new committee webpage under the ISPRM site heading Rehabilitation Disaster Relief: http://www.isprm.org/; http://www.isprm.org/?CategoryID=382. Special thanks to Nachum Soroker, ISPRM Publications/Website Chair, for implementing this webpage).
The separate ‘disaster’ webpage will serve as a comprehensive, multi-use disaster information management platform to facilitate our and others’ disaster research and response efforts. Several of you contributed to an initial, preliminary list of desired website features during our committee session, attached, to which has been added talking notes from a recent consultation with the US National Library of Medicine’s Disaster Information Management Research Center (NLM DIMRC; http://disaster.nlm.nih.gov/) to stimulate your thinking. Think broadly! – online consulting, live on-scene streaming, social media, blogging capability, etc. as well as more traditional features and functions should be considered. Please send me your ideas and comments to me in the next week for compilation with targeted implementation around Jan 1. Also, please let me know if you’re interested in leading this project.
This note is to report our recent successful disaster relief symposium with ensuing developments as well as to rally our energy for the way ahead. We are extremely excited to be working with you during this dynamic time in the development of our committee and in the emerging discipline of disaster rehabilitation. Never before has our contribution been so needed or our ability to do so as great! Your commitment is appreciated.
