Resources for Haiti Logistics

February 10, 2010

Posted in Cooperation, haiti

Our most pressing issue is ensuring that life-sustaining resources are reaching the people of Haiti.

We are in the process of developing systems to assess and geographically pinpoint the status of:

medical
water
food
shelter
transportation
communication

We are also focused on methods of tracking requests and donations of in-kind resources.

The following websites provide the best databases of information we have been able to gather:

1. Aid Matrix – A USAID project and has been used for other disasters. Medshare International is posting here.
Usability – Good for in-kind donation requests. Difficult to search except by type of donation requested. Cannot find a list of all organizations.
http://www.aidmatrix.org/haiti.htm

2. Ushahidi – Ability to send SOS messages via Text message and it will appear on the map, allowing relief workers to respond.
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/main

3. Sahana Foundation – Has the ability to funnel data that appears on Twitter. Portal includes:

Situation Mapping (What is happening on the ground)
Organization Registry (Which agencies are helping & contact details)
Hospital Information (The status of medical facilities in Haiti)
Assistance Requests (View requests & make pledges)

Usability – Difficult to use and many blank sections make this a little frustrating to use.
http://haiti-orgs.sahanafoundation.org/prod/default/index

4. Tweak the Tweet- A project for helping parse Twitter messages (“Tweets”) into components like: need, location, injured, trapped.
Usability – Better to access through Sahana than through the project website.
http://epic.cs.colorado.edu/helping_haiti_tweak_the_twe.html