Mission:
To glorify God by offering hope to the spiritually and physically poor.
Vision:
To anticipate, assess, and respond to unmet needs within days of any disaster worldwide with fully equipped EMI response teams trained in disaster assessment and technical consulting.
Strategy:
- Establish relationships and agreements with ministries seasoned in disaster response and transportation agencies before disasters occur.
- Identify, train, and equip volunteers and staff members to deploy in 24-96 hours.
- Quickly assess and report unmet needs in the disaster area.
- Identify projects that meet short- and long-term unmet needs of the poor, proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may reduce vulnerability to future disasters.
- Assemble, mobilize, and facilitate rapid-response design/build teams for selected projects that meet identified needs in the disaster area.
- Hand off projects to follow-on response teams, standard EMI project teams, or the client ministry for completion.
Assessment teams arrive “first on the ground” with partner ministries within 72 hours of the disaster event. This small team of 2-3 individuals will include at least one EMI staff team leader and one to two volunteer “generalist” engineers. The team’s purpose is to pave the way for follow-on project teams from EMI and/or other ministries. Once the teams has found transportation into the disaster area and conducted a link-up with the supported ministry, their goals are to:
- Assess unmet needs in the disaster area
- Report to EMI headquarters with a recommendation for follow-on response
- Coordinate for the reception of follow-on project teams from EMI and/or other ministries, if necessary.
At a minimum, assessment team members should be trained in general first aid and CPR, rapid disaster assessment, the incident command system, and crisis situations. Team members should arrive at the disaster site fully equipped with their own shelter and at least a 3-day supply of food and water. On-call team members should have a bag packed with their personal supplies and equipment in order to be ready to deploy within 24 hours of notification of a disaster.
Assessment team leaders (EMI staff) will be identified and placed on a rotation schedule that allows them to respond within 24 hours of disaster notification without having to hand off significant project-leading responsibilities.
Rapid Response Phase
Rapid Response Design/Build Teams arrive within 5-7 days of the disaster event. These teams of 2-8 individuals possess technical specialties typically required in disaster events. These specialties include water, wastewater, structural analysis, transportation, shoring, geotechnical analysis and more. Each team should be tailored to the project need(s) identified in the immediate assessment. Possible projects include damaged building structural assessments, emergency/transitional shelters, water purification, sanitation disposal, and transportation systems. Each team should include at least one EMI staff team leader (unless the assessment team leader will receive them and stay with them in-country).
Rapid response design/build teams are encouraged to view disaster response projects within the context of long-term recovery and development activities. Disasters can provide the opportunity to reduce the victims’ vulnerability to future disasters. Rehabilitation and reconstruction, properly formulated, can do much to introduce mitigation techniques to protect against the effects of future disasters.
Organizations Needing Technical Assistance
If you are an organization that could use EMI's technical assistance in disaster response, click here to see our Disaster Response Technical Assistance application form.
Volunteers
At a minimum, response team members should be trained in general first aid, crisis situations, and their own discipline-specific specialties which pertain to the disaster. In addition, response team leaders (EMI staff) should also be trained in the immediate assessment phase training.
If you are interested in joining our database of disaster responders or are simply interested in learning more about the program, please download a volunteer responder application or contact our disaster response coordinator, Scott Powell.
We encourage all potential disaster response volunteers to first volunteer on one of EMI's short term project trips (see current project needs). This is so we can get to know each other's strengths and weaknesses before attempting to work together and rely on each other in potentially high-stress environments.
[Volunteer DR application]
[DR packing list]
[Biblical Response to Disasters]
