Innovative Community Response to Disaster
World Cares Center trains communities to enact their own disaster response plans, thus ensuring rapid care provided to individuals whose health is at risk.
About You
About You
First Name
Ben
Last Name
Bellizzi
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/#!/WorldCares
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
World Cares Center
Organization Website
Organization Country
United States, NY, New York County
Country where this project is creating social impact
Haiti, CE
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
WCC Founder and Executive Director Lisa Orloff has received the NYC Mayor’s Voluntary Action Award for her service during 9/11, was inducted into the Women in Emergency Management Hall of Fame, and has been invited as a guest lecturer at numerous universities including the Harvard School of Public Health.
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
Charles Avolio is the Deputy Operations Manager at Turner Construction. Mr. Avolio has extensive experience planning to preserve the health and well-being of his employees and their families. EMAIL: cavolio@tcco.com PHONE: (212) 229-6303
Monique Ribando is an attorney at Dewey and LeBoeuf LLP in New York City. She is the vice-president of WCC's Board of Directors. EMAIL: mribando@dl.com PHONE: (212) 259-8318
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Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Scaling (the next step will be growing impact on a regional or even global scale)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for more than 5 years
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
When disasters strike, those who are most vulnerable (the elderly, disabled, youth) are at the greatest risk. We train local communities to form contingency plans that will address the needs of every resident and alleviate avoidable suffering during emergencies. In areas such as Haiti, we train local leaders to carry out these plans as we adapt our programming curriculum to the specific needs of each population (in Haiti: cholera prevention, camp safety, maternal health). Disaster Relief efforts have been largely reactionary over the past ten years. WCC strengthens communities before emergencies occur to prepare local groups and volunteers to address health needs immediately without having to wait for outside agencies to mobilize and work through extensive bureaucratic restrictions.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
WCC trains established community leaders to manage emergency response efforts when their constituents inevitably turn to them in times of crisis. This preventative health care can save lives and homes while empowering communities to care for their own residents. In our work in response to Hurricane Irene in the northeastern US, WCC trained local volunteers in proper muck-out and mold remediation techniques in order to make homes inhabitable once again. Residents had encountered significant respiratory issues as a result of their mold-damaged houses, and our training workshops allowed neighbors to provide assistance to those who were most affected by the flooding. In Haiti, our cholera prevention, camp safety, and maternal health education projects allowed our all-Haitian team to improve the health in the camps formed after the earthquake that left thousands without basic human services. We work on the grassroots level to teach residents sustainable health and safety procedures.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, massive flooding left residents throughout New jersey homeless. WCC immediately responded by matching residents who were unable to achieve their own recovery (uninsured, elderly, disabled)with volunteer teams providing cleanup services free of charge. Because we had already established partnerships throughout the state, we were able to swiftly address the most pressing cases and allow residents to return to safe homes free of harmful mold and low air quality. WCC trained volunteer teams to go out and meet the needs of their own communities, and we also coordinated teams coming from outside the state to provide their services to residents whose health was at the highest risk. During this initial recovery phase, we coordinated the cleanup of 577 homes, and the skills we taught local groups will benefit communities during future emergencies. As has been the case in other deployments, we continue to provide support to those we've trained and to act in a management capacity when future disasters strike. Our model yields exponential impact as graduates of our workshops help and train others to perform the same services. WCC is unique in that we utilize all area resources during emergencies and collaborate with a variety of groups to ensure that each community member is safe and has access to medical services. Instead of implementing programs that will only last for the duration of our deployment, we educate residents to lead these projects, thus making them safer and self-reliant following the recovery period.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
In disaster response, the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army are the two most notable contributors and receive the majority of relief funding. However, the services WCC provides differ from any other organization in that we incorporate local communities (leaders, volunteers, faith-based groups) into their own responses. We teach them to respond immediately when health needs are pressing instead of waiting for outside agencies to mobilize their teams and target needs. Most agencies requires 72 hours to mobilize. When flood waters are rising and personal health is at risk, this time cannot be lost. WCC trains help to arrive immediately in the form of neighbors and community members, yet we often do not receive proportionate funding compared to larger, well-known agencies.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
When 9/11 happened in New York City, people came out of their homes and work places to help. Unfortunately, many eager volunteers were turned away by agencies unprepared to utilize their contributions. WCC was founded in order to tap into this vast relief workforce of limitless potential. After 9/11, we recognized a need for our volunteer management expertise in other emergencies, including Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and the 2011 Japanese Tsunami. Over the past ten years, we have been able to ensure that those who need help the most receive it in a timely fashion and thus avoid the compounding health issues that can result when care is delayed or not delivered. WCC is now a recognized subject-matter expert in community integrated disaster management and we continue to receive requests for our training workshops both at home and abroad.
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
In this specific initiative, we aim to enhance our impact on the Haitian communities we have supported since the earthquake struck. Many groups continue to face pressing health needs and our team is equipped to enter those communities and provide immediate assistance to combat preventable illness. Appropriate funding will enable our team to deliver workshops on 1)disaster preparedness for communities with a focus on hurricanes and flooding, 2)proper hygiene, including specialized training for children and mothers, and 3)camp safety, including rape and abuse prevention. These initiatives will have a direct effect on hundreds of Haitians with an exponential impact on hundreds more who will benefit from the knowledge and skills that our workshops teach.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
Over the course of 8 separate deployments, WCC has trained 105 community leaders and over 7,000 community members while conducting over 7,000 medical examinations and distributing relief items valued at over 1 million USD. From these deployments we have established an all-Haiti team stationed on the ground and operating with support from our organizational headquarters in New York City. We have distributed disaster preparedness materials to over 10,000 individuals and we continue our work in these local communities as the country strives to achieve a comprehensive recovery. In other deployments of our model, we have assisted over 1,110 individuals and families in our Hurricane Irene relief work that utilizes the same grassroots approach to disaster relief, a initiative that is ongoing as residents continue to reclaim homes damaged or lost in the flooding.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
We aim to expand our presence in providing preparedness training as well as contributing to major disaster response efforts around the globe. The recent increase in natural disasters has afforded us the opportunity to enhance our efficiency as a responding organization as well as to witness the benefit our preparedness training has had on the communities we've served. While we never could have predicted our involvement in Haiti, we hope to continue to help Haitians realize a full recovery while responding to other situations that might call upon our unique expertise. We have responded to requests to participate in the Hurricane Irene and Japanese Tsunami relief efforts, and we plan to have the capacity to do the same in future situations in addition to our ongoing preparedness workshops.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
Impact 150 Haitian Residents with preparedness workshops and materials to enhance health and safety.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Match our Haiti Team and local communities in need of our services
Task 2
Coordinate resources in-country and from the US in order to meet resident health and programming needs
Task 3
Work with local leaders to target ongoing health needs and recovery plans
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Reach an additional 150 Haitians and use our experience to contribute to other relief efforts as they arise.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
Continued deployment of services to Haiti in coordination with NYC headquarters and our Haiti Team
Task 2
Collaborate with other emergency response organizations to improve upon past efforts and plan for future strategies.
Task 3
Track the impact we have had in Haiti and in the US to demonstrate the necessity of preparedness training to community safety.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation has been a major supporter and is currently linking us to other potential sponsors within the insurance industry. Turner Construction and Railworks are both longtime supporters and provide links to other companies and individuals within the construction world. PSEG and Con Edison currently support WCC programs, along with members of the NYC council, individuals from financial and law firms, and other local businesses.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
Much of our focus is currently directed at populations throughout New Jersey that were hit hardest by Hurricane Irene. These communities present the greatest need and our longtime presence in the state places us in the unique position to coordinate appropriate services to these residents. In addition to targeting local populations for preparedness and safety workshops, we are translating our materials into a myriad of languages (Japanese, Creole, Spanish, Dutch) in order to be ready to respond to disasters across the globe.
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
Because we are a small organization, we maintain an intimate relationship with our programs, those we serve, and our funding partners. We are able to adapt our curriculum to meet the specific needs of each community, to collaborate with other service-providing agencies within those communities, and to demonstrate our results to our sponsors. The same people who plan projects implement them and report to the funders that enabled them, and such investment means that each party involved receives more focused attention than would be possible with a large organization. Also, we collaborate with an array of emergency response professionals and are therefore constantly improving our approach to relief and serving the public.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
With a small staff, we are always looking for professionals to help us promote our programming and communicative abilities. We are currently attempting to enhance our social media presence and outreach. For resources offered, the nature of our work means we collaborate with a vast array of organizations and individuals and share information pertinent to our projects and relief services.
 | 70 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi updated this Competition Entry. |
| 71 weeks ago Ben Bellizzi submitted this idea. |
