User:Aidstillrequired/Aid Still Required

=Aid Still Required= Aid Still Required (ASR) is a not for profit 501c3 organization committed to bringing attention and humanitarian aid to areas suffering from natural disasters or human crises. Incorporated in Santa Monica, California in 2008 as a result of founders Hunter and Andrea Herz Payne’s three-year journey following the December 2004 Southeast Asian Tsunami. The name, "Aid Still Required" and the mission were born out of the need to bring these issues back into the spotlight after they have left the news headlines and public awareness. Aid Still Required is also committed to finding innovative ways to build back these regions through environmentally sustainably means.

Southeast Asia
In December 2004, the tsunami in Southeast Asia claimed 230,000 lives and destroyed the livelihood of millions of families and communities in 12 different nations. In response to the tsunami, Aid Still Required founders, Hunter and Andrea Herz Payne created its first project: a CD compilation endorsed by former United States President Bill Clinton's United Nations Office of the Special Envoy for Tsunami Relief. The CD contains tracks by musicians such as Paul McCartney, Norah Jones, Avril Lavigne, James Taylor, Sarah McLachlan, Bonnie Raitt, John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Shawn Colvin, Ani DiFranco, Maroon 5, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Phantom Planet, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Ray Charles, and ASR founder and president, Hunter Payne. At present ASR has two projects identified for support  in Southeast Asia.

INDONESIA
Banda Aceh was by far the most damaged by the tsunami. It alone lost 160,000 people. The livelihoods of many survivors were lost when the rush of seawater decimated the reef protecting the region virtually destroying the day-fishing industry.

Proceeds from the Aid Still Required CD will support the local Aceh NGO Yayasan Lamjabat and The Ujung Pancu Project, which involves over 6,000 local people who are transitioning to sustainable and environmentally friendly development, protection, and conservation. Pancu means “end water source.” It lies six miles from Banda Aceh town at the most northern end of the mountain range that runs from West Sumatra to Aceh.

The mountains, hills, and wetlands in this area are home to outstanding beauty and are filled with a plethora of wildlife, many species of birds, and some species that have yet to be identified. Aceh’s forests are being cut down rapidly for building materials and farming land. It is generally feared that the communities and industry will eventually clear the area. The remaining forest needs to be protected in order to provide a safe haven for existing wildlife and to provide lasting benefits to the local communities. Not only do the forests supply a free source of food such as fruits and nuts, they also protect the communities from potentially lethal flooding and landslides. Local NGO project partner, Yayasan Lamjabat, exemplifies ASR’s mission to incorporate an environmental perspective when looking at development. In addition to raising awareness about ecological issues in the region, The Ujung Pancu Project addresses the rights and protection of women, children, and the elderly. They are also learning how to transition to organic farming and fish farming. The Ujung Pancu Project also provides reforestation cultivation program and seaweed cultivation programs.

SRI LANKA
Soon after the tsunami, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) officials proposed the idea of a tsunami early warning system for Southeast Asia. If one had been in place prior to 2005, hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved. Today, the entire Indian Ocean region is still without a comprehensive and coordinated warning system, and remains completely vulnerable.

ASR has identified a local tsunami warning center in Peraliya, a coastal village in southwestern Sri Lanka. The Community Tsunami Early Warning Center (CTEC) has current plans to expand to a total of four centers along the coast. Research is also under way exploring the possibility of exporting the program to the Indonesian and Thai coastlines.

Though the northeastern coast of Sri Lanka was in the direct line of the tsunami, the force of the wave was so powerful that waters crashed onto the coast on the opposite side of the island as well, devastating the southwestern coastal village of Peraliya, among others. The wave was so strong, it created the world’s largest-ever train disaster when it derailed the Queen of the Seas Colombo-Galle Express train in Peraliya. In Peraliya village itself, it is estimated that 2,500 people died and that only eight walls from the 490 houses remained standing.

Upon hearing news of the tsunami in December 2004, Australian humanitarian medic and 9/11 first-responder Alison Thompson quickly raised $400 and headed to Sri Lanka with partner Oscar Gubernati to see how she might help. Alison and Oscar eventually landed in Peraliya. Their initial plans for a two week stay turned into a two year life-changing journey in which they established a refugee camp and subsequently created a local medical center, still thriving today, and the early warning tsunami center, the first and only one of its kind in the Indian Ocean.

Conceived by volunteers to protect the villages surrounding Peraliya, The Community Tsunami Early Warning Tsunami Center's eventual goal is to provide security along the entire Sri Lankan coast. In addition to supplying a public address system and disaster-preparedness training, CTEC aims to rediscover traditional and local knowledge of signals that portend natural disasters and to create an empowered community-based readiness culture in Sri Lanka.

After returning to The United States, Alison and Oscar put their experiences into "The Third Wave," a documentary film chronicling their experience in Peraliya, in order to keep the attention on tsunami relief and to bring much-needed funding to CTEC and to the entire area. The film's title, "The Third Wave," refers to the wave of volunteers who flooded the region. Aid Still Required shares CTEC’s commitment to the spirit of volunteerism, to the importance of active, to empowered local communities, and to the necessity of providing information and training for sustainable, ecologically friendly development.

Darfur, Sudan
The conflict in Darfur, Sudan erupted in 2003, and since has claimed 300,000 lives and displaced 2.9 million people. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said, "The Darfur crisis began as an ecological crisis....it is no accident that violence erupted during the drought."

Darfur is the home of one of the first major conflicts caused by climate change. It is not likely to be the last. With deserts around the world expanding at a startling pace (desertification), clashes based on resources are inevitable. The Darfur people have not only been contending with violence, they have watched their homes, farmlands and water supplies being swallowed up by the invading desert over the past 40 years.

Before the drought, survival in Darfur was difficult but manageable. Despite differences in lifestyle, religion, and ancestry, nomadic tribes and settlers found ways to share their limited resources. But with the advent of desertification, subsistence in much of Darfur has become nearly impossible, creating the spark for conflict. A recent United Nations University study suggests that desertification is the greatest environmental challenge of our time – not only for Africa, but for vast areas of the United States, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia as well. As a global phenomenon, it requires global action.

In late 2008, along with project partners at Christie Communications, ASR drove seven hours through northern Sudan, through a desert that a few decades ago supported vastly forested areas and an abundance of arable land. Today only sand and the occasional tree stump remain. With the forests gone, winds blow sand across the desert with nothing to stop the onslaught – nothing, that is, except the villages themselves. As a result, sand piles up high against the dwellings and destroys arable land. One day 2,500,000 refugees and internally displaced people will return to their homes in Darfur. But what will they be returning to? 80%-90% of their villages lie in ashes and are covered by sand (see US Department of State map); their once-arable land is all but gone; their wells, dry or poisoned.

The Village Restoration and Advancement Initiative (VRAI)
Christie Communications and Aid Still Required have collaborated in the development of The Village Reforestation & Advancement Initiative. which utilizes age-old farming techniques and irrigation systems to help stop desertification and environmental degradation and to regenerate the soil, thereby restoring self-sufficiency to villagers. The initiative is focused on planting forest breaks to stop the desert creep, protect villages, and revitalize the land. The forest breaks, irrigated by a system of water pumps and troughs, will allow large areas to be cultivated, providing the means for villagers to regain self-sufficiency through the sale of crops, medicinal herbs and honey produced by bees used to cross-pollinate the various plant species. The model pilot program has been developed to include two villages on each side of the conflict - one African village and one Arab village. Each participating village will be asked to pay 10% of its proceeds forward to the next village on the “other side" of the conflict, promoting peace and achievement for all. Over the past several years, farmers in the northern Sudanese village ASR and Christie visited have experimented with smaller windbreaks and a diversity of crops with great success.  Its similar desert topography to the Darfur region bodes well for success of VRAI in Darfur. Due to violence surrounding the Spring 2010 Sudanese elections, piloting this venture in Darfur is still dangerous at this time.  Christie and Aid Still Required are exploring partnerships in the region.

Hurricane Katrina
August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico and quickly became the costliest natural disaster in American history ($81.2 billion dollars) causing severe damage in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Worst hit was New Orleans where 80% of the city was covered in floodwater, 1,836 people died, and over 200,000 homes were destroyed. Aid Still Required has identified the first two projects it would like to support in New Orleans.

The New Orleans Floating Townhouses
With only 10% of its former residents. the Lower Ninth Ward, hardest hit in the New Orleans area, is very slowly being rebuilt. The levees which were breached, however, have only been repaired to pre-Katrina standards. If a large hurricane hits in the future, what safeguards are in place to prevent tragedy from occurring again? The New Orleans Floating Townhouses are being built in the St. Roch area of New Orleans where floodwaters rose to about four feet, high enough to ruin the foundations and first floors of many dwellings. The townhouses proposed in this project will employ the highest standards of sustainable building, including a passive thermal engine that creates net-zero energy consumption, and… they will float! – minimizing damage from future storms. This project also plans to further revitalize the St. Roch community through other environmentally sound construction and restoration, and with a new neighborhood park.

Wetlands Restoration
Decades of dredging in the Gulf waters off the Louisiana coast, coupled with the construction of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), have caused severe degradation of the coastal wetlands in and around New Orleans. Not only are these wetlands home to 25% of the total domestic marine catch, including shrimp, crabs, and crawfish, they have traditionally provided natural protection against surging hurricane floodwaters. Every 2.7 miles of wetlands can reduce a storm surge by one foot.

MRGO, often referred to as “the hurricane highway,” is a direct outlet from the Gulf of Mexico to the inner harbor of New Orleans. According to Louisiana State University reports, MRGO may have made the storm surge 20% higher and two or three times faster as it crashed into the city. Due to erosion since its construction in the 1960s, the outlet is now three times wider than originally built and has developed shoals, which make it impassable to bigger ships - a major part of its original purpose. The Army Corps of Engineers has recommended that MRGO be closed, but the plan has yet to be approved.

Aid Still Required is researching various means of restoring the wetlands around New Orleans to serve as a natural barrier to future storms and to re-establish the region’s native wildlife habitat. Common Ground Relief is a local organization that is making great strides, establishing a local nursery and utilizing volunteers to rehabilitate portions of the bayou and to rebuild and restore homes in the Lower Ninth Ward.

Founders:
Andrea Herz Payne & Hunter Payne

Board Secretary:
Maureen Charles, Board Secretary, CEO of Well Written Wordshop and Landmark Self Expression Leadership Program Leader (in whose class the ASR founders first imagined the CD compilation).

Board Treasurer:
David Daly, Pricewaterhousecoopers, Director of Forensic Audits

Board Member:
Dorothy Breininger, producer and consultant on the hit A& E show “Hoarders” and Delphi Digital executive.

Darfur PSA Campaign with NBA Players
The Aid Still Required NBA Campaign for Darfur began many months before Aid Still Required officially became a nonprofit. A letter that founder Andrea Herz Payne had written expressing concern over investments funding the crisis in Darfur ended up in the hands of NBA Cavaliers player Ira Newble. Ira contacted Sudan expert Smith College professor Eric Reeves and the seeds for NBA player involvement began. Hunter and Andrea saw the potential impact NBA players could make on raising awareness about the Darfur crisis and started contacting players and the press. In Fall 2007 Participant Media contacted the Paynes asking for their assistance in creating the Darfur Now PSA Campaign. The Paynes enrolled Olympic athlete Rafer Johson, NBA players Steve Nash, Baron Davis, Ira Newble, Eric Snow, and Matt Barnes, actors Lauren Conrad and Kristoff St. John, and humanitarian Lauren Bush in the campaign. Five members of their hometown team, The Los Angeles Lakers (Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Andrew Bynum, Trevor Ariza, and Luke Walton). Kobe Bryant's PSA launched the Aid Still Required website the day it aired on ESPN, March 4, 2008 which also included an interview with Grant Hill about Darfur.

Print Media
Aid Still Required has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles TImes, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Business Journal, Exotic Adventure and Travel, The International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Sporting News, Associated Press, Reuters. Broadcast Media: CNN (Special "Scream Bloody Murder" hosted by internationally acclaimed anchor Christiane Amanpour), ABC News, ESPN, Fox Sports. Radio: "Hollywood Clout!" With Richard Greene, "Speaking Freely with Dennis Raimondi"

Participant Media:
Darfur Now PSA Campaign, Darfur Now Roundtable. Darfur Now Roundtable In the summer of 2008, Participant Media asked Aid Still Required to host a Roundtable discussion for the entertainment and nonprofit communities. Los Angeles Laker Derek Fisher and actor Don Cheadle co-hosted; keynote speakers were former State Department Africa specialist, humanitarian and activist John Prendergast of The ENOUGH Project and Omer Ismail of Darfur Peace and Development Organization. thecommunity.com:

The United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Campaign:
Commencing in December 2009. The 14th Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, actors Morgan Freeman, Anne Archer, Nancy Cartwright, Priscilla Presley, Joel Madden. Actress CCH Pounder, Los Angeles Lakers Andrew Bynum, Josh Powell, Didier “D.J” Mbenga, and activist Daniel Ellsberg participated at ASR’s request.

Hans Zimmer and The Remote Control Foundation:
"Save An Angel" Mother's Day Campaign with Hans Zimmer and teenage songstress Rachel Eskenazi-Gold. Former NFL Player, humanitarian and Milken Institute staffer Rosey Grier contributed a PSA for Aid Still Required. FUTURE PROJECT AREAS Thailand, Appalachia, NYC First Responders, Haiti, and the Gulf Oil.

=References:= http://www.takepart.com/actions/raising-awareness/33262/" http://www.takepart.com/actions/raising-awareness/33262/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/sports/basketball/15araton.html"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/sports/basketball/15araton.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/19/sports/sp-newble19" http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/19/sports/sp-newble19

http://www.aidstillrequired.org/articles/Exotic_AdventureQ1-2010.pdf"

http://www.aidstillrequired.org/articles/Exotic_AdventureQ1-2010.pdf

http://www.landmarkeducationnews.info/2010/05/14/aid-still-required-tirelessly-tackles-forgotten-causes/