Supporter: Colleen Regalbuto

Mercy Corps has been contacted by dozens of big-hearted people offering to volunteer in Japan as part of the emergency response work effort. Thank you for your interest in Mercy Corps and your kind support!

However, Mercy Corps does not have a formal overseas volunteer program through our headquarters office and, in addition, generally does not accept volunteers for international disaster relief work. For more information about this policy, please visit the Center for International Disaster Information’s “Volunteering After a Disaster” web page.

When Mercy Corps does have non-disaster international volunteer opportunities, they will be posted under the “Jobs” section of our website. However, these volunteer positions happen very rarely, since our program officers residing in the field generally choose residents in that country for either voluntary or paid positions. Hiring locally provides jobs and allows local citizens to take ownership in the rebuilding of their neighborhoods and operation of the programs.

Again, thank you for your interest in helping the people of Japan — the best way to help at this time is to give an online donation.

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Photo: Ronny Munro/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps has been contacted by hundreds of big-hearted people wanting to launch drives to collect materials such as used clothing, canned food and medical supplies for Haiti survivors. Many others are interested in learning where Mercy Corps' "drop-off sites" are for materials such as these. First of all, thank you for your support and compassion!

However, Mercy Corps generally does not accept donated materials from the general public, especially in times of emergency (note that we gladly consider large corporate donations of brand-new product, if it meets a specified need).

So, if there is so much need in Haiti, why is it NOT a good idea to collect materials on behalf of the survivors?

There are several reasons:

1. The materials collected in drives are often not the supplies that are most urgently needed (for example, at the moment one of the priorities in Haiti is for specialized water/sanitation equipment);
2. The cost of shipping materials may exceed their actual value;
3. Someone will need to pay to transport the materials from the collection site to the disaster relief site;
4. Someone on the receiving end will need to clear customs (and possibly pay duties), and get the materials out of port, at a time when the port may not be functioning, or may be overwhelmed. (The port in Haiti is not functioning, so right now supplies are only coming in by air.)
5. The materials collected in the drive may compete at the port with more critical supplies (those pre-selected and shipped by governments, UN agencies and relief agencies such as Mercy Corps) that need to get in, doing more harm than good.
6. If the materials do get in the country, someone on the receiving end will need to transport goods to a warehouse, inventory and store them, and distribute them in an appropriate and equitable manner.
7. If the above issues are NOT worked out ahead of time, materials may sit in the port and ultimately be destroyed. In the case of the tsunami of 2005, literally tons of materials collected by well-meaning people launching drives in the USA were ultimately destroyed at ports.

Therefore, for the reasons described above, many reputable aid organizations will NOT accept materials collected by the general public for international emergencies; most prefer to use limited cash funds to purchase supplies in or close to the disaster site. By purchasing materials in nearby markets, aid agencies can purchase exactly what is needed, support local economies and businesses in the country or region, get aid to those who need it more quickly, and ultimately use donor funds more effectively and wisely.

For more information about why cash donations are best, please visit the FAQ section of the Center for International Disaster Information's website: http://www.cidi.org/media/faq.htm.

In the meantime, please consider a cash donation to Mercy Corps' Haiti response, as a cash donation will allow us to purchase those items most needed, and get them to recipients quickly.

Thanks again to everyone for their support and concern for the people of Haiti.

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Photo: Colleen Regalbuto/Mercy Corps

I am a Material Aid Officer with Mercy Corps – which means I work with massive (truckload sized-quantities) donations of product. The donated materials my team works with run the gamut: from computers to textbooks to sports equipment to pharmaceuticals.

My job is to solicit donations of product, work closely with recipient programs to find ways to appropriately and effectively utilize materials, manage the logistics of getting materials to program sites and follow up on the use of products.

When programmed effectively, product distributions can greatly contribute to programs that help achieve a positive change in the human condition, which I was able to closely observe during a recent visit to Mercy Corps’ programs in Colombia.

Mercy Corps Colombia manages an innovative program which aims to both eliminate and mitigate the effects of some of the worst forms of child labor — primarily prostitution and street vending in urban areas and agricultural work in rural areas. In this program, at-risk children participate in after-school activities for three to four hours a day, five days a week. Activities occupy children’s time during the day so that they do not have time to work. These activities also accelerate learning and promote the self-esteem of each child, since many child laborers have fallen behind in their classes.

One vital component of this program is a sports methodology, in which children participate in non-competitive physical activities such as yoga, learn basic soccer and basketball skills, and are taught gender equality, conflict resolution and life skills as well as respect for the body – something particularly important for children who have been sexually exploited.

Our Material Aid team facilitated the donation of 20,000 units of sports apparel, equipment and footwear to this program, to be utilized by children when they participate in sports activities. Last year, I traveled to Mercy Corps Colombia to help establish systems for the safe and effective use of this product – which is critical in urban areas, where a child wearing brand-name athletic shoes can be a target for theft or even violence.

My most recent visit was to ground-truth some of the parameters initially developed, to monitor the donation, and document lessons learned for future donations of this kind.

Photo: Colleen Regalbuto/Mercy Corps

Here are some of my observations:

• During my trip, I had the opportunity to observe separate groups of children participating in sport activities both with, and without, product. The children wearing uniforms and shoes seemed to take the sport activities more seriously, and be more excited to participate. Although children certainly do not need product to participate in — and benefit from — sport activities, donated product can help create a feeling of group cohesion, and adds an element of excitement and “professionalism” to sport activities, particularly if children are only allowed to utilize product during these activities.
• Donated product can be an excellent way to encourage parental participation in programs. In this case, the donation became a means to encourage parents to attend coordination meetings about the program in which their children participated, and should encourage children’s attendance and participation in the program, since only those who attend at least 85 percent of the time will receive product permanently at the end of the program.
• When possible, branding product with a Mercy Corps (or other) logo is an excellent idea and well worth the cost. In the case of this program, in which children participating in the same program received uniforms in various styles and colors, branding the product helped create a feeling of group cohesion.
• Not allowing children to take product home (to diminish the risk of product being stolen or sold) is only feasible if there is a secure location in which to store it. In some cases, the risk of theft is actually lessened if children are allowed to take product home.
• I was already aware of this, but the danger that brand-name product can pose for children in urban areas really hit home during this trip. In the case of Bogotá, it is simply too dangerous for children to wear product home – it absolutely must be kept on-site, for children’s safety. Luckily, in Bogotá, there is secure storage for product at most project sites, unlike in Cartagena and Santander.
• When product is kept at project sites, how to wash it is always an issue and a challenge for the implementing organization. Budgeting for the cost of washing product is something we should encourage recipients to consider at the outset.
• When providing partners with product, it is important to train them in inventory management and distribution.

As you can see, much goes into the strategy, methodology and use of donated materials.

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"What are we going to do with all these shirts?" was the first thought that went through Kevin Funk's mind when he learned that the banking giant would soon be changing its name from "Washington Mutual" to "WaMu."

WaMu's branding change had suddenly rendered thousands of units of company apparel — mostly button-up shirts and cardigans — useless, and Funk, the manager of WaMu store apparel, thought it was wasteful to destroy them. However, because the shirts identify the wearer as a WaMu employee, security and risk management concerns prevented them from being donated in the United States. In Funk's search for an appropriate outlet for the shirts, he contacted Mercy Corps' Material Aid department, which facilitates material donations.

"It's not as easy as you'd think to give something like this away," said Funk, "so Mercy Corps was a huge help in getting the shirts into the hands of those abroad who could use them."

Mercy Corps' Material Aid department was able to place nearly 30,000 shirts by working closely with field teams in Mongolia and Guatemala, and with partners in El Salvador and Ukraine. The shirts were provided to needy families in El Salvador, low-income job seekers in Ukraine and to poor individuals participating in environmental clean-up efforts in Mongolia.

Outfitting volunteers

In Guatemala, the success of Mercy Corps' programs is due to the overwhelming support of community volunteers. Carlos Aquino, a Program Manager, saw a sample of one of the shirts, and thought they would be an ideal uniform.

Aquino and his team received nearly 7,000 tan-colored shirts, covered the original logo with a patch and embroidered the Mercy Corps logo and the word "volunteer" on all of them. Shirts were provided as uniforms to all 6,807 community volunteers, as both a thank-you gift and a means to identify volunteers as part of the Mercy Corps team.

Mercy Corps' programs in Guatemala — from raising HIV/AIDS awareness to improving agricultural practices — depend on the work of people like Hermanino Ramírez, a community leader in Cobán.

Ramírez has spent countless hours working with his community to increase household incomes through improved agricultural practices. Ramírez, like all Mercy Corps Guatemala's community volunteers, has been a pioneer in promoting new knowledge, attitudes and practices.

Local volunteers like Ramírez, most of whom are ethnic Q'eqchi', fill a variety of vital roles — they may be members of health commissions, basic health workers, midwives, agricultural leaders or youth working to raise awareness among peers about the transmission of HIV/AIDS. All contribute to the development of their communities by donating time, experience and resources.

"The shirts distinguish us as volunteers and make us feel like members of the Mercy Corps family," said Ramírez.

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