After the camera crews covering a natural or human disaster go home and the news is no longer covering the story, out of sight and out of mind prevails, more often than not. It's easy to forget and even easier to assume that everything is fine and that all of the issues are fixed. Aid Still Required is a non-profit whose name serves as a reminder and a call to action to anyone who believes that everything is fine or fixed. This organization is dedicated to helping after help has left.
Since all companies are a reflection of their leaders, and it's easy to see why Aid Still Required has masterful vision and a fierce tenacity dwarfed only by the magnificent heart with which they run their organization. The Founders Hunter Payne and Andrea Herz Payne began their journey into being change agents, after the 2004 Tsunami, which killed over 250,000. Their work evolved and now takes them to amazing places like the UN Women's Conference and to help influence the conversation around global women's issues. It's easy to see how inspiration led them on a path of being global change agents.
Aid Still Required lovingly and intelligently offers assistance to the people whose lives have been uprooted post-disaster. They help to rebuild not just the area but to rebuild the people's lives, because it's not just a devastation of the ecological or economic systems that has occurred, it's a devastation of a way of life. Indeed, in areas where rape is prevalent for 9 out 10 women, violence against women is a disaster force that hurts more than the natural disaster ever did. Through implementation of education and counseling, Aid Still Required seeks to help the community to help itself. And they are making great progress at keeping disasters top of mind for donors by utilizing their network of supporters, celebrities, and global policy makers.
Stabilizing the families through programs and education geared at re-stabilization and sustainability, creates fertile soil for success to grow. Creating sustainable systems proves itself a viable success model repeatedly. Change is best achieved as the result of a thousands of small actions. Those small actions can and do yield massive results. Small improvements impact greater health, education, cause less violence to occur.
Theirs is a compelling story of what's possible, when heart, mission, and purpose meet. They have active programs in Haiti, Darfur, and Katrina and Tsunami affected areas.
www.aidstillrequired.org
(April 4, 2013)
