Author: unni

In these desperate times, the world needs to do more, generating a sense of hope, security and protection – especially for young children, travelling without parents and leaving everything they know behind. “We know where we’re going… We know where

Read More

Japanese boat man gives a crash course in disaster management. Standing on the bridge of the Himawari (sunflower), the boat Susumu Sugawara, 72, sailed for over 40 years, he recalls how he braved the 20-metre-high tsunami waves. “I was not sure whether I was

Read More

I ask a group of children what they want to be when they grow up. Half raise their hands to be teachers, the rest want to be doctors and engineers. These children are the future. Despite all the challenges, all my visits to the Middle East have been inspiring. As the

Read More

On 22 May (2015), a 4.2 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Sandwich, Kent, UK. It struck almost a month after the damaging 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the Kathmandu valley in Nepal. Now, I live in London, but in the immediate aftermath of the Nepal earthquake, I was

Read More

Immediately after a disaster, life-saving aid floods into a country. Yet, while humanitarian workers are adept at dealing with the physical needs, they can miss the invisible needs of disaster survivors – such as mental health and psychosocial support, especially for

Read More

Speed is an important factor for any successful emergency response: Next time, to outsmart the virus, we need to act fast through quick deployment of equipment, specialists and field hospitals. Speed will play a critical role in writing a different story for the first

Read More

By Asako Osaki, Unni Krishnan As dozens of nations and world leaders gathered in Sendai, Japan, for the third U.N. World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, Cyclone Pam hit the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, leaving catastrophic damage. The storm, one of

Read More

Only one-quarter of the $1 billion that U.N. agencies have appealed for to tackle Ebola has been funded. In the context of this fast moving crisis, this exposes the lack of genuine commitment to deal with the situation in West Africa that is threatening to become a global

Read More

The current Ebola outbreak, the most severe and complex in history, is now making its impact felt worldwide.The deadly disease has killed over 960 people so farin Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Seven additional West African countries (Guinea-Bissau, Senegal,

Read More

In a world where close to a billion people go to hungry, is there a choice not to be humanitarian? In a world where close to a billion people go to hungry, is there a choice not to be humanitarian? On World Humanitarian Day (Aug 19), I am reminded that close to a

Read More