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Haiti and AIDG Jazz Fundraiser at Benaroya Hall, Seattle May 31st 

by Catherine Laine
May 4th, 2010

Lucid Seattle Presents Inside Out Jazz Awards…

Date: May 31, 2010
Time: 630PM
Location:
S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium at Benaroya Hall
200 University Street
Seattle, WA 98101-3428
Google Map
Ticket Prices:
Seating chart: http://www.seattlesymphony.org/_dwn/seating_chart.pdf
$35 Founders Tier (VIP): Includes: best house seating and VIP lounge access
$35 Rows A-R
$25 Rows S-RR
$20 Second Tier
$15 Third Tier

Student rate $5.00 off second and third tier seating (must have valid student ID)
Special group rates are available please contact Farah Ebrahim 206 499-8079 or info {at] lucidseattle [dot} com.

Buy Tickets

Please be aware that there is an $8 Service Charge per order for tickets purchased on-line. There’s no additional fees for tickets purchased at the box office or at LUCID.

Description:

The IO Jazz Awards will honor those individuals, groups and organizations in the Seattle jazz community and beyond who exemplify this quality of sharing what is on the INSIDE, OUT. 100% of the proceeds from the event will be used towards the relief efforts in Haiti.

Special Performances by:


Evan Flory-Barnes’ Acknowledgment of a Celebration

Seattle bassist and composer Evan Flory-Barnes presents “Acknowledgement of a Celebration: Inheritance, Authenticity and Healing,” a large-ensemble fusion of jazz, hip-hop, and classical music, complete with modern dancers and freestyle break-dancers.


Clarence Acox

Clarence Acox is an awarding winning band director and jazz drummer. He is a familiar figure in the Seattle music scene and is a native of New Orleans. An accomplished and in demand drummer, Acox co-founded the Seattle Repetory Jazz Orchestra in 1995 and performed with the Floyd Standifer Quartet (now Legends quartet) at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant for more than two decades. In August 2007 Clarence Acox was awarded the Mayor’s Arts award by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.


The Teaching

The group’s live performances have become a celebration of life, and a dip in the sea of rapture. The music weaves seamlessly through a myriad of feels – boom-bap hip hop grooves, explosive swing, emotion-laden rock, “fat-man” blues, samba, drum ‘n bass & meditative chanting.

Miles Davis Tribute Performance
Owour Arunga, Aham Olu, Scott Morning, Jason Parker


Leif Totusek

“Playing his own take on Rumba, African funk Seattle guitarist Leif Totusek leads one of the most promising groups, Freestyle Candela”, raves Fernando Gonzales, Boston Globe. His compositions are based on Soukous guitar with infuences ranging from Hendrix to Haiti.

The Storybox Allstar

Street poet Jesse Lee personifies what happens when dreams take flight. Born Seattelite his vision is simple: to paint poetry back into the hearts & minds of the masses using visual backdrops of mixed media projections & a tailored sound score of live and synthesized music. To some his unique presentation may signify the evolution of poetry, to Jesse Lee it just simple poetry, excessively dressed.


Darius Willrich

Seattle’s soul-singer-songwriter Darrius Willrich drips a sensuous interplay of soul, jazz, and inner city longings. Sure to engage all your senses, with the look, sound and feel of yesterday’s soul-today. The spirit of Stevie Wonder, D’Angelo, and Herbie Hancock, season the musical stew that is Darrius…Sweet Urban Soul


Andy Clausen Sextet

Trombonist/Composer Andy Clausen established his sextet in 2007 with fellow members of the Roosevelt High School jazz band to serve as a testing ground for their diverse compositions. The compositions range in tone from powerful to lyrical to whimsical, yet each song conveys the commitment of the members of this group of young musicians and friends to a common vision of jazz that is both fresh and sophisticated


Greta Matassa

Greta Matassa wins wide acclaim in the Pacific NW for her contribution to Jazz Music. Readers of Earshot Jazz Magazine have voted her the best jazz vocalist in the Northwest. Jim Wilke, host of the syndicated “Jazz After Hours” radio program, praises her versatility. “She has a fearlessness in approaching material.” Seattle Times critic Misha Berson described Matassa as a vocal chameleon who “can sound husky or crisp, ebullient or wailing, girlish or jaded.” Matassa consistently displays these qualities in each of her performances.


Kelly Ash

“A rising Seattle talent, Kelly blends classic jazz and contemporary jazz, soul, blues, funk and Brazilian music to create an engaging atmosphere. Subtle, sensitive and polished, her honest delivery complements the rich, soulful quality of her voice.”


Adrian Sims

Seattle’s favorite neo-soul artist, Adrian has shared the stage with national R&B and soul artists Jon B, Avant, Case, Carl Thomas, and Dwele to name a few. With numerous performances at a steady pace and word-of-mouth spreading among the town and it’s artists. Counting Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, D’Angelo and Raphael Saadiq as some of his primary influences, Adrian has combined his inspirations into a stunning new sound all his own.


Emily McIntosh

EMILY MCINTOSH is an indisputably gifted Vocalist and one whose voice deserves to be listened to and celebrated. This Cum Laude Cornish College of the Arts Graduate is a full-time Vocal Coach & Session Singer. Emily has many accolades to her credit. She is the voice singing jingles of many of the most popular radio shows including The Delilah Show. She was the opening act for soul legend Al Green last year, and she’s shared the stage singing duets with Huey Lewis.Be on the look out for big things from Seattle’s Soulful, Jazzy Songstress Emily McIntosh


Tom Baker Quartet

Guitarist Tom Baker, drummer Greg Campbell, clarinetist Jesse Canterbury and bassist Brian Cobb have been working as a quartet since 2004, playing modern avant-jazz tunes and crafting beautiful and haunting improvisations. Their music blurs the boundaries between notated music and free improvisation; the unique sonic landscapes that result are grounded in history, while pushing at the boundaries of avant-jazz music.

Buy Tickets

Video: Peter Haas (AIDG) and Cameron Sinclair (AfH) talk reconstruction in Haiti 

by Catherine Laine
May 2nd, 2010

From Haiti Onward:

In the days and weeks following the January 12th earthquake, relief organizations and redevelopment efforts swarmed into Haiti—fueled by the immediacy to rescue survivors and develop temporary living scenarios. Now, with the disaster out of the headlines and the rainy season looming, opinions and direction are swirling as to “how” to construct a new Haiti. Will social venture prevail? How will the Haitian community be justly represented? How can the cycle of poverty be reversed and a more self-sufficient economy nurtured? Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, and Peter Haas, founder of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group [AIDG], explain their perspectives, fears and truths surrounding the epic redevelopment effort.

What worked: AIDG Technology R&D Document Series 

by Steve Crowe
April 29th, 2010
Making a pico-hydro electric system
Making a pico-hydro electric system

AIDG’s Technology R&D Program is pleased to present a new series of technical documents that have been produced during various projects we have worked on in the last 5 years. During the first 3 years of the program, the documentation was produced in a haphazard way, but around the beginning of 2008 we realized that that wasn’t going to provide a good base for future work the way that more systematic documentation could. Since that point, we have tried to document projects more thoroughly as they are ongoing, so that the information isn’t lost and we and others can build on the work that has been done. During the last year, we have been extremely lucky to have intern Ben Dana undertake the arduous task of pulling together information from many of the previous projects and put into one place.

In presenting these documents, we would like to accomplish two things. First, we would like to provide anyone who is interested the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and our successes, to see a bit of the process we have gone through in different development projects, and apply those lessons to their own projects. Second, we would like to tap into the worldwide appropriate technology community and stimulate further development of the technologies we have worked with.

We’re still developing a plan for how to best stimulate this type of development. In the next few months, we hope to pursue alliances and implement tools to allow the information to spread as far as possible, to encourage people to do further work, and to provide a forum for discussion of that work and presentation of results. In the meanwhile, we’d like to present several documents, and we invite everyone to comment on them, on anything and everything that comes to mind. We’re looking for feedback on format, appearance, the type and quantity of information that the documents contain, and anything else.

Mitchell-Banki turbine
Mitchell-Banki turbine

These are the documents we will be presenting over the following weeks:

  • Picohydro Bucket Generator
  • Build Manual
  • Turbine Performance Testing Results
  • Alternator Performance Testing Results
  • Serpentine Solar Water Heater
    • Build Manual in English and Spanish
    • Design Manual in English and Spanish
  • Rocket Box Stove
    • Build Manual in English and Spanish
    • Design Manual in English and Spanish
  • Jan Portegjis’ Hummingbird Electronic Load Controller
    • Our experience with the circuit and modifications we have made, in English and Spanish
    • Condensed Design Manual in Spanish
  • Mitchell-Banki Turbine
    • Design Manual
    • Fabrication Manual
    • Project Summary from Corazon del Bosque Installation
  • Waste Oil Foundry
    • Design Manual
    • Build Manual
  • Pelton Turbine
    • Our experience with the turbine and modifications we have made of Practical Action’s design
    • Manufacturing guide
    • Project Design Document from Nueva Alianza Installation

    For each of the technologies we will be doing a blog post, and the documents will be linked to from the blog post. I hope that you all enjoy the documents, that they are useful, and most of all that you tell us what you think.

    AIDG Haiti Update: Structural Assessments and Masons Trainings 

    by Catherine Laine
    April 22nd, 2010
    School Collapse at the Petite Ecole Francaise in Cap Haitien, Haiti
    School Collapse at the Petite Ecole Francaise in Cap Haitien, Haiti

    I got the call in the morning on Feb 16. Edline Estimable, our bookkeeper in Haiti, was in shock, utterly distraught. An elementary school down the street from our office in Cap Hatien had just collapsed just days after schools reopened. Several of her friends’ children attended the Petite Ecole Francaise. Already wrung out by the events of Jan 12, she couldn’t bare to say it or even think it, but she knew deep down that some of her friends’ kids had been hurt if not killed. But what happened? There had been a lot of rain in Cap that was for sure, but there hadn’t a new earthquake, not even the mildest tremor in Haiti’s 2nd largest city (100+ km away from the capital Port-au-Prince). It turns out it was a mud and rockslide. The school abutted too close to a rocky hillside. The rains had softened the earth; boulders and mud slipped and slalomed down, crashing through the school’s roof. Four 8-10 year old children died — 3 girls and a boy. Edline knew 2 of them. 8 others were wounded.

    Jessica Lozier, our interim Haiti Program Manager, had just picked up our 3rd team of structural engineers from the Cap airport when the accident happened. This had been a week of horrors for Jess. A few days before she had been in Port-au-Prince and had witnessed a horrific hit-and-run. She and our colleagues at SOIL helped bring the injured pedestrians to the nearest hospital. Now in Cap, she was helping pull out some of the hurt children as well as translate for foreign doctors who had been volunteering in country.

    From the Miami Herald:

    “It was madness,” said Jess Lozier, coordinator for Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, who arrived at the scene an hour after the accident. Lozier’s group works to provide sanitation, electricity and clean water to developing countries.
    Haitian National Police officers and doctors from the group Help Haiti Heal scrambled to dig surviving children from the rubble, as did U.S. Army troops. It was not known how many other children were in the classroom at the time.
    “The director of the school said all the other kids were accounted for,” Lozier said.

    In the aftermath of this accident, schools reclosed. The 7.0 earthquake in Pap had shown that schools were some of the least seismically resistant buildings in the city. Parents all over the country were already very much afraid and now this.

    What’s wrong with the current building techniques used in Haiti?

    While the school tragedy in Cap was not related the earthquakes per se, it further underscored the shoddy construction of buildings all over the country, not just in the metro Port-au-Prince area.

    Andre Filiatrault, director of the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) who led our 1st team of earthquake engineers in January, lists the following issues as primary problems:

    • Unreinforced masonry structures
    • Lack of symmetry
    • Lack of transverse reinforcement
    • Poor quality of concrete
    • Reinforcing bars without ribs
    • Quality of construction
    • Lack of building codes

    In an interview with NPR, Craig Totten from KPFF who we have been working closely with, had this to say:

    [W]hat he and [Darlene] Clovis have seen, in building after building, is soft mortar, poorly mixed concrete and rickety columns. The cinderblocks are made from material so grainy that it peels away with your fingernails.

    In Haiti, Many Buildings Left Standing Shouldn’t Be [NPR]


    What is AIDG doing?

    If you’ve been following this blog, you know that we’ve been working with groups like MCEER, KPFF Consulting Engineers and the Association of Haitian American Engineers of New York to perform structural assessments of standing and partially collapsed buildings for the government, the UN, NGOs and the community.

    Marc-Henri Gateau, Anne Monnier, and Mike Suomi in Cite Soleil
    Marc-Henri Gateau, Anne Monnier, and Mike Suomi inspecting structures in Cite Soleil

    Ron Kernan and Sophia Tassy
    Ron Kernan and Sophia Tassy finish off an inspection

    To date we’ve reviewed over 1250 structures. For our small staff, this has been a monumental undertaking. The team on the ground now in Haiti hasn’t had much of a break timewise or emotionally.

    In the weeks after the earthquake, it was clear that homeowners, business owners, private citizens, and masons needed more than just reviews. If they were going to prevent the countless needless tragedies, they needed information on how to build back better. We know that most of the damaged and destroyed homes will be rebuilt by private citizens and local contractors out of masonry, concrete and steel. Without access to information on better building techniques, the same deadly mistakes that brought down houses in the quake will be made. So in partnership with Architecture for Humanity and KPFF, we’ve begun to retrain masons in Port-au-Prince, Léogâne and Jacmel in confined masonry techniques. The same techniques have been used in Chile to make buildings there resistant to earthquakes 700 times stronger than the one seen in Port-au-Prince. Here I must commend the leadership of Craig Totten, a principal at KPFF who got the partners at his firm to commit to sending a rotating roster of their engineers to Haiti to continue doing assessments. He’s also recruited masons in the Portland area to work with us to perform trainings of masons.

    Craig McMurtrie from ABC Australia accompanied the team (Craig Totten, Shawn Anderson, Darlene Clovis, Clem Fleck and Robert Miller from Portland based Fleck Masonry and AIDG’s Adajah Codio) on a mason’s training in Jacmel and filed this story:



    Duration: 5 minutes 58 seconds

    To date we have trained approximately 560 masons. Our initial goal with this project is 3000 over 10 months. At the rate that we’re going now, we think we can bump that number up to 10,000, but it all depends on funding. We need $190,000 - $250,000 to hit that goal.

    Masons training at Matthew 25 House (Delmas 33)

    Masons training in Delmas 33

    In terms of curriculum we’re using a translated version of “Construction and maintenance of masonry houses” by Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and SENCICO, originally edited by Marcial Blondet. The translation was crowdsourced by volunteers from Haiti Rewired, a project of WIRED.com. The April 12, 2010 Kreyol version can be found here. Graphics are currently being upgraded to better reflect the building styles in Haiti.

    AIDG backs Shelter2Home as housing solution for those affected by Haiti earthquake 

    by Catherine Laine
    April 9th, 2010

    Duration: 2min 23sec

    In response to the devastating 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti Jan 12, 2010, AIDG is doing rapid investments in local businesses that can help with the reconstruction. One of these businesses is Shelter2Home-Haiti SA. The company, which will be based in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, produces emergency and transitional shelters from light gauge galvanized steel that can later be converted into permanent homes. AIDG’s Steve Lee interviews S2H CEO Donald Stevens in Port-au-Prince.

    Consider this post a Wikipedia-style stub. I’ll be updating it with more detailed information in a few days.

    After Earthquake AIDG provides rapid investment for Haitian-owned solar start-up ENERSA 

    by Catherine Laine
    March 10th, 2010

    This past February, AIDG gave Haitian solar start-up, ENERSA, a $15,000 emergency loan to help it rebuild its factory damaged in the January 12 earthquake that rocked the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area.


    Duration: 2 minutes 14 seconds

    Before the quake struck, Enersa was the fastest growing solar company in Haiti, with contracts in all 10 departments and installations in 58 cities and remote villages. The 2 and a half year old company is the brainchild of Haitian born Jean Ronel Noël and Alex Georges who met in graduate school in Montreal while pursuing degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration. In 2000, the two decided they needed to return to Haiti to start a business that could create positive change in their home country.

    Enersa’s product line includes solar street lighting, residential and commercial solar systems, and solar chargers for smaller devices like cell phones and lamps. They initially settled on LED streetlights as a flagship product after seeing Japanese company Nichia’s white LEDs in action on Montreal’s streets. The big question for them at the time was what would they use as an energy source if they wanted to port this technology to Haiti. Haiti’s electricity infrastructure was notoriously unreliable in urban zones and nonexistent in rural areas. However, the country’s location in the sun-drenched tropics and the relatively modest energy requirements of LED systems made solar an attractive option for the Enersa team, if a suitable price point could be reached.

    In steps Richard Comp of Maine Solar and Skyheat who would come to be Noel and Georges’ mentor. He introduced the team to methods of solar fabrication including inexpensive ways of encapsulating PV cells. Through Skyheat, Comp has trained teams in Mali, Nicaragua, Haiti and Peru in small-scale solar panel manufacturing.

    AIDG first learned about Enersa when our Executive Director, Peter Haas met Noel and Georges at the Inter-American Development Bank Haiti Business forum in Port-au-Prince last September.

    “I was immediately impressed by [Noel] an engineer who taught himself the electrical engineering he was missing by using the free online engineering resources of MIT Opencourseware from Port Au Prince,” says Haas. “Also, after seeing the dramatic bootstrapping JR and Alex had done in starting their business, it was clear this team was different.”

    Enersa’s IDB Presentation, Oct 2009


    My interaction with JR last week during a tour of the damaged Enersa facility reinforced that impression. Though the factory had sustained much damage — several collapsed interior and exterior walls, JR was optimistic about the company’s outlook. With the help of our emergency funding and some smart maneuvering, he expected to be back in production in a few short weeks. Enersa was lucky in that all their employees were safely accounted for and little of their inventory was damaged. Their latest shipment of solar cells had been safe in Miami at the time of the disaster.

    In our chat, Noël stressed the importance of creating jobs in Haiti. He believes that for Haiti to flourish, enjoy sustained growth and ultimately transition into a developed nation, businesses need to create local employment opportunities. So rather than simply importing completed panels and lights, Enersa imports the basic building blocks and employs local youth for production and installation. In their solar streetlights for example, the small panel, LED lights and towers are all made in Haiti. The company’s 18 fully qualified solar technicians, all capable of installing solar streetlights and photovoltaic home systems, are from Port-au-Prince largest shantytown, Cité Soleil. An added benefit of local production, Noel added, is that their completed panels are also 25% cheaper. Double win.

    Enersa’s client focus for the near future will be NGOs and private companies in Haiti who need reliable access to electricity and want to support a socially responsible local business.

    To contact Enersa, please email enersahaiti {at] gmail (dot}com.

    Solar Install in Remote Village

    Related Information:

    Bringing Light to Haiti - ENERSA
    Solar Power Brings Light to Quake-Darkened Haiti [NatGeo]
    Richard Comp’s 2007 trip to work with Enersa, et al.
    Enersa’s profile on Building Markets Haiti

    Related Posts

    COOPEN: Winner of AIDG’s Konkou Biznis Ayiti 09
    Video: GuateVerde 2009 Business Plan Competition Winner: Quetsol [in Spanish]
    A Roundup of Tweets from the IDB Business Meeting in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti
    Video: GuateVerde 2009 Business Plan Competition Winner: Quetsol [in Spanish]

    Team #1 of 10: MCEER-AIDG Coordinate with UN on Haiti Earthquake Engineering Relief Mission 

    by Catherine Laine
    February 14th, 2010

    10 Engineers Provide “Emergency Engineering Support” in Response to the Haiti Earthquake

    From the Preliminary MCEER-AIDG Team Report (University of Buffalo)

    AIDG-MCEER

    On Thursday, January 21, 2010, MCEER director Andre Filiatrault led a team of 10 French-speaking engineers to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their mission was to assess the safety of buildings – principally, hospitals and food storage facilities – damaged by the January 12, 7.0M earthquake. The “Emergency Engineering Support” effort was initiated by the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) on behalf of the United Nations and in collaboration with Partners in Health. It was quickly joined by MCEER, with the University at Buffalo-based Center playing the pivotal role in the recruitment, selection and deployment of the initial structural engineering team. The seven-day mission was critical to easing the delivery of medical services, food and water to the Haitian people. Perhaps more importantly, it laid a foundation for a more sustainable UN effort to continue the evaluation of an estimated 100,000 damaged structures still standing in Port-au-Prince.

    MCEER-AIDG Emergency Engineering Support Unit get debriefed by Andrew Morton, UNEP
    MCEER-AIDG Emergency Engineering Support Unit get debriefed by Andrew Morton, UNEP

    Dubbed the “Emergency Engineering Support Unit”, by UN officials, the team was stationed at the United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti (MINUSTAH), adjacent to the Port-au-Prince airport. Members included Andre Filiatrault (MCEER, University at Buffalo), team leader; Reginald DesRoches (Georgia Institute of Technology), Caroline Zennie (Parsons Corporation), Scott DeHollander (MRB Group), Wassim Ghannoum (University of Texas), Eddy Germain (New Jersey Department of Transportation), Dan Gregory (Green Energy Corporation), Gabrielle Rigaud (Tufts University), Jean-Philippe Simon (U.S. Department of Defense), and Vladimir Charles (Second Floor Studios).

    The team followed ATC-20-1 (Applied Technology Council-20-1: Field Manual: Postearthquake Safety Evaluation of Buildings) tagging procedures:

    • INSPECTED (Green): Appears safe for lawful occupancy;
    • LIMITED ENTRY/RESTRICTED USE (Yellow): Limited entry/use, controlled by building owner/manager;
    • UNSAFE (Red): No entry unless controlled by jurisdiction.

    ATC donated 15 field manuals and condensed instruction materials to the effort.

    Upon arriving at the UN compound, the team met with relief officials to recommend and establish a protocol to field and fulfill inspection requests. They created a special email address (EES-Haiti [at}hotmail {dot] com) and a database to log requests and monitor the inspection process to completion. Included for each facility are its GPS coordinates, assigned ATC-20-1 placards, and hyperlinks to corresponding ATC-20-1 evaluation reports and building photos, among other relevant information. These procedures have been adopted by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which will continue to direct emergency engineering support going forward.

    Entering WFP Shodecosa Warehouse
    Entering World Food Program Shodecosa Warehouse
    Delmas 2 Warehouse
    Delmas 2 Warehouse

    One troubling aspect to the team was the realization that many hospitals and other critical facilities that remained undamaged following the earthquake were going unused as Haitians feared they would collapse from aftershocks. Consequently, medical procedures were being conducted outdoors, and a good deal of food and water needed for the relief, was going undistributed.

    In addition to hospitals and food storage facilities, team members also assessed stability of other infrastructure including government buildings, UN buildings, embassies, and NGO headquarters. In all, they inspected 115 buildings.

    The collapsed Ministry of Justice
    The collapsed Ministry of Justice
    Inside the basement
    Inside the basement
    MCEER’s director, Andre Filiatrault

    MCEER’s director, Andre Filiatrault, inspects the collapsed Ministry of Justice to determine whether it is safe enough to enter the basement to extract important legal records.

    Their volunteer efforts took place under the guidance of representatives from the United Nations Development Programme, Food for Health International, and other AIDG humanitarian partner organizations, that escorted them through the various inspection sites in Haiti. At times they traveled under the protection of UN forces.

    Upon return to the U.S. the members of the team expressed how they were moved by the experience and the plight of the Haitian people. They are proud of the contributions they made to help speed relief at a time when it was needed most. All agree that they are changed by the experience, and now share a special bond.

    AIDG-MCEER Team

    Members of the AIDG-MCEER “Emergency Engineering Support” team pose together before their return from Port-au-Prince. They are (standing l to r): Andre Filiatrault, team leader; Jean-Philippe Simon, Reginald DesRoches, Dan Gregory, Scott DeHollander, Gabrielle Rigaud, Vladimir Charles, Eddy Germain, Caroline Zennie; (front) Wassim Ghannoum.

    The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is continuing “Emergency Engineering Support” activities, which may take several months to complete. Those interested to volunteering their expertise to this continuing effort should contact:

    Felipe Munevar
    Manager a.i.
    UNOPS
    Haiti Project Centre
    5, Impasse Delvime, rue Daniel Brun
    Bois Moquette, Petion-Ville, Haiti
    Tel. (509) 25 13 17 08 or (509) 25 13 17 09
    Cell: (509) 37 02 35 36
    E-mail: felipem {at] unops [dot} org
    UNOPS website: www.unops.org

    Additional Information


    View larger map
    Work in Progress: This is a partial list of structures inspected by AIDG’s earthquake and structural engineering volunteer teams. The color of the pointers indicate the placard assigned by the inspecting team. Green pointers means the structure was inspected and appears safe for lawful occupancy. Yellow indicates that use or entry into the building should be limited or restricted. Red means the building is unsafe and should not be entered unless controlled by jurisdiction. We’re currently working with volunteers, including Far McKon of Philly hackerspace Hive76 to create more interactive maps of this dataset.

    Progress Report: Interim Emergency Engineering Support Unit (EESU) 01/27/2010 [pdf]
    Preliminary MCEER-AIDG Team Report 02/11/2010 [pdf]
    Haiti Earthquake Clearinghouse

    Related Posts

    10 things I learned from being in Haiti during the earthquake
    Kouraj, cherie: Dispatch from Port-au-Prince
    Haiti Quake: AIDG News Roundup 1/12/10 - 2/5/10
    Updates from Haiti

    Massive Earthquake in Port Au Prince 

    by Peter Haas
    January 13th, 2010

    Dear AIDG Supporters,

    At approximately 4:55 pm Eastern on Tuesday Port Au Prince experienced a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, with aftershocks of 5.9 and 5.7. There is widespread damage to infrastructure with numerous collapsed buildings. It is anticipated there will be a high casualty rate

    morel13 on Twitpic

    Additional photos can be found here: twitter.com/photomorel

    Here is what we have learned:

    The National Palace has collapsed (eyewitness photo)
    The UN headquarters has been seriously damaged (source: UN)
    The Hotel Montana has sustained collapse with 200 missing (source: associated press france)
    A Hospital has collapsed (source:NYtimes)

    We will provide more information by twitter. www.twitter.com/aidg and our blog www.aidg.org/blog as it becomes available.

    We are currently developing opportunities for AIDG to aid in reconstruction with the help of partners. We will make another announcement on this shortly.

    As you all know we are a small organization. We require some basic additional budget resources immediately to help run an assessment that will determine this longer term response aimed at infrastructure and reconstruction. If possible mail checks to:

    AIDG
    P.O. Box 104
    Weston, MA 02493

    We will actually receive these funds faster than online donations. We will be running a larger campaign in concert with our reconstruction announcement.

    For those wishing to have an immediate direct impact on populations in Port Au Prince we are recommending supporting the medical response teams of Partners In Health. www.pih.org They are working with a field hospital set up by the UNDP that immediately needs pain meds, bandages and other medical supplies.

    We ask you all to hold Haiti in your hearts and prayers as this tragedy unfolds.

    Sincerely,

    Peter Haas
    Executive Director, AIDG

    Video: 5 years of AIDG 

    by Catherine Laine
    December 31st, 2009

    Duration: 4 min 19 sec

    Thanks for making our work possible.

    AIDG 5th Annual Holiday Party 

    by Catherine Laine
    December 29th, 2009

    Tonight we’re having our 5th annual holiday party. Can you believe it? It’s been five years since AIDG got started with $800 and a bag of tools. We’ve accomplished a lot in a short amount of time and we couldn’t have done it without you.

    Our holiday party is how we say thanks to all our friends, colleagues and supporters. So if you are in the Boston area come mingle and get an update on the work you helped make happen. If you’re new to the AIDG community or want to be a part of it, don’t be shy! Come out and meet everybody. Hear the stories first hand.

    Come Celebrate with us 

    LOCATION: Our office space in Chinatown.
    33 Harrison Avenue, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02111
    DATE: Tuesday Dec. 29, 2009
    TIME:
    6PM -9 PM

    RSVP: Cat Laine claine@aidg.org 800-401-3860 x703 

    Map to 33 Harrison Ave

    Directions:

    On the T
    From  the Orange Line: Stop at Chinatown. Exit near intersection of Essex St and Washington St. Go East on Essex towards Chinatown. Make first right on Harrison Ave. If you hit Beach Street, you’ve gone too far.

    From  the Green Line: Stop at Boylston Street. Exit near intersection of Boylston St and Tremont St. Walk East on Boylston/Essex St 2 blocks (away from the Common). Take a right on Harrison Ave. If you hit Beach Street, you’ve gone too far.

    From  the Red Line: Stop at Downtown Crossing. Exit near intersection of Summer St and Washington St.  Go Southwest on West on Washington St towards Park Street.  Turn Left on Essex. Make first right on Harrison Ave. If you hit Beach Street, you’ve gone too far.



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