At 10.02.2005, Amy Hudnall wrote:

Dear Lynne, Livia, Evelin, Craig, Lindsey, Nelden, and Colleagues,

As many of you have already heard rumors about the creation of a tsunami relief page from H-Net, I wanted to let you know that it is now in the offing. Hopefully in the next few days we will have a Web page available with multiple fact sheets on regions hit by the tsunami.

As we have all learned through egregious mistakes and trial and error, the best way to be successful with trauma victims, whether we are there as helpers or journalists, is to have a strong background in the culture or society and their history. You make less mistakes with this knowledge, you are successful faster and at the same time you reduce risks to your personal health.

H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers dedicated to developing the enormous educational potential of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Their edited lists and web sites publish peer reviewed essays, multimedia materials, and discussion for colleagues and the interested public. There are over 120,000 members of H-Net, including some of the best scholars in their fields. It is a perfect source for harnessing the knowledge you need in the field.

What H-Net has begun to do is recruit, with the collaboration of the Institute of Rural Health at Idaho State University,well-qualified field experts in selected topics related to the language, history, culture, mores, religions, and political practices of areas where relief operations are active (the call is at this site, the page will be up shortly at the same site, http://www.h-net.org/). These experts will create fact sheets, provide press interviews, and otherwise offer background information for reporters, journalists, relief workers, and other individuals entering the disaster area. This material will help make the relief effort more sensitive to local cultural conditions and thereby improve the efficiency of these operations. It may also help to reduce the potential for secondary trauma among relief workers exposed to an extremely stressful and culturally unfamiliar environment of death, suffering, and destruction.

The briefing and background materials will be available from a website offered by H-NET. However, it would be helpful for us, in recruiting these experts, for them to know that you would find this valuable. If you could respond to me about what you think of the usefulness of the project so that I could share your responses with the list members, I think we might have a response strong enough to allow us to keep a page like this up permanently. We could respond quickly to any crisis at any time and you could consider us as partners in your pre-deployment training programs. Please spread the word to other aide organizations. If we make this successful, we are essentially providing you with a ready made portion of your training: you don't have to find the experts, prepare the materials, or evaluate the quality of the materials, it will already be done for you.

I look forward to hearing from all of you with your comments and suggestions.
Thanks so much,
Amy Hudnall

--
Amy C. Hudnall
LECTURER
History Dept., Whitener Hall, Appalachian State University,
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-6025; hudnallac@appstate.edu

RESEARCH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Institute of Rural Health, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID
208-282-4681; hudnamy@isu.edu

H-GENOCIDE BOOK REVIEW EDITOR, H-NET