Artwork for podcast Your Positive Imprint
Natural Disaster survivors find hope through All Hands and Hearts global response team. Relief from volunteers in purple shirts
Episode 1418th March 2019 • Your Positive Imprint • Catherine Praiswater
00:00:00 00:30:38

Share Episode

Shownotes

All Hands and Hearts Dedicated Member,

Jess van Schalkwyk, Disaster Relief

What do you do when disaster strikes?

You’re all alone.  All hope seems diminished.

Petra Němcová of the Czech Republic hung on to a palm tree as the ocean tried to swallow her up in the 2004 Great Indian Ocean tsunami.  Her fiancé nowhere to be seen but her hope was that he would find something to cling to.  That was not to be. 

Petra walked away with injuries but she had her life.  The experience changed her and she dedicates her life to global communities and victims of natural disasters.  She began the Happy Hearts Fund which merged with David Campbell's, All Hands Volunteers in 2017 creating All Hands and Hearts.

All Hands and Hearts is a global response team dispatched to natural disaster sites around the world. 

I live in South Africa and my background is in disaster management.

When a disaster hits we will monitor it online using social media to see what is being said by the country itself and by the people within that country. 

From there we will decide on whether or not we're going to send in a team; our immediate response team.

We are there for the people who need us most.

It's about getting to the problem as soon as possible but staying as long as they need us and making sure that the solutions we implement are going to involve long-term sustainability.

We rebuild schools.  Children need a place to learn and a place that is safe. It is all about the future and by providing that school we know that they have hope for a future.

We can't control nature but we can control the actions that we take in a natural disaster. 

Come Early, Stay Late

disaster-respoonse-volunteer-photo
jess-photo

Photos:

Volunteer Michael, Florida

Jess, Puerto Rico

Volunteers sharing cultures

photo-volunteers

Learn more about All Hands and Hearts

Please sign up! for podcast email updates!

You can sign up for Your Positive Imprint email updates below.  Emails are from me.

Please post positive reviews on iTunes or your favorite Podcast platform!

Please subscribe to this podcast by clicking on the Subscribe button at your favorite podcast platform!  Thank you for the support!!