AAI is a non profit organisation, which specifically targets communities that are difficult to access because of their remoteness and therefore require foot mounted patrols, helicopters is available or by any means necessary.

All volunteers are self funded, having paid their own way to disaster areas.

We urgently need funds from either private citizens, industry, or the government.

Donations go straight to buying:

• essential medical equipment
• vital medicine
• IRAS emergency shelter systems
• keeping local medical clinics operating and functional
• fuel and vehicle maintanance to keep AAI mobile
• local staff such as doctors, nurses, interpreters and drivers

All donations are Secure Online Donations sponsored by

Click here to donate.

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AAI MEDICAL PROGRAMS UPDATE

AAI has completed the design of community education materials on hypothermia in Urdu. These will be distributed through the Shelter and Health Programs, as well as given to the WHO and UNICEF to share with other agencies, and are appropriate for community members of many levels of education. AAI is partnering with the Cuban Hospital to distribute Community Health education materials through health facilities as well as schools. Topics focus on personal hygiene, sanitation, pregnant women, safe water, and EPI vaccinations. AAI plans a hygiene education program in Kahuta-area schools through art classes, thus promoting creativity and local dissemination of knowledge to combat the high rates of diarrheal diseases reported. Click here to read more.

IMPROVISED RAPID ALL-WEATHER SHELTER (IRAS)

The IRAS is a transitional shelter which can last between one to five years depending on how well owners protect the structure by using plastic sheeting or mud render. The unit cost inclusive is approx US$280. Therefore the cost of the design will go to providing a permanent outbuilding for animals or as a store in the future when communities move into their permanent structures.

The major cost is the CGI sheets which have increased in value by up to 50% due to the supply demand. Some other organisations solutions require double the amount of CGI sheet than is being proposed by the IRAS design. Therefore many other shelter kits are more expensive than the IRAS. There are also no tools or equipment that has to be provided to construct the IRAS, also reducing the costs of design.

Since the building of the first IRAS in Bagh, a number of groups have expressed interest in the design and have asked AAI to assist them with the construction and distribution in their own AO's. One of AAI 's main goals is to promote the IRAS design so that other organisations doing emergency shelter will consider using the IRAS system which will save on resources and cost, which most other designs are unable to compete with.

Locally designed, by a group of architects and engineers who wanted to assist with the relief effort, they feverously began researching and testing temporary shelters that could quickly and cheaply be built for immediate distribution to the homeless in Northern Pakistan. What they have developed is the IRAS that meets all requirements of not only suitable emergency shelter but that of integration of emergency shelter into longer life structures.

The designers looked at the basic guidelines of temporary shelter and established that shelters should be, quick and easy to build by community members, be safe against extreme weather and further earthquakes that are common in this region, be inexpensive (costing about the same price as a non-winterised tent), easily transported to remote mountainous villages by foot, constructed of locally and culturally familiar materials and methods of construction, and built requiring no special tools or equipment.

The materials used include empty cement bags, filled with soil on site to construct the walls. These replace brick and stone. Barded wire is used as a binder instead of cement and gives the structure a monolithic design and contributes to earthquake resistance. The roof is made of only 5 sheets of CGI sheets requiring no internal supports due to the barrel vault roof design.

Click here to learn more about IRAS.

Click here to see AAI volunteers training villagers to build their own IRAS.

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SPONSOR A SHELTER

Each shelter costs US$280 or AUS$370 which includes all the materials needed. By SPONSORING A SHELTER you will directly be paying for a home for a family of up to 8 people to survive the freezing winter that has already arrived.

Click here to read more about the IRAS program and click here to read about how AAI's first shelter was built.

Click here to Sponsor A Shelter

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COMMUNITY REFORMATION UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF DISASTER/STRESS: IN CONTEXT WITH SOCIAL REHABILITATION (A CASE STUDY OF AN EARTHQUAKE HIT AREA):

AAI is supporting research into the effects that the Pakistan earthquake has had on the social structure of the community and how people are responding under the conditions of this disaster full story

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Click here to listen to Marc describe the latest situation and what AAI personnel have achieved and their future plans.

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