At UPS, we understand that logistics can save lives. When disaster strikes, we team up with the World Food Programme (WFP) – among other humanitarian partners – to deliver much-needed aid to vulnerable populations all over the world. We recently facilitated a flight to Entebbe, Uganda, carrying 92 metric tons of High Energy Biscuits (HEBs) to assist WFP efforts in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where civil conflict has driven many people out of their homes and into hunger.

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Godfather II. Spiderman II. Toy Story II. Sometimes sequels surpass expectations by being as good or even better than the original. My colleagues at UPS met the sequel challenge with flying colors. UPS’s second flight of humanitarian aid was delivered successfully to the Sahel region, where millions of people face dire hunger and living conditions due to severe drought and civil unrest.

Our April flight to Sahel was in support of UNICEF. This week’s airlift is the first consolidated flight carrying goods for multiple agencies and reflects our hopes to combine resources among charitable groups for more efficient delivery of supplies.

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I recently had the opportunity to attend the Business Civic Leadership Center’s national conference, which was focused on corporate citizenship. While there, I led one of four rotating sessions focused on skills-based volunteerism and had the opportunity to share a bit about what UPS does to apply its logistics expertise to relief agencies before and after urgent humanitarian relief situations.

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The effects of the earthquake that ravaged Haiti in 2010 continue to affect the small island nation and its people. Immediately following the quake, UPS committed $1 million in cash and in-kind shipping to three humanitarian relief organizations: CARE, the Red Cross, and UNICEF to support the victims of Haiti’s earthquake.

UPSers also stepped up to support the Haitian people. Several have been activated as part of the World Food Programme’s Logistics Emergency Team and other have helped through their communities. One such UPSer is Jerry Rutherford, an employee at UPS Worldport.

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Nigeria is a country blessed with abundant human and material resources. It is the most populated African country with more than 150 million people.

They are also blessed not to have the serious natural disasters common around the world. Typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc…

The country has also known relative peace and tranquility over time. But, in recent years the political divides and ethnic differences has lead to militants in the south, terrorist in the north, religious upheavals in the middle belts resulting in thousands of deaths.

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Today, 11-to-13 million people are starving and are fleeing southern Somalia for camps in Kenya.  Experts are calling it the worst drought in 60 years. More than 2 million children (under the age of five) in Somalia as well as in parts of Kenya and Ethiopia are acutely malnourished, including almost 500,000 children in an immediate life-threatening state.  In addition, children are more vulnerable to the spread of killer diseases, especially to outbreaks of measles, diarrhea and pneumonia. 

In response to this tragic situation, UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WFP) have officially released urgent appeals for assistance.  This week, UPS committed to leverage its global logistics network to help speed emergency supplies to the region.

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On March 11, a record 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the Japanese city of Sendai. The quake had an epicenter just off the east coast, which spawned a 32-foot tsunami that surged a quarter of a mile inland, instantly killing thousands of people. The earthquake also damaged nuclear power plants, causing a third emergency with a partial nuclear meltdown and a widespread radiation scare. Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan described the aftermath of the quake as Japan’s worst crisis since World War II.

The Logistics Emergency Team (LET), a partnership between UPS, Agility, TNT and Maersk was deployed to provide logistics support to aid humanitarian relief efforts. I work as a Supply Chain Solutions Ocean Import Supervisor and as the UPS LET coordinator. Here is my journal.

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I just returned from the annual meeting of the National Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) in Kansas City, just hours from Joplin, Missouri. The outpouring of support from the public has been unbelievable. But based on feedback I heard from first responders at the meeting, unsolicited donations of water, clothes and other items have significantly challenged relief efforts. One relief organization told me they have thousands of cases of water in their warehouse. The AP highlighted this issue in a story about junk donations creating problems for relief agencies helping tornado victims in Alabama.

In my role with The UPS Foundation, I receive hundreds of calls asking for UPS to ship unsolicited goods. The challenge is that these donations don’t meet the needs of the relief agencies that are helping victims. UPS does not transport collected items from unsolicited donors for relief efforts. Instead, we’ve established in-kind agreements with relief organizations like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army, CARE, UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the Aidmatrix Network. Our goal is provide logistics support to deliver the right items to the right place at the right time.

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Helping those in need

On July 29, unusually strong monsoon rains in Pakistan caused massive flooding across the region, which led to the death of approximately 1,600 people. Severe rains have continued to wash away homes and businesses leaving thousands without basic necessities or their livelihoods.

It is estimated that about 13.8 million people are affected with nearly half of those needing some type of humanitarian aid to survive.  

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UPSers John Vera and Bill Torres spent six weeks in the Dominican Republic supporting the World Food Programme’s disaster relief efforts following the January 12th earthquake in Haiti. Here’s a look back from John:

After six extremely grueling weeks, both mentally and physically, Bill Torres and I have come to the conclusion of our Haiti humanitarian mission.  Although we were stationed out of the Dominican Republic, it did not make the work load any less difficult or less stressful. On the contrary, the distance often hampered our goal of getting the goods into an impoverished Haiti quickly and efficiently. Since we orchestrated the logistical moves out of the Santo Domingo airport it was often evident that the need and urgency we felt to deliver the goods was not reciprocated by the locals, especially the owners of the bonded warehouses where the goods were stored.

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