2017 was an expensive, deadly year of natural disasters on Earth. Wildfires relentlessly scorched dry land from California to Portugal. Super-strength hurricanes and tropical storms slammed homes from the Caribbean to Ireland. Famine continued in Somalia and Yemen, while avalanches killed more than a hundred people in Afghanistan.
People around the world recorded record-breaking devastation, much of it caused by higher-than-usual temperatures on land and at sea. Climate experts say that in a warming world, these fatal events will continue to worsen.
While the monetary costs of these disasters got the headlines, Catholic health care organizations are called to look at far more than financial implications as they respond to disasters in their own communities served in the U.S. and internationally and beyond their service markets. Be they hurricanes, fires, flooding, mudslides, tornadoes or other—Catholic health care responded and have challenges, insights and lessons to share.
You are Invited – CHA Special Convening to Share Lessons Learned & Address Ethical and Identity Implications
These recent disasters crossed ministries and borders and requires consideration. CHA is convening members July 25-26 in Irving, Texas, to provide a timely forum for sharing insights and lessons learned. While not a training meeting or detailed step-by-step, how-to forum, this meeting will instead bring together those who coordinated responses so that as a ministry we can collectively learn from the "how," as well as highlight the "why" of response as a mission imperative.
The meeting will address the two types of international and domestic disasters we respond to as a ministry:
- Those involving the community(s) served directly by the organization
- Those that while not in the organization's direct service market, happen in countries and communities we feel compelled to assist as part of our mission
The meeting will include keynote presentations, panel forums and plenty of time for questions, comments and discussion. It will also provide ample networking time so that CHA members can meet their colleagues from across the country as well as international partners.