As a longtime emergency care nurse, Mary-Jane (“MJ”) Perry has witnessed innumerable traumas. But it was a local incident—responding to a hit-and-run one block from her home in Sacramento, California—that “really hit home” and put her on the path to volunteering in responses to natural disasters around the world. In January 2018, MJ found a …
International Medical Corps has been active in the United States and its territories since 2005, responding to emergencies including Hurricane Katrina and the COVID-19 pandemic. Below, Shira Goldstein, Deputy Director of Country Planning and Programs for the US, talks about how responses in our home country differ from those in other countries. There are so …
When multiple wildfires broke out in Los Angeles in early January, International Medical Corps was very much there—staff members could clearly see the first fire, in the Pacific Palisades, from our office windows. These collective fires eventually burned a total of more than 16,000 homes, businesses and schools across 40,000 acres, displacing at least 200,000 …
On the morning of September 27, 2024, North Carolinians were bracing for a hit. The National Hurricane Center had been tracking a storm—christened Helene on September 24—for more than a week. What started as a low-pressure weather system was headed for the US Gulf Coast as a life-threatening hurricane, and a state of emergency had …
Helping Earthquake-Affected Communities in Ethiopia On December 4, 2024, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake struck the Awash Fentale district in Ethiopia, displacing families and devastating communities across seven districts. This was the most significant in a series of tremors that have rocked the region since September, forcing tens of thousands of people to seek safer areas. …
“I vividly remember photos of malnourished Ethiopian children on the cover of National Geographic in the early 1980s,” says Dr. Bernardita Gaspar, Deputy Country Director with International Medical Corps in Sudan. “Even though I was a child, I understood what was happening, and it prompted me to tell my father that I wanted to become …
In South Sudan, where floods swallow the land and infrastructure is almost non-existent, accessing urgent medical care can be a life-or-death challenge. This became painfully clear when International Medical Corps Program Manager Bithou Gatkuoth faced a medical emergency while working in Nyal, a city in the central part of the country. On Saturday, February 1, …
It’s a warmer-than-normal January afternoon in Santa Monica, California. On the side of the road, in a parking lot temporarily serving as the re-entry point to the scorched Palisades neighborhood, members of International Medical Corps’ mental health team are approaching residents to see how they’re doing and provide resources to support their emotional recovery. Kimberly …
On December 4, 2024, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Awash Fentale woreda (district) in Ethiopia, a semi-desert plain to the east of the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. The quake, which devastated communities across seven districts and forced thousands of people to evacuate the area in search of safe shelter, was the most significant recent natural …
When Hurricane Helene slammed into the southeastern United States on September 26, it brought with it catastrophic levels of rainfall and flooding. The city of Asheville, North Carolina, was particularly hard-hit. In response, International Medical Corps deployed clinical volunteers and support staff to western North Carolina to provide primary care and behavioral health services at …