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 Tom Henderson,
OBE
(left), a
Rotarian and former Royal Navy search and rescue diver founded ShelterBox.
As of August 2012, Henderson is now longer an officer of
ShelterBox.
He saw that the aid response to most
disasters was in the form of food and medicine to help people
survive the immediate aftermath.
Little or no assistance
was given in terms of proper shelter to help them through the
first few days, weeks and months as they tried to rebuild their
lives. ShelterBox was launched to fill that void.
In
1999, Tom started researching the idea, sourcing equipment and
twisting arms to get the project off the ground. His persistence
paid off in April 2000 when Shelter Box was launched and the
Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard in Cornwall adopted it as its
millennium project. Little did they know that it would become
the largest Rotary club project in the world, with affiliates in
eight countries.
1
The first
consignment of 143 boxes was sent to earthquake victims in the
Indian state of Gujarat in January 2001. Over the
next three years the project matured and by the end of 2004
nearly 2,600 boxes had been dispatched, following 16 major
disasters. On 26 December 2004, news came of the devastating
2
Indian
Ocean Tsunami and Shelter Box faced its most
significant challenge, one that would change its course forever.
Donations and volunteers poured in and they were able to ramp up
their operations on a scale unimaginable just six months earlier.
In 2005 ShelterBox sent out more than 22,000 boxes, almost 10 times
the number they had sent out in the previous three years. Not only
were they sending aid to victims of the Tsunami, but they were also
able to help those who had lost their homes in
3
Hurricane
Katrina in the USA and the massive earthquake that
hit the
4
Kashmir
region of Pakistan. In just a few short months,
ShelterBox had emerged as a major player in the field of
international disaster relief.
They have continued to build
on their Tsunami experience, helping as many people as they can, as
quickly as they can, the moment disaster strikes.
ShelterBox has
now worked on every continent, responding to
earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, typhoons, hurricanes,
volcanoes, and conflicts.
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Notes
1 The first
ShelterBoxes ever deployed were sent to Gujarat following a huge
earthquake in January 2001. Measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale
this was the largest quake to hit India since the 18th century.
Around 20,000 people were killed and an estimated 1,000,000
buildings destroyed.
2 The Boxing Day
Tsunami of 2004 was triggered by one of the biggest and
longest-lasting earthquakes in recent history. Three
months after the Tsunami another earthquake affected the
northwest coast of the country, leaving a further 200,000 people
in need of shelter. Throughout 2005 ShelterBox sent almost 10,000 boxes to
the various parts of the country that had been affected by these
two disasters.
3
In August 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated the
southeast of the USA. It was estimated that 80% of New
Orleans was flooded and communities all along the coasts of
Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi had been battered by
hurricane-force winds and a storm surge that sent walls of water
several miles inland. Aid from ShelterBox was the first help to reach many victims
of the disaster. Response team volunteers from the UK worked
with local Rotarians and officials to distribute tents to
thousands of people who had seen their homes and possessions
destroyed.
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 4
In October 2005, a major earthquake struck the Kashmir region
killing more than 70,000 people and leaving an estimated 3.5
million homeless. ShelterBox immediately sent SRTs
and thousands of tents to the region, working with local Rotary
clubs and Pakistani government agencies. Over the months following the quake, ShelterBox sent tents
for up to 138,000 people making the deployment the charity's
biggest to date in a single country.
Organizations within Rotary and/or
associated with Rotarians
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