(ii) Tents and shelter. Hidden costs in humanitarian aid and emergency. MAINTENANCE

Is it just the price of the emergency tent the only important thing for taking the right decision when selecting a tent for emergency brigades?

2. SHOULD A TENT KEEP ITS SHAPE WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION? WHY NOT?

Are tent manufacturers always aware that emergency brigades and volunteers in humanitarian or emergency aid are also persons? Persons who need to have a rest after a long and strenuous journey.

They should not have to start another new job when they are going to use their temporary housing, the task of keeping the tent tight.

What if someone tought in advance in make it easier for these so sacrified and encouraging people their own living at their temporary housing?

When we look at the market we find many tent manufacturers, each of them offer 'their' own solution, but it is really hard to find some that offer not their solution but the solution of the people who is on site putting their best efforts to help damnified homeless people, to save lives, to help rejoining broken families (when possible), to organize the disaster after the catastrophe arises...

When you talk to the people who has been to the site for so many times in thier lives that they are not able to count them, you inmediately understand why they dislike so much inflatable tents, they like of course to put up their tents in few minutes, but... 

They don't want to become slaves of their temporary housing!, having to inflate and deinflate it several times a day, day after day, why?, because the outside temperature has the bad habit of changing without respecting the theoretical assumptions of tent designers.

High daytime temperatures and low temperatures at night makes the pressure of the tent vary and then it oblies to inflate the tent at night when the pressure is low and deinflate it at the middle of the day when the pressure is high.

It is not only the time spent on these annoying tasks but the noise produced by the compressor machine and the need of fueling it, and having a reserve of fuel or looking for it in the worst conditions. The emergency brigades or volunteers are not expected to devote their precious time to this intendence tasks or to be disturbed while resting at their tents by a disturbing noise when the compressor machine starts to run.

Is then the solution a traditional tent with its guy ropes? Not really, the experience shows that this kind of tents need to be adjusted also very frequently, particularly when the wind blows or the rain falls.

But, then, what is the solution for having the tent erected without devoting time to this task?

This is one of the main ideas to have in mind: A tent should be capable of keeping its shape without making it necessary to have some people tighting the tent or adequating the inside pressure. Let's free the users so they have more time to devote to the task they are there for.

Next: Assembly


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Tents and shelter. Hidden costs in humanitarian aid and emergency. SPACE.

Is it just the price of the emergency tent the only important thing for taking the right decision when selecting a tent for emergency brigades?



1. THE SPACE, FIRST THING NEEDED TO ENJOY A PRACTICAL COMFORT.

When an emergency arises, there is no much time left to spend in selecting the right tent. Nor for victims neither for professionals or volunteers helping them.

The emergency tent selection is like so many other things in emergency management: What makes the difference is the planification and preparedness.

One of the most important things for the people who is being on site for emergencies lasting more than a couple of days  is to have a place to sleep where it is possible to rest for a while.

It would be fine to have a nice and comfortable place, with a bed and enough space around in a solid building where to spend the resting ours trying to sleep, but this is not usually possible.

For most of the people on emergency site, the tent is the only available solution.

Tents were invented more than 20 centuries ago, the problem is that most of them still are quite similar to those of the first years.

The first consideration for having a practical comfort in a tent is having enough space, inside and at the surrounding space. We are use to see a messy labyrinth of guy ropes crossing all the free space between tents in an emergency campsite, making it difficult to move around to the people who have other major concerns at that moment. To make easier their lives letting them free to move around without obstacles crossing their path should be one main objective for a high quality tent designer.


When a volunteer or an emergency proffesional after a hard work journey, lasting sometimes for 24 or 48 hours, need to have a rest, we should help to him or her to enjoy a practical comfort in their temporary sleeping sites. If you ever tried it, you will know that one of most annoying things is when you have to put on or take off your trousers while sitting on the floor with your legs up, you rather would prefer to be able to stand up inside your tent. That should be a second major concern: Create a inner space spacious enough to move freely and make it easy to enter into and exit from this space.

To be continued...



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