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...



If you liked it, please recommend it to a friend, thanks!

Please leave your feedback.