Full Circle Associates

Recently on the KM4Dev (Knowledge Management for Development) list there has been a very interesting discussion on the impacts of major disasters such as epidemics, floods, wars, etc. on the knowledge base of a community or profession. What happens when HIV takes out a significant portion of a community's teachers, or engineers? What happens when the knowledge of local crops is lost during war, famine or natural disaster? What happens when a huge portion of a community's population does not return after a hurricane, depleting the rich knowledge of local history, culture and customs? These are huge issues.

I have been wondering about what online networks can do in this case. Mark Winslow pointed me to this work, Healing Wounds, which talks about the issue from a agriculture knowledge perspective. The piece has a series of stories that are full of lessons and ideas. Here is the table of contents:

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements Executive Summary
Chapter1: Poverty, Conflict, and Natural Disasters: Persistent Plagues of the Developing World
Chapter 2: Agricultural Research and Development: A Way Out?
Chapter 3: Rebuilding Seed and Food Systems
Chapter 4: Safeguarding and Restoring Agrobiodiversity
Chapter 5: Rebuilding Human and Institutional Capacities
Chapter 6: Reducing Vulnerability to Future Conflicts and Disasters
Chapter 7: Helping Aid Organizations Become More Effective and Efficient

If your community were to be hit by disaster today, think not only of the physical recovery, but of the recovery of a community's culture, it's memory, it's knowledge. How would yours recover? What are you doing today to make sure it can ride the wave of a disaster?