We are the Force of Nature

“Force of Nature? Oh yeah, they are the one who did the concert for tsunami. Great concert, I get to see Black Eye Peas & Backstreet Boys.”

“You are working with Force of Nature? Yeah I know about the concert. Wow, it must be cool working with an event management company, huh?”

Those are the kind of reactions we get every time we mentioned Force of Nature (or more fondly known as FON). People remember the concert and unfortunately mistaken us as concert organisers. Well we are not, and this is why we turn to blogging, to get the message across loud and clear. We are FON, a Malaysian non-profit grant making agency dedicated to rebuild the lives of natural disaster survivors.



FON is arguably the only grant maker in the developing world that concentrates on long-term disaster management and risk reduction. That means we don’t do relief work, we fund projects that will benefit the disaster affected people in the long run. We build something stronger than bricks, we build hope.

Our projects are people centred, we aim to help individuals and local communities to achieve a standard of living higher than before the disaster hit. We do that by giving them loans to start business and teaching them how to run their business. We hope to reduce the impact of disaster by learning & research, bringing together countries affected by disasters in workshops & conferences to share their experiences and knowledge.

In short, what we can say about our projects is, we don’t construct buildings, we ‘construct’ what’s going on in the building.


“When are you guys going to Myanmar? The victims need all the help they can get. The sooner you go the better.”

“I can’t remember FON doing anything for the Pakistan earthquake but I remembered reading about X organization that went there to set up temporary shelters.”

Those are the general views of the public towards us. It’s understandable given the nature of our work. We only start telling the public about our work after the media attention on a disaster has subsided. In contrast, relief work (setting up temporary shelters, supplying food & clean water, etc2) gets a lot of attention because of the timing. It starts immediately after a disaster has happened when the world is full of interest and gives full attention.

It is after the relief work has finished (normally 6-12 months) that we start to go in the affected area. For example, the Indian Asian Tsunami that hit the world in 2004, we waited until the relief phase has ended before going in and we have since disbursed RM6 million for our tsunami projects. Overall, our projects has supported more than 100,000 people in Pakistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Malaysia to rebuild lives, restore livelihoods, empower communities and rehabilitate & protect the environment.

Relief work is very important, but so does long-term disaster management. Everyone has a part to play, and ours is long-term post recovery initiatives. We have different roles with different purposes but in the end we are all aiming for the same goal, which is to lend a hand for the survivors of natural disasters.


WE ARE THE FORCE OF NATURE…

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