Every free moment of the day, Kenny Meesters is busy with rescue operations in Turkey. Not with a helmet on between the debris, but just from his office at home. There he, like about 100 other people from Brabant, collects crucial information. Which helps the rescuers among the rubble.
Meesters works in daily life as a lecturer and researcher at Tilburg University, but has also been part of an emergency relief team from the United Nations for years. Before that, he had already visited countries such as Nepal and the Philippines. But this time he ‘just’ helps from the Netherlands.
“I received the first messages about the earthquake on Sunday night around three o’clock,” says Meesters. “When I saw the images, I immediately wanted to help. But because I couldn’t go to the affected area, we started looking at how I could be of value.”
“Where is help needed? Which buildings have collapsed?”
He now does this by looking behind his computer for missing puzzle pieces. “The emergency services on site need as much information as possible,” explains Meesters. “Where is help needed? Which buildings have collapsed? And are there perhaps places where many people were together at the time of the earthquake? Our job is to provide that information so that the people there can help more effectively.”
All conceivable digital resources are used for this. “Think of satellite images, on which we can see the state of buildings. But also social media, such as Facebook and Instagram. For example, do we see emergency calls from certain areas, where people urgently need food or shelter?”
As a coordinator, it is Meesters’ responsibility to collect all that information. “And to bundle it in a manageable way, so that the people on site quickly have an overview.
“You don’t have to be technical at all. A computer and interest are enough.”
Does it seem like something to you to contribute in this way? Then don’t wait any longer, says Meesters. “Everyone can do it. You don’t have to be that technical at all. A computer and some interest are enough.”
Fifteen minutes may even be enough. You get it through the website Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team a small area on the map. The program then gives you some kind of assignment. Then it asks, for example, whether there is a building on a certain part of that map. In this way we all build an up-to-date map of the area.”
Meesters does what he can from behind his computer, but perhaps he would have preferred to be on site. “You want to contribute. I’ve been doing this for a while now and people sometimes ask me if it gets easier. It doesn’t. It’s still terrible.”
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