The initial focus of the BuildAction initiative is working with international firms providing volunteer staff. For logistical, financial and socio-political reasons it can be more effective to use staff based close to disaster-hit areas with support from their firm.
Firms
Several firms are involved or considering involvement with BuildAction (Tuffin Ferraby Taylor, CB Richard Ellis, Savills, Colliers CRE, Gerald Eve, Faithful & Gould, King Sturge, Atis Real, GVA Grimley, AYH and Barker Associates).
If your firm is not among them, you may wish to ask the partners/directors to consider getting involved with BuildAction.
See Frequently Asked Questions for Firms.
Volunteering
At present, we are not able to offer projects to individual volunteers, although we hope to in the future.
If you are retired, self-employed or work for a smaller firm, you may be interested in one of the volunteering schemes or training courses below. RICS does not advocate any particular organisation.
Case Studies
You may also be inspired by case studies from surveyors in disaster areas.
Working for national development agencies
There are opportunities within the United Nations, national development agencies (e.g. DFID, USAID, AusAID) and large Non Governmental Organisations, although these can be difficult to ‘break in’ to. Part of the work of the Major Disaster Management Commission is raising the profile of surveyors in disaster recovery and prevention and educating the humanitarian sector on the roles surveyors and other built environment professionals can play in natural disasters.
