NATAN marks 20 years of post-disaster aid

NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief has reached 20 years of providing emergency medical, dental and psychological care to survivors of war and other natural and man-made disasters.

The Israeli humanitarian organization’s inaugural mission followed the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in December 2004. Over two decades since, NATAN has engaged in on-the-ground global relief efforts, treating hundreds of thousands of disaster survivors on five continents and in 15 countries.

NATAN assisted when natural disasters struck Haiti, the Philippines, Guatemala, Serbia, Mozambique, Nepal, Turkey, Morocco and more. It also worked with war survivors and refugees in Georgia during its war with Russia, in Serbia and Greece, in Jordan with the Syrian refugees, in Colombia with the Venezuelan refugees, and most recently and ongoing with Ukrainian survivors both in Poland and in Ukraine.

When the tragic need arose following Oct. 7, NATAN responded quickly and ably at home.

The organization’s contributions have been widely recognized, earning the Changing the World Award from the Knesset in 2022 and the Genesis Prize (the “Jewish Nobel”) for its work in Ukraine in 2023.

The heart of NATAN is its community of over 1,700 dedicated volunteers willing to deploy at a moment’s notice. NATAN volunteers

•consist exclusive-ly of experienced, licensed professionals (doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health workers, logistics managers and more) who offer their valuable services strictly on a volunteer basis,

•represent the best of Israeli society. Both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs share a strong desire to help and are ready to “run towards the fire,”

•respond immediately when disasters occur. Often, they are the first to arrive at the site of a disaster,

•are trained to assist survivors in addressing both their mental and physical well-being.

Last May, the board announced the appointment of Alice Miller as its new CEO. Miller is well known in Israel as a trailblazer, the first woman to challenge the Israeli Airforce’s ban on female participation in its fighter pilot course, taking her case to the Israeli Supreme Court to do so.

Her victory set a precedent for women to serve in combat in the military and she served in the IAF for ten years as an aerospace engineer. Subsequently she became a successful entrepreneur, a renowned lecturer, and an esteemed icon in Israel.

NATAN is named Abie Natan, renowned pilot turned Israeli peace activist and humanitarian, who was born in Iran, raised in India, and moved to Israel in 1948 to fight with the Jewish state’s nascent air force. He gained international recognition with his illegal “Flight for Peace” from Israel to Egypt, attempting to hand-deliver to Nasser a petition with signatures from over 200,000 Israelis pleading for peace.

Abie Nathan used his fame to organize significant emergency humanitarian missions.

Information supplied by NATAN.