Three days after Hurricane Katrina obliterated a vast swath of the Gulf Coast, Oxfam America dispatched a team of emergency relief experts to Mississippi.
It was the first time Oxfam, a relief organization with headquarters in Oxford, England, had ever responded to a humanitarian crisis in the United States.
"Our whole U.S. program was built around addressing endemic poverty, not disaster relief," said Raymond Offenheiser, president of the American affiliate. "But for a variety of reasons, not the least of them what happened - or didn't happen - after Katrina, we're looking at that becoming more of what we do here." [Read more - International Herald Tribune]
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