Facing the Future
Throughout Los Angeles, a network of Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers helps to fulfill the community’s role in emergency preparedness. At top, Volunteer Ministers join other community groups at the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Fair.
Today, Los Angeles faces the future, whatever it brings, as a coordinated team.
ENLA was formed just after the January 1994 Northridge quake. While unquestionably a disaster, remarkably only 57 lives were lost despite the widespread property damage. Speculation on what might have happened had the quake struck during rush hour instead of the pre-dawn hour made it apparent to both city and county that better disaster preparedness throughout Los Angeles needed to become a top priority. That sense of urgency has never waned, as the population swells and as news of disasters elsewhere continue to remind officials and community leaders of the necessity to respond quickly and efficiently.
ENLA, which has since extended to other cities around the world, is a coalition of religious and secular relief organizations dedicated to working together during emergencies to help handle the impact of a major disaster.
Among the groups which comprise the ENLA coalition is the Church of Scientology International Hubbard Ecclesiastical League of Pastors (I HELP), which sponsors the Volunteer Minister Program. Through the years, teams of Scientology Volunteer Ministers have been on the scene of disaster relief efforts around the world.
The activities of the Volunteer Ministers are coordinated from the main I HELP office in Los Angeles and continental or regional offices for the Western and Eastern U.S., Canada, Mexico and Central and South America, England, continental Europe, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
While the volunteer program was created in 1976, it was during the 1990s, with the boom of the Internet and satellite-based communications, that a true global response network developed.
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