Haiti

Certainly you know of the calamity in Haiti. [Constantly updated Wikipedia page here.]

Here’s the whole of Bitch,Ph.D.’s post Help Haiti:

If you are among the many who wish there was something you could do to help Haitians right now, here is some advice in choosing organizations to support. Short version: send $, not stuff, and send it to organizations that were there before the earthquake.

The two easiest ways to donate:

Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5, which will be added to your next cell phone bill. Yele “is a grassroots movement that builds global awareness for Haiti while helping to transform the country through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment. Yéle’s community service programs include food distribution and mobilizing emergency relief. Grammy-Award winning musician, humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador to Haiti Wyclef Jean founded Yéle Haiti in 2005.”

Text Haiti to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, same deal with the $ charged to your bill next month.

In both cases my understanding is that the entire amount goes to the dedicated organization.

Other suggestions:

Partners in Health has been in Haiti since 1985, and “ranks as one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti – and the only provider of comprehensive primary care, regardless of ability to pay, for more than half a million impoverished people living in the mountainous Central Plateau.”

Oxfam, which is one of my favorite international relief orgs.

UNICEF, which is another.

Catholic Relief Services has been in Haiti for 50 years and is one of the largest human service organizations there.

A few more organizations, many of which are specifically focused on Haiti, can be found here.

And finally, tons of bloggers are generously offering to donate goods and/or services to the highest bidders on the LiveJournal Help Haiti page, with proceeds going to benefit Haiti recovery efforts. Deadline for bidding is Weds, Jan 20. Just don’t bid on the box of Spanish goodies from La Rioja listed here, because that one is mine.

I can’t stress enough the value of the info in her first link from the blog Good Intentions Are Not Enough: An honest conversation about the impact of aid: “Choosing organizations to donate to after the Haiti earthquake.” It’s advice to donors direct from aid workers — posted just yesterday, with Haiti in heart and mind — and it includes links to other blogs posting on how to help Haitians, and suggestions for organizations to support, again posed by aid workers who know a great deal about conditions (and aid orgs) in Haiti before and after the devastating earthquake. GO VISIT.

I’ve also received a few other relief suggestions in my email inbox, most compelling of which is Doctors Without Borders, donations to which are coordinated in this link by a rapidly coalesced group Progressives For Haiti.

100% of the money goes directly to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières which, according to the email I got from Democracy for America, “operates one of the few free trauma centers in Port-au-Prince as well as an emergency hospital in the capital for pregnant women, new mothers, and newborn children. All three of its primary medical centers collapsed during the quake, but working quickly, Doctors Without Borders has already set up temporary shelters and is offering emergency care on the ground.”

[Addendum later in the day after the break]

Back to the computer after some time away, I got this email from Color of Change, well worth sharing:

Dear LD,

As you almost certainly know, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of people or more are likely dead, and a third of the country’s residents may need emergency aid.^1,2

As we watch images from the region, it’s hard not to think of the shock and helplessness we felt after Hurricane Katrina when we watched the lives of large numbers of people, largely Black, torn apart by natural disaster, and in another poverty-stricken and neglected part of the world

In response to Katrina, ColorOfChange members stood up by the thousands to help.  Today, we’re asking you to consider doing so again.  Partners in Health is one of several organizations doing good work, and we’re confident that dollars contributed to them will go far in providing direct, immediate aid.  Click the link below to get started:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/13?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=4

Haiti was the world’s first independent Black republic, and many of us feel a special pride in the country’s origins. Haiti’s former slaves took on Napoleon and declared their independence from France in 1804, decades before the U.S. and the rest of the Western Hemisphere would end slavery. In those years, the small island nation was seen as a thorn in the side of its neighbors in the Americas and Europe. With their act of defiance, Haitians proved that Black people could govern themselves at a time when leaders of the world’s most powerful countries considered Africans and African descendants less than human.³

Since that revolutionary moment, the country’s residents have often suffered. Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, with four out of five people living in poverty even before disaster struck. More than 3,000 people died because of hurricanes and tropical storms in the last decade, and thousands more were left homeless.⁴

Tuesday’s earthquake dealt the latest and most devastating blow for Haiti.  The recovery will be long and hard.  And like the Gulf, it will take a long-term commitment.  The financial support we give today needs to be just the beginning, but it is a crucial start.  Please consider giving what you can, either to Partners in Health or another organization that is providing critically-needed services.

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/13?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=6

Thanks and Peace,

— James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Milton and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
January 14, 2010

References

1. “Tens Of Thousands Feared Dead In Haiti Quake,” The New York Times, 1-13-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/11?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=8

2. “Even Haiti’s president is homeless,” The Miami Herald, 1-13-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/7?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=10

3. “Saving Haiti,” The Root, 1-13-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/8?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=12

4. “Haiti, Hopeful Yesterday, Suddenly Plunged Back Into Chaos,” Newsweek blog, 1-13-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/9?akid=1326.112244.FetnjS&t=14