It is always hard to grasp the magnitude of suffering in Haiti - a place that should not be so desperately impoverished, that should never be the victim of so much suffering has an almost unending depth of misery. And it has only gotten worse over the last few years, as high food prices have driven people to starvation, as hurricane after hurricane has battered Haiti, and now the earthquake has caused immeasurably more suffering. The best most of us can do is open our purses, and we should open them wide.
Where to? Well, all the usual suspects are good - The Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, Unicef. But here are a couple others:
Haiti Children is a shoestring orphanage program for abandoned children (of which there are many) in Haiti. They put all the money to children's issues - and there will be more orphans now: http://www.haitichildren.com/
The Lambi Fund of Haiti is a fascinating grassroots organization founded by partners in Haiti and the US that focuses on democracy, micro-credit and environmental stewardship, as well as immediate relief issues: http://www.lambifund.org
Give now, given generously. I will.
Sharon
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Thanks for the links, Sharon. I just donated $50 to Haiti Children. I'm just a student, so I couldn't manage much more than that, but I figured every bit helps.
Thank you, Sharon. I had been sitting here wondering who to give to when I saw your post.
Blessings,
~traci
vancouver, wa
An interesting excersise is to look at the Haiti/Dominican Republic border using google earth, and to see the deforestation on one side but not the other. Haiti's troubles are not geographical - they are political.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=19.009054,-71.752911&spn=0.19476,0.3…
I gave $100 through the Red Cross... and felt terribly impotent. Prayers can't hurt, I guess!
Save the Children is another one of the "usual suspects", and they have an emergency fund for Haiti. I've worked with their programs before, e.g. knitting caps for newborns in developing countries, and so I donated through their site.
Some of our medical students just returned last week from a winter break healthcare mission in Haiti, and I'm sure that most of them would like to suspend their classes, and return to help in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Save the Children has long been active in Haiti, and their proportion of funds that go to direct aid is very good.
Partners in Health, which was cofounded by the amazing Dr. Paul Farmer, is another reputable non-profit. They have clinics already in place in rural areas of Haiti and are already treating the wounded. Dr. Farmer's was the subject of Tracy Kidder's book "Mountains beyond Mountains".
Here is a link: http://www.pih.org/home.html
Haiti's problems are complex. True, they aren't fundamentally geographical, in that you could grow wood on those hills. But being where Christopher Columbus hit the new world was an accident of geography from which Haiti hasn't fully recovered either.
Sharon
Are there any programs to house refugees? My roommate observed that while we don't have a lot of cash to donate, we have more than enough space and pantry to support a fair number of people. The drawback is this involves tropical cultures coming to Maine in the winter... [wry grin]
There is also Heifer International. After the initial crisis relief work, it is important to support efforts that will help the Haitians rebuild their lives:
"Heifer has worked in Haiti for 10 years, currently supporting 16 projects with more than 16,000 families and several farmer associations. Our projects are scattered around the country and range from training in sustainable farming and crop diversity to gifts of livestock, seeds, trees and grains to training in nutrition, aquaculture and fish production."
Here is their website:
http://www.heifer.org
Corinne in Paris
This is a tough month for our budget so we rounded up all our coin jars (where we drop our spare change) and to our amazement came up with almost $100 which we donated to Haiti through the Clinton/Bush fund.