Japan is there some fund you can contribute to?

[ZZZenAgain]

Hi does anyone know of a fund to help the people in Japan after the quake/tsunami - or some way of showing support to them?

I am overseas but I would like to try and do something.

I agree with exexpat, I'd rather give to the Red Cross general fund now - they're doing such good work in Japan, and I want to restock their coffers for the next disaster, where the money may be more of an issue.

Giving unrestricted funds to the Red Cross is good advice

Shoe box gifts for international aid is never a good idea (incredibly inefficient, a token).

I don't think Shelterbox is a good idea as an aid agency. Aid agencies use lots of products (tents, tarps, plumpynut etc..) they don't each need to be an NGO. It is a recipe for coordination mess and inefficiency.

Generally aid that delivers more connection to the giver e.g. Packing or tracking individual packages by donor, deliver less to the beneficiaries. Better to give to a big agency that has demonstrated performance, even though it feels less 'satisfying'.

By the way the blog I linked to above is excellent if you are intersted to learn more.

Thingummys page isnt shelterbox or a shoebox appeal - its one through justgiving to lots of different aid agencies but giving to the Red Cross is also excellent. It is up to individuals on which way they would like to go :)

That's right OYBBK.

The page I created will donate funds to here

Bumping anyway.

This is a personal message from Mari Kuraishi, President and Co-Founder of GlobalGiving and a Japanese national, about the disaster in Japan:

'Friday March 11th passed in something of a blur. I woke up, heard about the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan, and started speed dialing my family and friends. Earthquakes happen frequently in Japan, so every couple of years I end up calling, "Just to make sure." But this time, I'd gotten an email in the middle of my night, immediately after the earthquake struck in Japan mid-afternoon, from a friend saying, "This might be it. If anything happens to me, please look out for my daughter." But all circuits were busy. OK, try again later. From the quick snippets of news I saw, neither my family nor friends were anywhere near the epicenter. "Later" eventually got to be too late for me to be hassling people who may have been through a big scare and may have just gotten to sleep. So wait until the end of the day here, when it would be morning in Japan. Distract myself with work.

But working at GlobalGiving requires us to be on top of disasters, and much of the day we were scrambling like crazy to figure out what the scale of the damage was, where our project partners in Japan were, and how we could make sure to channel the outpouring of generosity that was already hitting our servers starting first thing in the morning. So I became glued to livestreamed TV from Japan. I couldn't get away from it. Knowing all I do about how difficult it is for laypeople to help directly, it was difficult to resist the feeling that I needed to get on a plane back home. Maybe I could get through to my friends and family that way.

It's inevitable when disasters happen that commentators point out that philanthropists might want to wait until after the immediate relief phase is over. But as I kept up my stream of emails into Japan, checking on existing organizations we work with, and looking for the right new organizations, I've been struck by how everyone I have been communicating with is so heartened to hear that someone wants to help, that someone out there cares enough from thousands of miles away to reach out.

GlobalGiving is working hard to identify the best local partners on the ground to receive these funds. Already, our immediate disaster response partners are having an impact.

Save the Children is working to deliver psychosocial support aimed at children, establishing child-friendly spaces in affected communities, providing support to parents, teachers, and other key caregivers, and working alongside local communities to train volunteers in sounseling techniques to help children after this disaster. International Medical Corps has already put together relief teams and supplies and have been in contact with partners in Japan in the first day of the disaster.

In the coming days we'll continue to identify additional Japanese organizations providing relief following the earthquake and tsunami and will keep you updated by email about how the funds are used and the impact your donation is making.

I was glued to the livestream most of Sunday too. It was Monday morning in Japan and TV reporters were positioned at train stations to cover how people were getting back to work. But many stations unexpectedly were closed and people ended up waiting for taxis instead. Then, the litany of train lines that were not running came on?for close to 5 minutes. That spoke volumes. It only made me realize that I had an unspoken hope that life would start returning to normal?and it wasn't going to. At least for now. The city of Tokyo is at a virtual standstill. Friends in the suburbs are wandering around looking for ATMs with cash and stores with food. Rolling blackouts are finally being implemented. Everyone?including people who weren't directly affected?is going around in a daze.

And yes, I got through to everybody Friday evening. Everyone I know is safe. But to have thousands of people willing to help means more than I can say.'

Bump

Sorry to go off topic abit but my DD has been watching the sad events and is now asking her school to see if they can do something to rise funds to send over to Japan.

They have not said no but has asked her to go away, brain storm and come back with ideas.
So far we have a idea of a bring and buy sale and I am thinking of contacting the local news paper to see if they could promote if it goes ahead.

Any other ideas would be fab, thanks

Rinnyx - did you see the Origami4tsunami link above? It looks like quite a lot of people are doing origami-related activities to raise funds for Japan - making origami items to sell, or you could have a sponsored origami session (eg how many paper cranes can a group of children make in an hour or something).

Making chains of paper cranes is quite a traditional response to disasters in Japan - groups of schoolchildren make chains of 1,000 cranes to leave as offerings at the atomic bomb memorial site in Hiroshima. Back story here.

these poor poeple in Japan, my goodness, it is one disaster after another. How awful. I contributed a few days ago to a church fund for disaster relief in Japan and to the Save the Children fund. Drop in the ocean

exex, maybe the school is doing something. Dd is off sick with a flu bug so we will see next week. Terrible all this radiation on top of the earthquakes and the tsunami.

Hi there Maggie, how are things?

Another question
I was thinking if donate things like clothes, blankets, tined food, etc anyone know how you would go about shipping it over, thanks

I don't think that donating things like that is very practical for Japan.

There is no shortage of food, clothing etc in the rest of the country, the only difficulty is getting it to the affected areas because of damage to roads and rail lines from the earthquake and tsunami. By the time anything from England made it over, the roads should all have been cleared and all necessary supplies would be getting in from local places. It costs a huge amount to ship things to Japan from here, particularly heavy things like clothes and tinned food, and I would be very surprised indeed if any charities were collecting supplies to ship directly.

I think the best thing anyone can do from here is raise money for charities active out there already, and as the situation calms down, send messages of support etc to people/schools in the affected areas.

Ok thanks for the info it was just another idea but raising money was the main thing we wanted to do
Hoping I can get hold if my DD head teacher I'd she has had no luck today, so proud how she wants to help so much

Exexpat - indeed. As a rule collecting and sending food, clothing, gifts etc... is never a good idea in an emergency situation, not just in Japan but anywhere. (just saying, as a public information message!)

Hmmm ...

The thing is though Global Giving isn't an organisation on the ground in Japan. It isn't an organisation with any particular experience delivering emergency aid in Japan, that isn't what it was set up for, and Japan hasn't asked for general international aid.

Global Giving is an organisation that happens to have a CEO who comes from Japan (and no doubt has the best of intentions. Their own report says they are "working hard to identify the best local partners on the ground to receive these funds" which means they are raising funds in response to people's understandable and heartfelt desire to give, not to provide resources for services that they know they can deliver (and that domestic organisations can't)

If the Japanese government and organisations like the Japanese Red Cross are saying that it http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16charity.html?_r=1&ref=stephaniestrom doesn't need outside assistance maybe we should listen to them, even though we don't get to fulfil our desire to help.

Sometimes we just can't help

...except by buying Japanese government bonds, maybe?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16charity.html trying that link again

http://nyti.ms/ftASeG ...trying one last time

Oh I give up, cut and paste the link into your browser, it is a good article.

Himalaya's link.

(you had a space between the first brackets and the url, which means it doesn't work)

when i watch a family memeber of a necluar plant worker family say their dad had given his life for the grate good i was just crying how brave and un selfish to stay be hind knowing you will die

fema in the us should be watching this. this is how you do a disater
and quite frankley i am a little dissapointed china and the other asian countries are not doing more to help

the hospital has no food, the doctors are only having 3 small scoops of rice a day its like an awful horror movie

god help us all

they dont need money they need secince people a nuclar experts to be honest money cant cool the rods down or fix them we need know how

Thanks exexpat

I've been chatting to Dh about this after seeing a japanese doctor on t.v who had not slept in 3 days. He said that there was only so much that doctors could do to help and that in fact people were starving. It was the restrained passion with which he spoke that struck me. And this perhaps reflects how the japanese come across in the media - there is this restraint and stoicism and I wonder if this works against them in some ways. Would more people be galvanised into helping if things seemed less orderly and calm?

I really hope that on the ground relief gets to these hungry and displaced people very soon.

I think the lack of food in the hospitals and so on is not because of any lack of overseas aid - in fact Japan has said it doesn't need overseas aid in terms of food and so on (though overseas donations are pouring in to the charities involved out there). It's the distribution of what they have already got in the country that is the problem.

People in the rest of Japan are donating and trying to get help to them - the difficulty is that so much of the transport infrastructure has been destroyed that getting anything in by road to the worst affected areas is almost impossible, and obviously port facilities were mostly destroyed by the tsunami so there is nowhere for cargo ships to dock. And there is a limit to the number of helicopters and what they can bring in. But I think work to clear the roads is progressing.

I know they are not hungry for lack of food but as you say exexpat that it is because of 'on the ground' transport logistics difficulties.

I just think that overseas aid in terms of helicoptering supplies to worst affected areas and other distribution assistance might take some of the pressure off the Japanese gov't. Esp since they have to be dealing with the nuclear crisis.

The US army/navy is helping with helicopters and ships, since they have bases there already, but otherwise the only helicopters would be those belonging to the Japanese self defence forces, fire departments etc, and I presume there are just not enough to go round - the tsunami hit a vast stretch of coastline, with lots of pockets inaccessible because bridges are down.

Japan is too far away from any other country for helicopters to get there directly, so any reinforcements would have to come in by aircraft carrier or something, which takes time....