Haiti - Damage on par with the 2004 Asian tsunami - how to help

[MmeLindt]

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world, life there was already harsh.

Now with one in three Haitians affected by the earthquake, the prospect of improvement just got much worse.

The harrowing pictures on TV cause distress, it is easy to turn off, to turn away.

We should not.

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is already taking donations through a special phone line, 0370 60 60 900, and through its website www.dec.org.uk, and tomorrow it expects to launch a television appeal
Please donate what you can, either to the DEC or to other aid relief agencies.

Oxfam

Unicef

Save The Children

Thankyou Mme Lindt I was literally about the post this myself. Here is another link red cross

I suspect I am seeing more about this than people in the UK are as I live in the Caribbean. It is truely, truely awful. Thay have just had an interview with the Haitain president on CNN and he says he has no idea where he is going to sleep tonight as his home is completely destroyed.

Please everyone do what you can.

Thanks for the Red Cross link, Clara.

The news coverage is strangely subdued, I find. And not much discussion about it going on.

MmeLindt, thank you for the DEC link. I saw a link on another thread about this, but the charities seemed very American-centric, and I want to be clear about who I am donating money to.

The scenes on TV are just so unbelievably tragic.

Clara, it is headlines in the UK - I think the magnitude of this disaster is sinking in.

From website: The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Member Agencies
The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) is made up of 13 member agencies who provide humanitarian aid in times of disaster.
The 13 member agencies are:
ActionAid
British Red Cross
CAFOD
Care International UK
Christian Aid
Concern Worldwide
Help the Aged
Islamic Relief
Merlin
Oxfam
Save the Children
Tearfund
World Vision

Three are a lotof good charities in tehre and I would feel comfortable using DEC,if not my choices would be usually Save the Cgildren (but theya re DEC) and I notice that Medecin Sans Frontieres and Rapid UK are in there working hardmn already.

Yes, am 100% happy donating thru' DEC, and have done before (and have just made a donation for Haiti).

Great, Peachy. I know that some people have their favourite charity so it is good to have all the information on one thread.

How strange, to be sitting here in Switzerland, watching a magpie on the tree outside and knowing that on the other side of the world people are trapped and dying.

The very things that we in the western civilised world take for granted are the basics of human life. Security, adequate housing and medical provisions, clean water.

I have just made the mistake of looking at the online edition of the Daily Mail.

Images of dead children lay in the street are nothing short of devastating. Should newspapers be showing pics like this? I cant stop crying.

Just done our donation ......

tiredemma
I know that the pictures are upsetting, but that is the reality over there at the moment. The Mail does have a warning that the pictures are graphic.

I am going to a game this evening, it is a fun thing with friends where we all put chf 10 into a pot and play a dice game, the winner gets the pot. I am going to suggest that we donate the winnings this month.

Yes they should show pictures of the devastation in order for us to realise how awful it is and it may encourage others to put their hand in their pocket.

And I think it's only right that it makes us cry. It's a natural and appropriate response to such tragedy and devastation.

That's a wonderful idea MmeLindt.

Mmel- I understand- was just so shocked, literally made me take a sharp intake of breath.

I have donated.

UNICEF take Paypal btw

Tiredemma - showing pics like that is probably the only way to get people to understand what is going on and actually do anything about it.

Unfortunately Haiti is one of those countries that gets forgotten all so often.

Rindercella - I am glad it's headline news in the UK but I am afraid it just isn't going to get the attention it deserves because it is one of those countries people don't know much about. Very few people will have been there or know people there. After the Asian Tsunami of 2004, Thailand got far more media attention than, say, Indonesia despite the fact that there were far more people killed in the latter, simply because so many Westerners were killed in Thailand and so many people have been there, or know someone who has been etc.

I fear the lack of interest in this thread on Mumsnet (a mere 10 posts) reflects the general public's lack of interest.

Apologies, while I was typing another 6 posts!

Sorry SGM, crap C&P apparently!

I will donate too. Thanks for the link.

I am in Budapest and the girl who helps me train my dog and some others I have met here work with search and rescue dogs. I am sure they will be going out there. She had to cancel a session with me a few months ago as she was in Indnesia (was it Indonesia?) after the last earthquake there. She was telling me though that some British colleages that they have met in various places had come to help too and although they were there they were not used. Unfortunately that makes no difference when they go back to UK and their dogs are now in quarantine.

I cried too, the pics are awful

But thetwominutes it took earlier to make a miserlydonation were infinitely more useful I guess-my compassion is genuine but of no use tothem

Compassion is good, Peachy. Even if the cold hard cash is more useful to them at the moment, without compassion we would be nothing.

I admit that I was surprised that the only thread on MN was barely posted on. Presumably, as you said Clara, because it is quite an unknown country in contrast to Thailand or Indonesia where there was a much bigger response.

Do you think that we have compassion fatigue in UK?

I think that Haiti has some very negative sterotypes attached, sadly. I do think that affects things.Itmight just be my RE studying bent, but how many timesdopeoplecomeacross it without an attached mention of voodoo?And rarely proper native- religion either,often some bizarre fairytale nonsense.

I hope they get help there soon, poor, poor people. Unimagainable (thankfully)

Mmelindt - yes, there is always compassion fatigue and I think charities find it exceptionally difficult to get people interested in the countries which aren't "well known" in the west.

At least with Haiti they are likely to get a lot more help from the States, it's closer and there are lots of Haitians living in Florida now.

I think the reason it is so important to help Haiti though is that it was already such a hideously poor country, with appalling infrastructure, which is hit year after year by hurricanes and where most people barely scrape by as it is.

I am guessing as well that with all the snow etc at home, a lot of people are focused on that and helping people around them (which is fair enough).

I made a donation to Unicef yesterday. I wish I knew what else I could do. I find this utterly heartbreaking. Such a desperate, poverty stricken place anyway and now this....

I can't look at the pictures, I think of myself and my little family, and I feel so useless. I have sent a donation, but it doesn't seem enough.

I read the BBC website, and a reporter told the story of a father and his 2 daughters ( I wont go into details ).

I don't know how anyone can ignore their pleas for help.

Thanks for all the links. The pictures did remind me of the Asian Tsunami - weirdly I was in India in December 2004, and it was reported in a more low-key way there then here. I did think last night that if the earthquake in Haiti had happened at Christmas too it might have had that kind of coverage. But maybe not - who knows.

I agree with claraquack that the snow and ice has got people even more uk-focused than usual.