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

This is great, thanks for the bumping.

Bump ...anything given now will help

MSF do have a specific appeal now. I have donated to them regularly for years because they seem to go where others don't. They are always first in to new wars or disasters and last to leave the danger zone when other aid workers have been forced to flee for their own safety. They were in Haiti before the earthquake providing medical care in the slums of Port o Prince.

Another bump but am quite disappointed in Mumsnet today. No reply to request to make this a sticky thread or post a link on the site (unless they already have, better check that!), and still amazed by general lack of interest in this thread. Sigh.

inthesticks - yes I have always had great respect for MSF as well.

Thanks for the MSF link

Actually, the MSF online donation page is running very slowly, which I hope means it's because of heavu traffic to the site. The phone no is: 0800 088 7460

At least this a on discussions of the day now.

I've been to Haiti

It has the loveliest, funniest, sweetest people anywhere in the world, people benighted by bad luck. Their lives were unbelievably grim before this so it's unimaginable how they will be now. The country is so poor that people steal topsoil from the neighbouring Dominican Republic as there's no decent soil left to grow crops. Gravediggers steal the handles of coffins in graveyards.

Please give what you can.

Thank you to whoever put it onto discussions of the day.

There was also something on the Mumsnet Facebook updates, not about this specific thread, but about donating to Save the Children.

Feeling so about this situation, and counting my blessings.

I've just given this week's child benefit to MSF. I'm thinking they can make twenty quid go a lot further than I can.

I agree about this being a slow topic so lets keep it bumped.

Hi

Be good if we have a group of Mumsnetters who want donating what they can on a long term monthly basis getting together so that this can be organised.

Anybody else interested in taking part in this?

You can join a DEC facebook group here

You can donate to DEC here

I donated last night. Used DHs name so we could giftaid it.

The situation is horrific.

MN have made this thread a discusion of the day (top left of home page).

You can donate to all the charities co-ordinating the disaster response in Haiti via DEC, they direct the funding quickly to whatever charity needs it, they are doing a big Radio and TV appeal atm for donations - DEC said on their appeal that they can obtain supplies very quickly due to their charity being well recognised in country

www.dec.org.uk/

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

The agencies are the leading UK registered humanitarian charities that fulfil certain criteria. DEC agencies have the profile to ensure successful national appeals and expertise in the delivery and provision of aid.

I just watched a bit of cctv footage of buildings collapsing during the earthquake (on the bbc news site). It was such a high level of devestation in such a short amount of time.

Thanks MNHQ for making this a Discussions of The Day.

yes, I had huge lump in throat this morning listening to somthing on radio 2.

thanks for posting on how to donate - made it super easy, the dec site took me less than a minute to make a donation

It's just devastating. I wish there was something I could do to help, although I know that going put there is completely impractical part of me wants to jump on a plane with as much as I can carry and actually do something.

Oh thanks pp for the idea of putting it in dh's name to GiftAid it.

My best friends Husband is a member of SARAID and they have sent teams over, he was not allowed to go, his boss said he could not have the time off and if he went would lose his bonus
.

This man is highly skilled and trained to save lives and although he is only one person HE can make a difference, even if he only saved one life it would be one human life saved, but he has had to sort out his team and send them off without him. He is lived and heartbroken.
His boss should be ashamed