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

Oh dear. The weather here in the Virgin Islands is quite bad today, and what we get one day often affects Haiti a day or two later.

Rain is absolutely the last thing they need-it can speed up the spread of diseases like cholera and often causes landslides in Haiti, because the deforestation there is so bad.

Everyone please think anti-rain thoughts!

I made a start explaining this to my dc's using the BBC appeal done by Mariella Frostop on Radio 4 just before 9am today for the DEC. The facts without pictures. It's on iplayer.

Hi Tolola - sorry did not reply to you earlier. I thought I was the only person on MN in the Caribbean, nice to know there is another! We are in St Lucia though so a way away from you and Haiti. The weather here is as usual - sunny/cloudy/rainy, one after another....

I really hope the weather stays ok in Haiti. Like you say, the last thing they need now is heavy rain.

Thanks tinierclanger for the msf link - have just donated now.
Just can't imagine the devastation to those families.

We sponsor a child in Haiti. I wish I could just lift him and his family up and bring them here. Can't see much of a future for anyone there now.

tinierclanger - we sponsor one there too, at least, my brother sponsors her on our behalf. I must look up where she is, hopefully a long way from the epicentre.

I donated yesterday....wish I could do more.

I just donated this months pay. I cannot see the pictures of the children who have been seperated from their parents without wanting to fly over there and hug each child tightly until they are reunited

DEC are great, they were the main organisation that people donated through after the tsunami. they're amazin.

Have donated to UNICEF

Have just donated to MSF, thanks for link.

I too, am ashamed to say, knew nothing about Haiti except what I read in Graham Greene's The Comedians (?), which was chilling enough. But I spent lots of today trawling through BBC resources on the island and was in tears over some of the conditions they suffered before the quake. Can't imagine what those people are going through...

Thanks for the MSF link, have donated through them.

There's a cargo ship leaving here for Port-au-Prince in the next couple of weeks(as soon as the port is clear) with a team of engineers. They have room for 24 containers, so now we just need to fill them up with things that people need...it's so awful, they're desperate for stuff that we usually throw away, like the big plastic buckets that people here get pool chlorine in .

have donated and bumping the thread.
have also added this:

Donate for the people of Haiti (dec.org.uk)

to my fb status, maybe it will inspire someone else to donate.

agree coverage has been sparse, i didn't realise how bad it was until today.

Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) We have launched a new, simple, fast and secure way to donate to Haiti. Text "GIVE" to 70077 to donate £5 to the DEC for Haiti. £5 goes to DEC. You pay £5 + your standard network SMS rate. The donation is deducted from your phone bill.

I think coverage is building up now that people are realising just how bad it is.

Donate now please if you're reading this. Don't put it off and then never get round to it. I am a lazy disorganised git but if I can get round to it, you can! DEC website is very quick and easy.

I work in tv news and we covered the Haiti story last night. The pictures are horrendous - the reality more so.

It is hard to know what one can do to make a difference.

The worst thing is knowing, that although Haiti has just been hit by this almighty tragedy, that there are so many places in the world where people live on the streets, children are starving and life hangs in a balance for them on a daily basis.

It may sound cynical, but Haiti will be a big news story for as long as the papers know they'll sell copies by showing such graphic misery. It'll be on the tv news for as long as the bosses know compassion fatigue hasn't set in.

Without wanting to sound smug, I already make an annual donation to Doctors without Borders. It's not huge, but better than nothing. There's a quarterly newsletter from Doctors without Borders that tells you where the money's going.

Maybe this is something to bear in mind.

DO NOT donate via links in emails. There are a lot of scams cropping up and I would bet my bottom dollar that the text number and email quoted from below are not genuine.

Please go directly to www.dec.org.uk or one of their member charity websites and donate there.

Facebook are showing the text number 70077 text
' GIVE'. For a £5 donation. But of course best to follow DEC link and get all the details.

The 70077 number is, as far as I can tell, genuine, it was promoted by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the official DEC account on Twitter. twitter.com/decappeal

I donated too. So very sad.

SOS Children is another charity - works long term with orphan children as well and in Haiti since 1982. Have a look at their Haiti earthquake appeal You can make a one off donation or sponsor an orphan.

BBC Breakfast have just been talking about these Shelter Boxes, they look brilliant, you can donate directly to the site, which is a charity in itself.

My husband works for IMC (International Medical Corps) who are an NGO focused on rebuilding devastated health systems. He has worked in Rwanda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen etc etc.

He has been on the phone almost 24 hours a day over the past few days talking to the people in the field and in the US. The situation was reported on Radio 4 from the field by a colleague this morning.

Their website for more info or for a donation should you wish is:

www.imcworldwide.org.uk/Default.asp?pageid=1

sorry, second post with corrected web address:

www.imcworldwide.org.uk/