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

Just so you know, we've donated 1 million page impressions of advertising space to the DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee). I think this will be more effective in money raising than organising an auction which might take quite a while to arrange.
Thanks for the input.

I've just printed a letter for my girl's school re Shelterbox - fab idea.

The coverage is harrowing and frustrating re logistics and the time wasted in the early days. The firemen from Lancashire and Manchester sat in Dom Republic airport really did it for me. Anyhows they are there now and have rescued some people even at this late stage.

Was going to donate to DEC but think I may go for Shelterbox as DEC appeal is already very successful (thank goodness).

Gift Aid - I (naughtily maybe) donate on behalf of family members who do not pay tax and they give me the cash - don't tell the IR.

I donated to Medecins Sans Frontieres last week. It's a truly remarkable institution, but they're now working out of cardboard boxes and in the street, since their MSF hospital was so badly damaged in the earthquake.

Justine - that's great

I chose MSF for our donation, too.
Shelterbox looks interesting - take a simple idea, and implement it effectively.

I never knew Haiti was such a beautiful country until I saw the photos

donated via DEC, but will make an additional donation to MSF

thanks for the links

That's great Justine.

I just went onto the bbc news site, Haiti isn't mentioned at all on their front page. It doesn't take long for the spotlight to move on, but Haiti still needs help.

Just seen the DEC ad on Mumsnet. That is brilliant. It is very very qick and simple to donate via the DEC appeal.

So sorry to plunge in here late but I'm short of time on the internet... (Small baby always threatening to wake up)

I have a HUGE box of baby/toddler clothes I have sorted out today. Is there anywhere I can take them for them to be taken out to haiti? I know this must sound ridiculous, and I'm going to donate some money now, but I thought perhaps this could also be useful?

TIA

Smackapacka sell them on ebay and send them the money. I don't think any aid organisations take direct donations of clothes blankets etc.

On a brighter note, I am now coordinating a fundraiser to send a Shelter Box from my department at work and I emailed DD1's school about them on Monday and they are doing one too, starting with a non-uniform day on Friday.

Thanks - the problem with eBay is that it's quite time consuming for not much reward. All the pics, descriptions, questions then posting... Clothes don't ever seem to sell that well IMHO. (I'm just managing to keep sane with a 2 YO and 7 week old - Anything more than that is beyond me at the mo!)

I think I'll take the stuff to OXFAM so they can sell them so indirectly helping.

Thanks - the problem with eBay is that it's quite time consuming for not much reward. All the pics, descriptions, questions then posting... Clothes don't ever seem to sell that well IMHO. (I'm just managing to keep sane with a 2 YO and 7 week old - Anything more than that is beyond me at the mo!)

I think I'll take the stuff to OXFAM so they can sell them so indirectly helping. Good luck with the Fundraiser.

thanks for this thread (and the ad, Justine), it has prompted me to donate to UNICEF, something I should have done days ago.

dear god, i haven't seen much to do with this, occupied with life and now i feel ashamed, seeing on the news all the little ones that are crying for their Mummas.
I shall be making a donation tomorrow.

I copied FourArms and asked school to hold a non uniform day - very impressed that they replied saying they would. Hoping to raise enough for a Shelterbox.

IOur schoolrefused the boys asking them to hold a non uniform day but said we could sell cakes one break if we needed.The boys are going to ask if we can get extra donations from parents but that will most likely be a no as Head not really on board according to boys.

Technically, I could probably just save time by sending £20 to Shelterbox and not bothering with a day and a hotoven /buying infredients, but amproud of my boys for asking and think they will learn so much doing this.

Hi all,

My husband wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who had donated to IMC and so he wrote a little para (or 2!) to give you an update on their work (see below). One of their colleagues was on GMTV this morning trying to draw attention to mental health issues which are of course one of the outcomes of situations such as this as people struggle to cope with the loss:

'International Medical Corps teams were on the ground within 24 hours and have been providing care to the injured 24/7 since then. Mainly we have been treating fractures and crush injuries, but have also had to perform a lot of amputations, over 150 so far, where the damage is too severe to save limbs. Even now there are still a lot of people with untreated injuries which shows the scale of the disaster.

We are now expanding our operations into towns outside of Port Au Prince, like Leogane, which are smaller, but closer to the epicentre, so even more badly damaged. In addition to the emergency services we are also now turning our attention to the public health needs of the survivors. In overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, where there is real lack of clean water and safe sanitation, the threat of cholera and other infectious diseases is high.

As you can imagine, our own team is getting exhausted. We have over 30 medics on the ground now and the first group will be replaced this week. The work they have done has been incredible and in very difficult circumstances, surrounded by very traumatic scenes. Hats off to them.

All of our work so far has been funded by public donations, so we are really grateful for the support from the mumsnet members and would really hope that they will continue to support us. International Medical Corps mumsnet have a big marketing budget so we cant broadcast our work everywhere, so it is really powerful when people on networks like mumsnet hear about us and talk about us. Haiti is going to need really sustained effort to recover even to where they were before the quake.

Out of interest Sienna Miller, International Medical Corps Global Ambassador, recorded a video appeal which is on our website www.imcworldwide.org.uk for anyone who is interested. People can see daily updates on our work their too. If anyone has questions then we would be happy to answer them'

thank you for that post, helsbels. There are such huge sums of money being talked about in the press, and relatively little coverage of what is actually going on on the ground.

I also copied FourArms and sent an email to my son's primary school this morning. I was very impressed when they replied really quickly, and by the end of the day, they had printed out a newsletter, adopting the shelterbox appeal!

I completely plagiarised FourArms' letter, so thank you FourArms!

Looking at the website, it is such a good idea, both in terms of giving aid and educating the children that there are many different worlds out there.

Glad to see that some of the schools are coming on board to support Shelterbox (or any other charity). Our school talked about the earthquake in assembly, and is holding an own clothes day this week. Result

Great to see the ads on MN, Justine. Well done.

Thanks for the info Hels. Good to know that things are moving on.