Relief For Haiti

[trooper077]

As some of you know a huge earthquake hit the country of haiti,destroying the enitire country,i have seen some pictures of the aftermath to confirm this, people are laying helplessly in the streets.


Now all i ask is that the commnity of Doomworld help this and pitch in,I know some of you in the forum are short on money whitch is fine,it doesn't matter the amount you donate it could be 5 dollors or 50,all i ask is that we as a community make a contribution

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/haiti-share.cfm

There is the link for donations so far i've donated 20 bucks

[AndrewB]

I believe I will donate $100 to the red cross. Also, from what I've heard it didn't destroy the entire country; it was concentrated in the capitol city. Maybe I'm wrong though.

[Doom Marine]

http://www.pih.org/youcando/donate.html

Partners in Health: An organization co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer, who devoted his entire life to treating the poor in Haiti for decades... I've met the man and he is one of the most passionate, selfless being I've came across.

Normally I'd turn away from these charities because there's literally thousands of causes out there that needs attention and would overwhelm my financial options, but this disaster is possibly the worst thing that can afflict an already war-torn, disease stricken population in constant poverty. Haitians are some of the friendliest people I have encountered and have often extended the olive branch in my direction.

I've donated and wish the Haitians better times.

[wildweasel]

Wish I had some money to donate, but I'm barely getting by.

[Nomad]

I wish I could donate as well. I've got a debt of over $300 in my bank account now D;

My best go to the residents of Haiti though. I can't begin to imagine how much suck they're enduring. :(

[Maes]

Well, the only way to "help" with cases such as Iraq or Afghatnistan would be to either donate to the Resistance/Talibans, or join their ranks, although you'd probably be termed a terrorist for doing so. That didn't stop people in the past to volunteer for fighting in "lost propositions" such as e.g. fighting alongside the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War or the Democratic Army of Greece in the Greek Civil War.

Helping the refugees/wounded/homeless/persecuted after a politically charged event such as a war or pogrom is generally more acceptable, although doing so during hostilities may not be possible and in some cases, it may even be considered unacceptable. E.g. would it be possible for U.S. citizens to volunteer helping out the victims of Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki during WW2, with the state of war still active? I dunno think so.

Of course, donating money or even volunteering work to relieve a natural disaster is easier because it's -usually- not perceived as politically charged.

However yeah, in the case of politically charged events it feels dumb to be asked to lend a comforting hand after your government has spent perhaps billions and years of time to tear some place up pretty badly. Donate so that some Iraqi kid can be vaccined, and the next day some trigger-happy merc grunt (funded by your government) frags a whole Iraqi family just for fun. Yeah.

[Planky]

I have a colleague who had worked as security/a IT technician in Iraq. Its interesting to hear the stories he has, but as it is, one thing is clear is that its going to be a long time before anything close to 'peace' is achieved there. Their evac plan included putting a bullet through the harddrive to secure their data. Sheesh.

Its sad to see what is happening there though. Building roadblocks with dead bodies? Insanity. That, and very desperate people. It breaks my heart. When I have the chance, I will donate, despite the NZ Government has already done so.

[Sharessa]

I'd like to donate, but I just finally paid off my debt and thus have no money. I'm basically just budgeting now to make sure I have enough for bills at the end of the month. I might donate like $5 though. I guess every little thing counts.

[Hellbent]

not sure if I should make a new thread for this post, but why can't they just helicoptor aid in from nearyby Domincan Republic? Affluent countries could create a station in Dominican Republican from which large military helicopters could fly in and drop aid in. They're talking about having trouble getting aid to them, but I don't quite understand what the problem is. If anyone understands this, would like to hear from you.

[myk]

A big problem is the chaos, because infrastructure and roads are destroyed, the government and UN presence were made practically inoperative, drinkable water is scarce and many desperate people are looting to survive. From what I've heard, sending aid to them was hard even before this disaster because what was destroyed was already in very poor and unstable shape.

[Belial]

Their own government was never really that active according to international aid organizations that were helping Haiti after last year's hurricanes.

Most of the city is completely cut-off as roads are blocked and heavy equipment usage still has to be focused on the rescue efforts.

Thousands of people will die of hunger and lack of drinking water simply because it's impossible to deliver enough supplies to help roughly 3 million people.

Just now I've heard that UN estimates on how long it would take to gather and organize distribution of supplies for such a large number of people are 2 weeks for a million of them, a month for two.