Helping Survivors in Haiti

January 14, 2010

How You Can Help Survivors in Haiti

Here are some suggestions from across the web and the world for lending a hand to help those more than three million individuals suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday.

Text HAITI to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross.

Text HAITI to 864833 to send a $5 donation to the United Way.

Visit the Earthquake Haiti page on Facebook to find resources and information on missing persons and suggestions for helping.

See the International Rescue Committee's Crisis in Haiti page.

Visit CARE's disaster Haiti help page.

Read Global Voices website for information on how to follow the stream of information on Twitter and the web, coming out of Haiti and the world right now.

Find green focused organizations working to help with the aftermath in Haiti in Treehugger's article "Help For Haiti Earthquake Aftermath. Giving Green."

Support a Safe Clinic for Mothers in Haiti

Ibu Robin Lim and three other members of Bumi Sehat Clinic of Indonesia will spend a month in Haiti, January 25 - February 25, setting up a clinic as they did in Aceh, following the tsunami in 2004. The goal is to set up a clinic that will attract other NGOs and local community members to help their own people, to be managed by locals after the Bumi Sehat team has left.

The team will be going into Haiti and looking for a rural location to set up a small clinic for immediate health care. This clinic will be helping women with a safe place to birth and immediate mental and physical trauma. They hope to link up with another organization to have a transport vehicle to send patients with more serious health needs to a larger facility. Here is is the bank that you can direct deposit funds into or pass on the info to others: US BANK, Acct. name Dragonfly, routing #1230002200, acct.#153690811358. "We WILL USE ALL funds that are deposited for supplies for the Haitian people."

Circle of Health International (COHI) will most likely be sending a clinical field team including midwives, trauma specialists and perhaps an ob/gyn or two from the US. They will be collecting donations of equipment and supplies once the emergency needs are known. As per COHI's practice, they will find a local, women-focused organization to partner with, and will seek funds and assistance from larger institutions.

The objectives of such a trip will be to address the issues around the emergency, safe motherhood and gender-based violence. Please send this information on to everyone and anyone you know who might be interested in joining the team, or supporting COHI financially in this effort. All inquiries and responses should be sent directly to Leilani Johnson, COHI's director, at leilani@cohintl.org, or you may call COHI at 517-517-3220. Individuals may give directly through COHI's Web site at www.cohintl.org.

World Vision Urges Temporary Moratorium on Newly Instigated Adoptions

International relief and development agency World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, acknowledges the generous impulse to help Haitian children displaced by last week’s massive earthquake by rushing adoptions of children who seem to have been orphaned in the disaster.  However, the agency warns that this may lead to adoptions that inadvertently separate families or risk a lapse in child protection, with unintended consequences.
 
The agency notes that its concern is not for adoptions that are already in process.  Its call applies only to new adoptions of children presumed to be orphaned by last week’s deadly earthquake.
 
World Vision has observed that unaccompanied children are migrating from quake-affected areas to seek safety, and hundreds have been moving into the rural areas, and even across the border into the Dominican Republic.  While World Vision has already begun to identify lost children and establish temporary safe refuge for them there, the organization has expressed concern is that this migration of separated children is likely to increase over coming days and weeks as insecurity worsens.
 
World Vision is calling for the temporary moratorium to be in place until children can be properly identified, the family tracing process completed, and legal protection measures taken. This will lessen the risk of children being exploited, trafficked and permanently separated from their families.
 
Donations to World Vision’s Haiti Quake Response can be made by calling 888-56-CHILD, at www.worldvision.org, or by texting the word “GIVE” to 20222 ($10).