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This has been bouncing around on my desktop for a while and I am just now getting around to posting it.
Very shortly after the earthquake that essentially leveled Port au Prince I was in a Safeway. Every register had a red photocopied flier, and the cashier asked me if I would like a donation to relief in Haiti.
"No, Well yes, but not through you."
"All donations go straight to Unicef and the Red Cross, not through us."
I don't think he was looking for a political exposition, but the Haiti relief donation requests resonated with all of my anger over the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Yes I wanted to help, but I didn't see how tossing money at the Red Cross or Unicef was going to directly increase aide immediately, or even in very near future and I think the Red Cross horribly failed in that after Katrina. While that failure was probably mainly due to FEMA and other federal run-arounds (and is thus not a relevant barrier when it comes to Haiti), it has still left me with a large amount of distrust.
After Katrina my brother (a firefighter in SF) was sent to Luisiana with other firefighter's across the US to help rebuild and serve New Orleans. He was expecting it to be a several month engagement but quit in disgust after one month (as did many others). In short, aside from setting up a temporary housing settlement in a local National Forest he and the others spent most of their (very well paid) time doing nothing. My mom's church, on the other hand, sent volunteers through an ad hoc Presbyterian network. They slept on church floors and worked sun-up to sun down doing the dirty work cleaning mold, mud, and fixing what they could, very little of their funds went into bureaucratic overhead
I held up the line in Safeway to explain all of that. Yeah, I was that woman that night.
As I have been following the news in Haiti since the earthquake, I am realizing how different disaster recovery help has to be from Katrina. The nature of the country's poverty is on such a different scale than what we call poor here, and there are international politics and local customs that weren't an issue post Katrina. I have no idea what organization is suitable for throwing money at for long term help, and I am not trusting American Christian organizations to work effectively in Haiti (it isn't just the naively kidnapping issue)
It is only through happenstance that I donated to Doctors Without Borders last December, but given their apparently really effective response shortly after the quake, I will totally donate to them again. I am now wondering if this is the best response I can give to a natural disaster: to not donate for any one event, but find worthy response teams and donate to them as regularly as is reasonable.
Very shortly after the earthquake that essentially leveled Port au Prince I was in a Safeway. Every register had a red photocopied flier, and the cashier asked me if I would like a donation to relief in Haiti.
"No, Well yes, but not through you."
"All donations go straight to Unicef and the Red Cross, not through us."
I don't think he was looking for a political exposition, but the Haiti relief donation requests resonated with all of my anger over the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Yes I wanted to help, but I didn't see how tossing money at the Red Cross or Unicef was going to directly increase aide immediately, or even in very near future and I think the Red Cross horribly failed in that after Katrina. While that failure was probably mainly due to FEMA and other federal run-arounds (and is thus not a relevant barrier when it comes to Haiti), it has still left me with a large amount of distrust.
After Katrina my brother (a firefighter in SF) was sent to Luisiana with other firefighter's across the US to help rebuild and serve New Orleans. He was expecting it to be a several month engagement but quit in disgust after one month (as did many others). In short, aside from setting up a temporary housing settlement in a local National Forest he and the others spent most of their (very well paid) time doing nothing. My mom's church, on the other hand, sent volunteers through an ad hoc Presbyterian network. They slept on church floors and worked sun-up to sun down doing the dirty work cleaning mold, mud, and fixing what they could, very little of their funds went into bureaucratic overhead
I held up the line in Safeway to explain all of that. Yeah, I was that woman that night.
As I have been following the news in Haiti since the earthquake, I am realizing how different disaster recovery help has to be from Katrina. The nature of the country's poverty is on such a different scale than what we call poor here, and there are international politics and local customs that weren't an issue post Katrina. I have no idea what organization is suitable for throwing money at for long term help, and I am not trusting American Christian organizations to work effectively in Haiti (it isn't just the naively kidnapping issue)
It is only through happenstance that I donated to Doctors Without Borders last December, but given their apparently really effective response shortly after the quake, I will totally donate to them again. I am now wondering if this is the best response I can give to a natural disaster: to not donate for any one event, but find worthy response teams and donate to them as regularly as is reasonable.
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