Anyone else donating to Haiti?

Gave my day's wages to the Disasters Emergency Committee today. I can't possibly imagine how fucked up things must be out there.
A friend and I both donated our wages, so I thought maybe if a couple of other people on here would want to do the same? Or maybe just a tenner.
DEC said they've raised £2 million in online donations alone in the last 36 hours, so it bloody well adds up.
I can't help feeling some bitter guilt when I read about this shit from my comfy sofa, drinking my coffee.

Here's the website if anyone's interested:
http://www.dec.org.uk/

Edit:
To top it off, after reading about the quake I caught myself whining a bit because my coffee was slightly too weak. Jesus!

I joined a regular Red Cross donation plan the other week. Timing eh? :S

Also been doing Red Cross but for a couple of years ,its a good cause

I finally realised all those Facebook Groups I created has a much greater purpose.

After seeing photos like these (Warning!!!)
http://bit.ly/7Kqgy7 http://bit.ly/57mHMb

A day wage was the least I could do.

i just gave some.

We did a whipround at work today and came up with a grand. Just goes to show how generous peeps can be if you ask. I only hope they can get the aid out there quickly.

I volunteered today, we'll see if they take me up on my offer.
when I know- then I'll donate.

i feel for them, i once had over 30 aftershocks and i couldn't find me house

Boom tish!

I already donate monthly and they phoned to ask for more.. bit cheeky if you ask me.

[
A New Zealand-born toddler has been found alive underneath the dead body of her father among the rubble of their hotel room in quake-devastated Haiti.

She had one broken leg and the other might be broken, she told Radio Live.

She said the family was hoping and praying the other two children Kofie-Jade, five, and Zenzie, three, were still alive.

Earlier Sanson-Rejouis could hear at least one of her children crying beneath the rubble, Ms Larnach said.

'She can still hear at least one of her children and she's trying to get them out,' said told Radio New Zealand.

'She can hear the children, she can hear her children's cries, she can't get in, she can't speak to them.'

Larnach said her step-sister was desperate for help but there were was no available aid.

'She's trying to do what she can physically but the building's collapsed.'

[URL="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/6997196/Haiti-earthquake-bodies-burning-in-desperate-city.html"]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/](http://bigpondnews.com/[/URL)
Across town, a two-year-old boy was pulled alive from the wreckage of his home.
Tearful Redjeson Hausteen Claude's dust-covered face transformed when he spotted his mother Daphnee Plaisin as he was carried by a Spanish firefighter away from the collapsed building where he had been trapped since Tuesday afternoon.
He will now be checked for broken bones and treated for thirst and malnutrition but, unlike so many others, is expected to survive.

.....

Aid workers have reported being mobbed by Haitians desperate for help.
Pierre Jackson, who was nursing his mother and sister as they lay whimpering with crushed legs, told one journalist: "We've been out here waiting for three days and three nights but nothing has been done for us, not even a word of encouragement from the president. What should we do?"

....

For most, whatever help is arriving has come too late. At the St. Gerard School, Cindy Terasme broke into sobs when she caught sight of her 14-year-old brother Jean Gaelle Dersmorne's lifeless feet protruding from the rubble.

....

In the affluent suburb of Petionville, locals mounted a concerted drive to rescue nine-year-old Haryssa Keem Clerge, who was trapped by a partially collapsed roof in her breeze block home.
A day earlier, her mother Lauranie Jean was pulled out of the same building and, while others fought to save her daughter, lay moaning inside a tent as volunteers rubbed ointment into open wounds on her sides.
Friends and neighbours braved aftershocks to climb over rubble of the house, one of hundreds of toppled structures teetering on the side of a ravine. They were encouraged by the little girl's screams for help.
But although they were able to get water to Haryssa, they were not able to save her. Her lifeless body was eventually pulled from the mass of concrete and twisted metal late on Thursday.
She was wrapped in a green towel and placed in a desk drawer acting as a makeshift coffin. With bodies stacked up in the sun outside the city's main morgue, there was nowhere to take the drawer so it was left on the hood of a battered Isuzu Trooper.
Neighbour, Bellefleur Jean Heber, said Haryssa had been a bright and lively child and a dedicated student.
He said that no one now expected help from authorities. "Haiti is an abandoned country," he said. "People are relying on themselves."

They're not cheeky, Greasy Slag; they're desperate.
It's better than saying "we won't bother calling anybody who already shows an interest in giving to charity while 300,000 have no homes, because they might find the phone call a mild annoyance".

Red Cross. Although the confirmation email from World Pay was rather distastefully addressed as shopper@worldpay....

I believe I am off on monday. Due to the lack of any infrastructure the Red Cross is setting up small medic stations where medical treatment can be provided. Wish me luck!

I've been donating to Medicins Sans Frontier for about a decade and always feel that this is the best way. They're on the ground amongst the first and put the money into that front-line medical care and support. I know this is such a narrow scope and isn't part of a grand rebuilding effort, but the rapidity of the response by MSF always impressed me and they seem to be such specialists at that first and second wave response that they are able to make a great difference in the time that matters most. I prefer to give to MSF because other aid agencies do great at enormous deployments and long-term support... and it's the instant response that I think is their weakness. None of this is based on fact, it's just based on a hunch that moving an army of support is harder to do than moving a small crack unit of support.

Anyhow, I don't up my donations during crises, I just peg them at a level I can comfortably afford month to month. This comes from figuring that a crack unit needs to always be funded well to exist and have that capability, there's no point throwing money at the problem when something happens if the skilled personnel and tools aren't there ready to be utilised.

I have some strange views on charity. I try and give about 10% of income monthly, but it's to a whole mixed pot of bizarre things that I hope will cover the gaps between that might exist between the larger organisations... so MSF instead of Red Cross, Open Rights Group instead of Amnesty, etc.

The other thing about charity... if you do self-assessment tax returns and declare your donations to registered charities then the government give you some money back. I'm not sure of the figure, something like 25% perhaps? Anyhow... it's a nice way to offset any financial hurt from being brassic some of the months of the year (and having that "if i hadn't given to charity" moment), you know you get a bit of windfall back to you just before Christmas (if you filed in September), and if you're not in need of it then you have the means to give even more to the causes you favour. It's definitely worth giving more than a small amount if you're self-assessing and can afford to make such donations.

We did a whipround at work today and came up with a grand. Just goes to show how generous peeps can be if you ask. I only hope they can get the aid out there quickly.

Christ! Well done.
Got a couple more people to donate today. We're up to about £300 at my work now which isn't bad. Food and shelter FTW!

i feel for them, i once had over 30 aftershocks and i couldn't find me house

Boom tish!

I already donate monthly and they phoned to ask for more.. bit cheeky if you ask me.

jeez.

Msf dd ftw imho.

I'm going to be extremely unpopular with my next comments, but it sadly must be said.

What do you people know about Haiti, or Haitians?

In the Caribbean, true that it is "Third World", but the levels of deprevation in Haiti cannot be compared to anywhere else in the region? Why? Is it just bad luck? No, it isn't.

Barbados is a flat, featureless country, that has been devastated by hurricanes, yet the country is quite an example for many others aound it. Excellent standards of education, honest governments and governance, and viable economy based on tourism.

Grenada lost 90-95% of bulidings in the last Category 5 hurricane, though most of the press was given to Jamaica's plight druing the same hurricane, by which time it had actually reduced in intensity to a Category 3 hurricane.

Yes, the loss is great in Haiti, and is unfortunate in a country that also regulary suffers hurricane damage. My point though is this, please make sure that any of your donations, go to charities that help in the right ways. Haiti is the Somalia and Sierra Leone of the Caribbean. In most respects, Haiti is lawless, and the challenge is not in helping them get over one disaster after another, but to encourage Haitians to build societies and a system of government that will serve their countrymen well. At the moment, its the rich that propser, and the poor get poorer.

Handouts will ensure this status quo, just as has been witnessed in areas of famine in Africa. Millions, if not billions of pounds can be raised for disasters, but if the infrastructures are not changed, then the cycle of donations following disasters will endure. Look at Ethiopia and also Somalia, for examples of what I am referring to.

I can't tell anyone what is right or wrong in such cases, as kids and innocent people are dying. My concern is how some countries only require some assistance to rebuild and regenerate, but other countries, no matter how much money is given, never improve.

Not all charities that are raising monies for the Haitian disaster are equal. Help if you want to, but please choose wisely. No bias, but medical charities are best in dealing with specific disaster events. Its a choice between short-term aid, and long-term aid.

Call me Clare Short.

A good point and well worded. A friend of mine is of Haitian origin and visits often, so I've been lucky enough to have the situation explained by someone who is knowledgeable and passionate about the country.
I think the only concern in the immediate future for almost ALL the major charities working out there right now is coping with and stabilizing the situation as quickly as possible.
Although you're very right that during non-crisis times much of what is put into Haiti seems to be in vain, I think it's fair to say that right now, for the situation they're in today, every penny is going to help them out.
Because of this I consider it more important to donate now than at any other time. That's how I feel, at least.

A friend who lost family in the earthquakes is auctioning a rare piece of Ladyhawke artwork, to raise money for Haiti charity. (that if anyone wants to share the link via other sites it would be appreciated)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Painting-by-Sarah-Larnach-Haiti-Relief-Rare-Ladyhawke_W0QQitemZ280451182996QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Paintings?hash=item414c317194

I'm yet to donate myself because of the problems with chairties mentioned by GAG2 and won't to get the right one. Looking into it today.

Velocio's MSF charity sounds good. Front line medical care is pretty much top priority.

GA2G makes some good points there. If you are donating but don't know much about Haiti's history then spend a while finding out. There is nothing natural at all about the destruction caused or Hait'is inability to cope with it. However, don't start with Jon Henley's shameful piece in the Guardian yesterday which failed even to mention the overthrow of Aristide by the US government. Haiti is a paradigm of the evil of Western colonialism, racism, theft and hypocrisy. To de-politicise any response to the earthquake is to maintain our own self-serving ignorance and to ensure that the vast majority of Haitians will come out of this situation no better than they went in.

funny that this thread is under miscellaneuous and meaningless! the rest of the forum seems a bit meaningless by comparison!