As pretty much everyone in the world knows now, Haiti suffered a horrible earthquake on Tuesday January 12, 2010. Most people also already know that even before this terrible disaster the country was stricken with a level of poverty that is almost unimaginable to those of us in North America. So I really can’t imagine the situation there now and the sheer scale and horror of it threatens to overwhelm me at this point.
Being a part of the amazing non profit technology community has let me know that many, many people jumped into action immediately and are using every tool they know of to help in fast, meaningful and creative ways. One of the things that brings me hope for our world is the way in which we are using technology to make even small contributions count ( Red Cross raised $3million in one day via $10 text message donations) and its really inspiring to see it in action, even if the reason its needed is so awful.
Below are links to clients that work in Haiti that need your support to respond to this latest disaster and some from friends and colleagues that are rushing to aid the people of Haiti as well. Please consider making a donation – which really is the best way to help.
Education Partnership for Children of Conflict organizations and updates
The International Rescue Committee
The Jewish Federations of North America (formerly UJC) Haiti Relief Fund
Luke Montgomery, a colleague I met at the Web of Change conference in 2007 who used the internet to bring people together to build an orphanage for HIV children is in immediate need since their first orphanage was directly affected – please help him if you can.
We Can Build an Orphanage special donation page
[UPDATE: Luke and his partner are now doing even more in Haiti as the Cause Commandos:
http://causecommandos.com/ and you can learn more about the orphanage and how to help on its main site: http://www.wecanbuildanorphanageblog.com/ ]
Other great organizations that my friends and colleagues are involved with
and of course The Red Cross
Finding People Takes an Internet
After Hurricane Katrina I was part of a crowd sourced effort to connect people lost and found in the emergency called Katrina People Finder – it was an amazing international effort that resulted in standardization of disaster contact records which has been adopted and evolved over the years. So I am particularly interested to see the great work being done now for those looking to help people find each other. You can see this work in the links below and find help if you are trying to locate someone that was in Haiti.
http://www.haitianquake.com/ – to locate people
http://haiti.ushahidi.com/ – crowd sourced crisis data
http://www.sahana.lk/ – open source disaster management system
PFIF format http://zesty.ca/pfif/ – evolution of the data standard
UPDATE: Google engineers have joined the effort and are scraping existing data, importing to PFIF and forming a central hub here: http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/
Looking for Animal Organizations
I am also actively looking for animal welfare organizations to support in the country, those having an established presence are most effective since they know the country and don’t face the cost of deploying from a remote location. Please contact me if you know of good groups on the ground in Haiti that are helping rescue companion animals and livestock. Mostly its too soon for them to act since finding and helping the human victims is still an urgent top priority in the country.
One smart organization to follow about animals is Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and I will be checking to see what they are doing regularly. They are updating their efforts on their rapid response page.
Even if you can’t afford to give money, please voice your support for these efforts to your friends and family and online.
Update:
The Animal Relief Coalition for Haiti (ARCH), a new coalition of dedicated animal welfare organizations has been formed to help the animals of Haiti. Best Friends is participating and its led by World Society for the Protection of Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare . Other animal welfare groups part of the coalition includes the ASPCA, American Humane Association, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), and Humane Society International (HSI). If you love animals and want to help please donate what you can to one of the coalition organizations.