UPDATED WITH MORE RELIEF INFORMATION
The recent earthquake in Haiti has caused untold destruction, magnified by the poor conditions that surround much of Port-au-Prince. Casualty estimates have ranged from 40,000 to as high as 500,000.
The NY Times highlighted a huge surge in cell phone giving – $2 million has been raised via text message as of early this morning.
The easiest way is to text “HAITI” (presumably without quotes) to the number 90999. This will add $10 to your cell phone bill, which is aggregated and sent to the Red Cross. None of the money goes to the phone company, so you don’t have to worry about AT&T using an earthquake to build up their 3G networks.
More information can be found on the White House or Red Cross websites. If you’re reading this and you can spare $10 and a few seconds, it’s definitely worth a donation. Via Consumerist:
- Doctors Without Borders
- Red Cross – you can also text “haiti” to 90999 to automatically donate $10–the service is being offered without surcharges by mGive
- International Rescue Committee
- Yele Haiti (Wyclef Jean’s charity) – text 501501 to automatically donate $5 (the charge will appear on your phone bill)
And if you want something more specific, try looking through this list of relief organizations provided by InterAction.org.
The Associated Press notes that if you want to donate your technical expertise or job skills to the relief effort, visit the Center for International Disaster Information (www.cidi.org) for more information. (Warning: their site is being hammered right now.)
Here is a stirring report on the devastation and how the lack of infrastructure is hampering recovery.
On Twitter, you can follow developments by searching for #Haiti. While doing so, I saw the following:
Pope Benedict activates the Catholic Church’s extensive worldwide charity network to help the victims #Haiti quake – Reuters
This made me wonder…how do you “activate” a charity network? Is this an email, a phone tree, or what? In my mind, Benedict hit a giant red button on the Pope-desk, and missiles full of supplies came shooting out of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, although that may not be completely accurate.
In any event, donate if you can.
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