wednesday's child: Asian Tsunami - Please Give to Oxfam & Charities Working to Help Victims

December 31, 2004

Asian Tsunami - Please Give to Oxfam & Charities Working to Help Victims

I had so many things I was going to write this week, it's my vacation, my birthday in a few days, my brother's birthday is New Year's Day, and my dad turned 76 last weekend. But then all thoughts of Christmas cheer and birthday shopping frenzy were overshadowed by the Asian Tsunami, it's so unbelievably tragic it's hard to think of anything else. Everything else seems so superficial and selfish when you consider what millions of people on the other side of the world are going through right now. The projected death toll crossed the 135,000 mark today.

Please at least give a donation to one of the groups trying to provide relief to survivors and families of the victims, I gave to Oxfam, which is not getting an Amazon plug like the Red Cross. Here's MoveOn.org's synopsis of their efforts:

We can help directly, as individuals, and save lives today. Oxfam is already scrambling on the front lines to fight off starvation and disease - and beginning to rebuild. Because Oxfam has worked for years with grassroots groups in the hardest hit areas, they were able to mobilize local leadership to help survivors immediately after the tsunami hit. And Oxfam will be there for the long-term, helping communities recover and regain their ability to meet basic needs. Oxfam needs to raise $5 million immediately to provide safe water, sanitation, food, shelter, and clothing to 36,000 families in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India. Your contribution can make this possible.

Click here to donate, or here to read more about their organization. But please give to at least one of the groups, it's the very least we can do.

Our government is doing the least it can do also, they've offered less money for aid than they are planning on spending on Dubya's $40 million+ inauguration party, isn't that nice?

Also see Careusa.org and RedCross.org to help. And beware in advance of the soon to come spam emails claiming to be collecting for this disaster, you know they're coming. Never click on an email link, you can double check reputable organizations through the media websites, CNN has a long list here of places to safely donate.

Posted by Morticia at December 31, 2004 04:53 AM

Comments

Interesting site, was looking for a different page.

But like most news agencies out there, most people have no clue how much the US puts out to other contries in need, freindly or not. They look at what the World Bank and the UN is giving, and forget we, the US citizens, gives those orgamizations most of the money they loan out. Of course they forget (and it is never put into the money figures) the millions and if not billions of funds we of the military use in aid, or getting aid from one place to another...no other organization can move vast quantities and little time or to the places that it was set up to do.

35 million is not little to spend in the first 96 hours of a horrible situation that will take a decade to fix. The US (I've been on a number of smaller operations...well at this point every one except WWII and WWI are smaller situations now) is the first one there, and the last to leave. You can bet when it is over in 10 years, the US will have spent BILLIONs, and at least twice more than the next 3 or 4 countries together.

Never under estimate the power of this country, nor it's people. Most of the world forgets that!!!

Posted by: restell on January 2, 2005 10:48 AM

This Tsunami crisis is very tragic. On another note though, the snow in Houston was awesome. Actually, I hate to cold so I was hiding from it.

Posted by: Ryan on January 9, 2005 09:25 PM

I watched the snow from inside the house also, it's really pretty but I'm really glad I didn't have to go anywhere. It was cold and rainy like two days ago and I had to go out in it and drive all over town, but now we've got the AC back on in the house, but that's Houston ;-)

Posted by: Tish on January 10, 2005 04:14 AM