BobHarris.com - Java quake: more ways you can help

Books! Actual books!

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"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

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-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

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Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

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— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

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Java quake: more ways you can help

Tag it now -

Wednesday, 31 May 2006

Update: decided to bump this to the top of the page. People need help.

A bunch of email is still sitting unopened; my apologies to folks I haven't replied to lately. Still, most of this site's best stuff is sent in by you guys, at least when I can get around to checking it out.

Andy B., who has done considerable relief work himself in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, shares suggestions re charities in the wake of the Java earthquake, both specific to the event and more general. I can't vouch for perfection here, but I'm sure he knows a boatload more than I do. I paraphrase a bit for brevity:

Since World Vision apparently has a bit of a specific-god missionary rep, he also suggests for others of a slightly different god bent the Church World Service, ADRA , CRS/CARITAS, and LWS, depending on how your own god bends. He also suggests a number of European groups, among them: Merlin, Malteser, GOAL, and Concern.

Meanwhile, Atlas Logistique transports stuff for other good guys, so they're a way of hitting the relief infrastructure, if you will. For shelter projects, he recommends the International Organization for Migration. Let's also not forget the International Rescue Committee and the American Refugee Committee.

If you go for more capitalist solutions, setting folks up with small businesses that are intended to make relief self-perpetuating and profitable, check out Population Services International or other groups you can Google under "social marketing."

Andy also points out that there's a big diff between short-term relief and long-term development work, and that sometimes in a crisis the former tends to get all the play, when the latter needs support just as much. Good point. So aim accordingly.

Finally, if you ever have a yen to run off to someplace that could really use your time, check out Relief Web, which has a job board and everything.

Sorely tempting, I must say.

The quake scoreboard, so far: 6200 dead, 30,000 injured, 200,000 made homeless.

Want to help? Go to it.

Thanks.