Haiti

J

Joe Dressner

Joe Dressner
It is hard to know how to help, but we can't just stand by and watch the suffering in Haiti without doing something.

Please send contributions to Partners in Health, a great organization that has been doing important work in Haiti for years. Their work has been on a grass roots level and has made an immediate difference in the lives of thousands of people. I am confident that they will put your donations to the best possible use under the circumstances.

Their web site is:

Partners in Health

You can read more about their ongoing work in Haiti at:

PIH's Existing Projects in Haiti!
 
Sometimes giving can be a bit difficult. Today should have been a nice enough day, having met up for a quick dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but it was spoiled by one quite unbelievable act. There is a religious organization here that is collecting money to send aid to Haiti. Though I very much oppose much else that this organization does (like their missionary work) they have proved themselves very efficient with humanitarian missions so I thought I'd give a little money to them. When I ran into one person collecting for the cause, I tried to give him 10 - and much to my surprised he refused to take it and told me that godless money isn't needed! I was absolutely sure this was a joke, but no. He recognized me from some Skeptics' meeting he had once attended - what a young earth creationist was doing in a Skeptics' meeting is a bit unclear. But why would anyone refuse money for such a cause? Oh well, the next person I ran into was happy to take my tenner. I wonder if I should report this one IDiot to the organization? If the organization's aim is to provide aid no matter what the beliefs of the recipient is, surely they should also be happy to receive money from anyone - no matter what his beliefs or lack of them are?
 
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
Sometimes giving can be a bit difficult. Today should have been a nice enough day, having met up for a quick dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but it was spoiled by one quite unbelievable act. There is a religious organization here that is collecting money to send aid to Haiti. Though I very much oppose much else that this organization does (like their missionary work) they have proved themselves very efficient with humanitarian missions so I thought I'd give a little money to them. When I ran into one person collecting for the cause, I tried to give him 10 - and much to my surprised he refused to take it and told me that godless money isn't needed! I was absolutely sure this was a joke, but no. He recognized me from some Skeptics' meeting he had once attended - what a young earth creationist was doing in a Skeptics' meeting is a bit unclear. But why would anyone refuse money for such a cause? Oh well, the next person I ran into was happy to take my tenner. I wonder if I should report this one IDiot to the organization? If the organization's aim is to provide aid no matter what the beliefs of the recipient is, surely they should also be happy to receive money from anyone - no matter what his beliefs or lack of them are?
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Obviously he was a true skeptic.
 
Our usual group has been Doctors Without Borders but Bettylu said your group mentioned might even be better. Considering your problems thanks for being a mensch.
 
Thank you Joe for posting this and organizing the tasting. What a great effort.

The founder of PIH is Paul Farmer, one of the shining humanitarians of our lifetimes, a physician, activist, and anthropologist. He and his organization know Haiti and its problems better than almost anyone. Their clinic a couple of hours from Port-au-Prince has been at the forefront of the terrible struggles against disease and poverty in Haiti for years and they are at the forefront now. As you probably read for yourselves, according to their website they are desperate for money and for medical volunteers.

If you'd like to know more about him, you could try Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, where I first learned about him in any detail, or his own writings. His AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame reconfigured our understanding of Haiti, the HIV epidemic, and the place of Haiti in American discourse.
 
originally posted by Joe Dressner:
PIH has put up a new web site that I hope everyone reads:

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standwithhaiti.org
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Thanks for calling attention to this very worthy (and needy) organization. This is a tragedy of the greatest magnitude, and we all should find some way to contribute, no matter how small that contribution may be. I'll also point out that, as with the Katrina disaster of '04, Dale Williams has organized a charity raffle on WLDG to encourage people to donate money.

Mark Lipton
 
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