Ilus EluOur Beautiful Life

We’ve had some concerned customers e-mailing to ask why there was nothing on our site about supporting Haiti, and weren’t we going to do something?

The answer is yes, we are. We just had to be extremely thorough in deciding which NGO to support, because we are going to be donating 100% of our profits until 28 February, and 5% of our annual profits thereafter. That’s *your* money we’re talking about. We wanted to make sure we knew exactly where it was going. Aside from being Canadian, we had four requirements:

a) a zero-overhead organisation. Volunteers donate their time, transportation is donated, and all funds are used to purchase mission supplies, not diverted to administration.

b) have extensive experience in disaster relief in general and Haiti in particular. Medcins Sans Frontiers and the Red Cross both meet this criteria, but have huge overhead costs. We wanted a small, fast deployment that could be providing immediate assistance on the ground.

c) an organisation also devoted to capacity building, assisting communities to create opportunities to break the poverty cycle. Global Medic trains local organisations on the use of their equipment, which is then donated to the community.

d) the ability to earmark funds for specific use in Haiti. With many larger organisations, donations go to administrative costs or other missions.

We finally found just the people we were looking for: GlobalMedic. You can learn more about them at the link. Their response team made the overland crossing from the Dominican Republic into Haiti on the 15th of January, and is operating a clinic on the grounds of the Adventist Hospital in Port-au-Prince. Five water purification units are currently operational, providing clean water to the staff, patients and families in the hospital, as well as many of those seeking refuge on the hospital grounds. They are also distributing water purification tablets. However, their medical supplies are already running low. A relief flight has left Toronto and is en route, but we can help stock that next flight, and the next, and the next.
But let’s do better than that. Let’s go for a new high capacity water purification system! $1500 will provide clean water for 1000 people per day. $10 000 will give clean water to 30 000. We can keep the field hospital stocked in the basic supplies it needs to help the ill, traumatised and malnourished. How far can we go? Let’s find out!

From the Global Medic website:

$30 can provide 200 people with clean drinking water each day following a disaster
$100 can provide 10,000 water purification tablets
$150 can provide long-term water solutions for a family

We know that finding extra money to donate is hard. We’re trying to make it a bit easier: through the purchase of things you had already budgeted for, you can help those who desperately need it. We’re going to find a little widget to put up here, so you can keep track of our efforts. Thank you for your support!

P.S. If, like us, you have some links in the emergency services sector, and you know of some medical supplies, tents, stretchers, anything on their need list and need a way to get it to them, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Many hands make light work.