URGENT: Haiti Earthquake Appeal

On Tuesday January 12 2010 an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale hit the Haiti area causing severe damage and casualties in the Port-au-Prince area.

It is not known what the death toll is, and is likely we will never know.

Haiti is now in a State of Emergency and needs our help in order to try and rebuild the communities lost, and below are various ways in which you can help if you reside in the UK, U.S or Canada.

Residents in the UK can send donations to the The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). The DEC

was founded in 1963 and is made up of 13 member agencies who provide humanitarian aid in times of disaster.

The 13 member agencies are:

The easiest way to donate is by sending a message from your mobile phone as follows: -

Text “GIVE” to 70077 to donate £5 to the DEC for the Haiti earthquake appeal. £5 goes to DEC. You pay £5 plus your standard network SMS rate. If you are a UK Tax Payer, then once you have donated, please fill out this form to claim Gift Aid.

The Gift Aid scheme means that the DEC can get more money from the government and at no extra cost to you! For every £5 donated, DEC can claim a further £1.41 in Gift Aid. For more information about the appeal, visit our their website at www.dec.org.uk

Canada.

The best way for you to help is to donate money—not clothing or food—to the registered charity of your choice.

On January 14, 2010, the Government of Canada announced it will match the generosity of Canadians in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti, up to a total of $50 million. These contributions will be made directly—donors need not contact the Government of Canada.

Rogers and Bell both announced Haiti text campaigns, giving their customers a way of donating funds to the relief effort via their cell phones.

For Rogers Wireless and Fido customers, sending the text message “HELP” to the shortcode 1291 will see $5 donated to Partners in Health: Haiti and other Haitian relief organizations.

Rogers Communications and the Rogers family are also donating $250,000 in funds and goods to Partners in Health: Haiti and other relief organizations in that country. Since yesterday’s launch of the Haiti text donations, Rogers and Fido customers have donated $25,000.

Bell Mobility customers can send $5 per text to the Salvation Army’s fundraising campaign for the earthquake-devastated country by texting the word “HAITI” to 45678 on any Bell Mobility phone.

Bell is also donating $100,000 to the Canadian Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Fund.

Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said in an email that Telus is involved in the industry-wide Mobile Giving Foundation and hopes to have its system online by tomorrow. He said Telus has donated $50,000 to the relief effort, split between the Salvation Army and the Red Cross and is in touch with those organizations to see what they need and how else it can help.

Mobile Giving Foundation Canada works with the wireless industry and registered charities to give donors a means of using SMS (short messaging service) to donate.

In response to a question from Dixon Tam on Twitter regarding the amounts wireless customers can donate with a single text, both Rogers and Bell say the maximum for each text donation is $5. If you want to donate more, you can send more texts to the donation number but the maximum is $30 a month.

U.S

With the U.S taking lead in pledging $100m in aid, President Barack Obama said that “one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history” is moving toward Haiti as he continued to mobilize the U.S. response to the island’s devastating earthquake.

Anyone wishing to donate or provide assistance in Haiti following the devastating earthquake is asked to contact the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) which has established a dedicated page to coordinate Haiti support. More information»

You also can send your message to helphaiti {at} state(.)gov. Be certain to include in the subject line “Donation of” followed by the products you are willing to donate. A staffer will share the information with relief and development agencies that have the ability to transport collected items to the affected region and have identified needed goods.

Other ways to help:

text “HAITI” to “90999″ and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill;
contact the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund - a joint fundraising effort for Haiti earthquake relief led by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts
SMS text “GIVE10″ to 20222 to donate $10 to Direct Relief

Google are also doing their bit towards supporting Haiti. They have pledged £1m to help organizations provide relief.

To help US families reach relatives in Haiti, for the next two weeks, Google Voice is offering free calls to Haiti.
If you don’t have a Google Voice account, you can request an invitation here.

They have also set up Google Crisis Response, a tool where you can either looking for someone or who has information about a person missing.

At the time of writing this post, 6 days have passed, and people are still being found ALIVE under the collapsed building.

Please pledge your support to those in need, there are many, many ways in which you can donate. Why not hold a fund raiser with your school or at work, hold a charity car wash, anything you can do to raise money.

The staff at BBBN are donating via the SMS option in the country of residence. Any amount can make a difference.

Our thoughts go out to all those affected by this tragedy, let us hope and prey they can find a way to put this behind them and start building a new life for themselves.