Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘tsunami’

That’s what the U.N. is saying about the earthquake in Pakistan:

The United Nations said yesterday the earthquake in Pakistan was a worse disaster than last year’s tsunami, as its secretary general, Kofi Annan, warned of a second “massive wave of deaths” if international aid were not dramatically scaled up. “This is a huge, huge disaster … perhaps the biggest ever that we have seen. It is a race against time to save the lives of these people,” Mr Annan said in New York.

Unfortunately, due to donor fatigue from the Tsunami and from Hurricane Katrina, the dollars aren’t pouring in at the rate they’re needed.

It’s easy for us to be cynical. I’m the first to admit it. Because of my line of work, often my first reaction to an emergency isn’t “how awful” but “looks like we’re going into emergency mode at work and not sleeping for a week”. Not very compassionate, true, but part of the job.

Still, it’s hard for anyone to look at the numbers and not react. Last week, when we sent out the emergency mailings for our clients, we were using the number of 40,000 as the death toll. Today it’s up to 79,000. And it could still go higher. The numbers are absolutely staggering.

Please, if you have the means, make a donation to the aid effort. It doesn’t take much and it can really help.

Most of the donations that have been pouring in so far for Tsunami disaster relief have been motivated by genuine shock, empathy and desire to help.

But in case those reasons don’t seem quite cynical enough for you, if you’re American, Dubya has a selfish reason to give:

President Bush (news – web sites) said U.S. aid efforts following Asia’s killer tsunami would improve America’s image in the Muslim world.

[ . . . ]

“In … responding to the tsunami, many in the Muslim world have seen a great compassion in the American people,” Bush said in an interview with ABC News to be aired on Friday.

The president, initially criticized for a slow and limited U.S. response to the tsunami, said he was “very impressed … by how quickly we have responded” to deploy military equipment and personnel for the international relief effort.

“I’ve got to tell you, our military is making a significant difference,” he said.

Bush has been accused of many things, but genius has never been one of them. Nevertheless, you’d think at least someone on his senior staff might realize that it doesn’t look so good to use a natural disaster that has killed over a hundred and fifty thousand people as a PR opportunity.

Sheesh.

The founders of the Canadian retail chain Music World have donated five million dollars to the Canadian Red Cross for Tsunami disaster relief:

The gift, by Kroum and Eva Pindoff, who made their fortune by founding the record retailer Music World, is the largest-ever gift to the Canadian Red Cross during a disaster appeal, the organisation said.

The couple pledged 100,000 Canadian dollars (82,000 dollars US) for tsunami relief on Friday, but after reflecting on the disaster, decided to do much more.

“After seeing more stark images of this tremendous tragedy and misery, my wife and I were up most of the night, grief-stricken,” Kroum Pindoff said.

“We wanted to help alleviate the suffering, and decided we had to make a more substantial gift.”

That’s the kind of staggering generosity that somehow helps to restore a bit of faith in humanity.

Of course, people will start saying that they did it through the business for the tax deduction, or as a publicity stunt, or a number of cynical reasons that I’d probably usually be the first to list. But for the moment, I’m choosing to believe that they made the donation simply because they felt it was the right thing to do, and wanted to help. Sometimes it’s good to set cynicism aside for a moment and give people credit for their generosity.

One of the consequences of the Asian Tsuanami disaster has been the somewhat unexpected spotlight that the media has placed on charitable giving – in Canada and around the world. The Globe and Mail reports that 37% of Canadians have contributed in some shape or form to the relief efforts. Between comparing contributions of various governments and highlighting individual, corporate and even celebrity giving, there have been a number of stories analysing how the money is being used and rating the politics of NGOs, the world seems to be paying more attention to the relief effort than to the disaster itself.

I try not to let my professional life intrude on my blog too much, but I feel the need to make an exception, because this situation is exceptional in a lot of ways. For those of us who work in the nonprofit sector, it’s a bit like suddenly being placed under a microscope. Sure, our clients are raising money for worthy causes all the time… but suddenly, here’s one that’s important. It’s enough to turn any of us into a cynic – especially me, who was cynical to begin with.

But in a strange way, it has had the opposite effect on most of the people I work with. Everyone is working longer hours, making the extra effort, trying to do whatever we can to pitch in and help out. It’s one of those times when we’re reminded that the work we do isn’t just about production schedules and copy and artwork deadlines, but about real people and real emergencies. Yes, we’re aware of that every day, but sometimes we lose sight of the forest amidst the day-to-day stress of taking care of the trees.

For those of us who want to pitch in and contribute, the possibilities seem endless. The Globe and Mail’s listing contains 34 different charities that are collecting funds.

I ultimately decided to donate through Federation CJA, who is collecting donations locally to be distributed through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Yes, I know that at times like this it’s probably better to put politics aside. But unfortunately, that’s a bit of a pipe dream, and the initial rejection of Israeli aid by Sri Lanka, as well as the Arab world’s inevitable blaming of the Joooooos for the disaster itself only serves to remind us of the world’s pettiness. So I figure that when the dust settles and someone thinks to ask what North American Jews contributed, that my donation will be counted this way.

Yes, in a perfect world, everyone would rush to the aid of everyone else without regard for religion, race or politics. But we live in a very imperfect world. So maybe my solution to the problem of how to help is an imperfect one. But that’s something I can live with.

The Tsunami disaster has meant that we are in full emergency mode here at work. So blogging will be light for a little while.

Not the greatest blogging start to 2005, I know. But hey, I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions to blog more often. (Actually, I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions at all, since I never actually keep them.)

There are no words to express the horrors of the Tsunami earthquake disaster that so far has claimed over 80,000 lives and completely destroyed millions more. I won’t attempt to find them.

But even though I’m on vacation – from work, from the blog, from reading the papers – I, like many other bloggers, felt it would be horribly remiss of me not to at least make mention of what is pretty much the only news story these days that matters.

First of all, to help: pretty much every relief organization in the book is accepting donations. Money is being collected in the biggest disaster relief effort in history – from individuals, from governments, from the whole world. And all this much-needed help is being accepted… with one notable exception. If you do want to help through Jewish channels, the JDC is taking donations. For Canadians, the CJC is collecting on their behalf.

At times like this, though, the thing I always think about is, well, how big a disaster does something have to be to encourage people to help? Until last week, money was pouring in to help the millions in desperate need in Sudan, as the “conflict” that the UN doesn’t have the guts to call genocide in the Darfur region rages on. But now, the story that food aid to the region is being suspended because it’s too dangerous for aid workers, well, that’s lost in the shuffle. After all, only 40,000 people have died in the Sudan crisis. That’s nowhere near the staggering 80,000 who have died so far in just a couple of days in Tsunami.

80,000. 40,000. Do these numbers even have meaning anymore? Where do we draw the line? Do we donate only when there are four zeros? Record-high generosity for the Tsunami relief funds is much needed and appreciated, but the cold reality is that disasters mean an influx of cash for some at the expense of others who aren’t grabbing as many headlines because their work doesn’t have as many zeros.

Of course, we can’t help everyone everywhere. We all do what we can in small ways. But sometimes I wonder how much of what we do is all about a numbers game.