Tears are not enough

[allhatnocattle]

"When I was in Haiti, a 19-year-old American in military fatigues showed up with boxes of latex gloves. His heart was in the right place, but he didn’t really know what he was doing and had a nervous breakdown after picking up an amputated leg when he was asked to clean a hospital’s waste-strewn yard. He went home the next day

Comments

[gunslnger]

I'm sure some of it will be used for paying the people who are thinking about how to spend it.

[puf_almighty]

Heh. See how nobody's paying attention anymore? But see how much money they've raised?

People will be able to help Haiti a long time with the money raised. And it's damned important that the fundraisers capitalized on that blitz of public attention before it was forgotten (as it is now).

[the_rukh]

I don't think your C is given. I think the post was pointing out that the organization made their sale that the aid was needed NOWNOWNOW and he's questioning if either a) they did that just to make sure to get the money that will be needed for the long run or b) they might be trying to pull one over on people.

[allhatnocattle]

Thanx. I couldn't reply without calling the troll something derogatory.

[tridus]

The Hatians have been complaining about this a fair bit. Aid is needed, but the agencies have done a terrible job of distributing it. Some areas get too much while others are totally ignored, there's no coordination between the groups (most of which also don't work with the government), and far too much bureaucracy. Macleans had a great article in the early days of the disaster about it, showing one agency giving out water purification packets. Their plan was going around with a clipboard, and if your name was on their list, you got water that day. They gave out water to 600 or so people. (Meanwhile, Global Medic, which is a tiny group in comparison used the same time to bring in equipment and managed to purify water for 50,000 people. Amazing what happens if you send engineers instead of bureaucrats.)

Oxfam did a report on some of these problems back in 2005. Here's my favorite part: For example, in Ghana $100m of World Bank assistance was withheld because the government failed to privatise municipal water. The UK followed suit,

[enders_shadow]

Private water = private companies profits

Water is the oil of the third world.
I like my water clean and publicly owned.
But that's me, a crazy liberal....

[gunslnger]

Yes, yes you are...

[nairiporter]

I spent a month (January 15 - February 15) my first mission with UNICEF in Petionville, south of Port-au-Prince. In just two days, on Monday I am going there on my second mission until April 10. Moreover I am hoping to finalize an ongoing adoption procedure of a 3 year old boy. Hopefully if things go well, I will return home with him. So thanks for this post, it comes very timely in a very important moment in my life

[allhatnocattle]

Good luck. Adoptions have been fast tracked. Saw some old friends at the mall with a new kid they got from Haiti a few weeks ago.

Haiti has been desperate for a long long while. Fortunately it never gets to be -40 and make finding shelter with heat a priority. It's bad enough finding water when the river is frozen. The desperation is quite different from the homeless issues I'm used to here.

It's a given that Haiti needs medicine first and foremost, water treatment as well. There have been efforts to provide both. I would think security is further down the list, but seems to me that has been prioritized by those seeking greater control.

Earthquakes destroy structure and infrastructure. It would seem awful silly to try to use the cash on hand for something else.

[nairiporter]

What else did you have in mind?