Donations for Haiti

This blogpost makes note of the anniversary of Haiti in a not-too-positive way. The blogger notes that the Red Cross raised $32million on text messages alone - $10 at a time. But the blogger also notes that there's very little accounting for where the money went.

One side note is the blogger mentioned that the Disaster Accountability Project asked 200 charities where the money went and only 38 responded. The blogger does give details on the 200 or the 38. This is one reason I believe blogging will never replace real reporting, but the blogger isn't trying to report, just to make a point.

The question to take away from this is how should we help countries like Haiti when disasters like this strike? Should we ignore them altogether as some in the comments have said? Why not go in, take over the government, fix everything and give it back? It would be cheaper.

Unfortunately, there are things like sovereignty that get in the way. And there's no guarantee that if we did this we could find capable people to accept it when we finished.

I'm a firm believer in helping these people out, and helping them in a small, direct way. Agencies like Samaritan’s Purse have a low overhead and directly help people. One of the commenters to the blog note that we should take in more water purifiers, porta-potties, etc. This is a win-win solution, US wins because we manufacture some of those things and Haiti wins because they need them.

There are several people who commented that the people can't be helped until the government changes. While that's probably true, there's little you or I can do to change the government. We can either continue to send money in useless ways or we can find better ways to spend our money (or we can just ignore the situation).

See also my post about the Haiti Relief effort and Pat Robertson here.

Haiti relief effort and Pat Robertson

 

Most of you have heard by now the radical thing said by TV evangelist Pat Robertson. In speaking about the earthquake, he said that the Haitians had, long ago, made a pact with the devil. I was curious what he was talking about, so I did a little research.

It turns out that this "legend" has been around for a long time. The Haitians revolted against the French in 1791 and, as the story goes, made a deal with the devil to get out from under French rule. Now while. Rev. Robertson is relatively old, I don't think he was around during those times, so it seems he's just passing along stories he's heard (isn't that gossip?) What's really sad is that the rest of his comments were overshadowed by this statement. After this incindeary statement, Roberson went on to say that "we need to pray for them (always a good idea) a great turning to God (good for everyone) and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. (Wait - did he say something good?) But right now we are helping the suffering people (he's helping?) and the suffering is unimaginable."

That's right, Robertson's people started helping immediately after the quake.

I can't say I have ever watched an episode of the 700 Club (Robertson's show). I've probably watched parts of it, but I just couldn't handle his type of evangelism. I think he's wrong on a lot of accounts. Mainly, I think he needs to study Romans 14:19 and focus on edifying people instead of saying things that come out as hateful. I have no idea of the leaders in Haiti in 1791 signed a deal with the devil and frankly I don't care. Neither should Rev. Robertson.

Now, I have a question about the relief effort. There have been reports that there are people upset with how long it is taking to get supplies and relief into Haiti. Some have even gone so far as to draw analogies to Katrina, the Indian Tsunami in 2004. Why doesn't someone in power (special nod and wink to Pres. Obama) draft and publish a guideline of what a relief effort looks like along with a timeline. Sure, ever situation is unique, but if we know it takes 6-9 days to provide food to 10,000 people, then we can properly judge the response or lack of response.

Comments?