Posts Tagged ‘haiti’
Posted by Gayle Gifford on January 22, 2010 in Effectiveness
It’s been a very interesting week.
My post on Tuesday, “My worst nightmare is now true, sloppy ratings ratings of nonprofit effectiveness in Hatii,” and a storm of Tweets generated quite a bit of attention.
As Tuesday’s post explains, after my first critique, Guidestar changed their hastily constructed home page listing Top Ten Relief Organizations Working in Haiti, which I strongly debated the evidence for, to a somewhat more accurate Most Reviewed Relief Organizations in Haiti.
After a long conversation this afternoon with Debra Snider, Guidestar’s VP of Communications and Administration, and Shari Ilsen, Director of Marketing and Outreach at GreatNonprofits, Guidestar made the laudable decision to drop the listing altogether.
Now when you land on Guidestar’s homepage and scroll down, you’ll see Disaster Action Center and encouragement to post a review if you have firsthand experience with an organization working in Haiti. A link takes you to the site of GreatNonprofits.
Why is this so much better? Read More >>
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Posted by Jon Howard on January 15, 2010 in Effectiveness, World News
It’s hard to be hard-headed about giving to Haiti when people are hungry, thirsty and injured. But before you reflexively hit the DONATE NOW FOR HAITI button on the first email (or text message) you see, take a moment to consider your own values. Even in emergencies, perhaps most of all in emergencies, it’s important to try to give in ways that can help to avert similar disasters in the future.
Timothy A. Wise reminds us that “aid is power” in his 2005 blog posting Humanitarian Crises: What is a Progressive to Do? A lot of American aid power goes, intentionally or unintentionally, to helping entrench American businesses and exports at the expense of local products and producers. Food aid often winds up driving local produce and producers out of business. Reconstruction contracts with international construction firms undercut local professionals, builders and workers. Wise advises sticking with agencies which were present before the crisis and will stick around later and those with clear strategies to build local capacity.
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Posted by Jon Howard on January 14, 2010 in World News
I visited Haiti twice, in 1989 and again in 1995 and I know how difficult life there can be at the best of times. Now, in the very worst of times, Haiti needs our help to survive and recover.
I’ve sent my money for emergency help to Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), and can confidently recommend them as a good way to help.
MSF has medical staff on the ground in Port-au-Prince. Although all three of their Port-au-Prince hospitals were destroyed, they will be setting up an inflatable hospital in the next day. I once visited a MSF hospital in rural Haiti. It was an oasis of compassion and care.
We can only hope that this catastrophe will be the very bottom of the seemingly endless well of misery this poor nation has suffered. Perhaps now, the U.S. and the world will turn away from interventions and imposed solutions and support Haitians in reconstruction. That work must literally be “from the ground up” since so much of Haiti’s land has been ruined by deforestation and erosion
My client Grassroots International does exactly that kind of development. In the years ahead, Haiti will need programs like GRI’s on a much wider scale to achieve food self-sufficiency and the long-term prosperity it deserves.
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