Om is right. A year without tragedy would indeed be a wonderful gift.
We should all take a few moments out of our lives and pay attention to those less fortunate who have suffered immensely in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and the tsunamis it spawned.
One of my colleagues at TMC has family in Sri Lanka. He was lucky enough to receive good news about the health and safety of his relatives. Many people were not so lucky.
As the death toll from this horrible tragedy rises past 55,000 (unfortunately that toll is expected to continue to rise), the need for assistance grows apace. Millions of people are affected in nearly a dozen countries across multiple continents. Beyond the immediate basic needs of food, shelter, water, etc., one has to realize that there will be many long-term consequences. Orphaned children, families in need of crisis counseling, wholly displaced communities, people trying to piece together some shred of a life that was changed suddenly and violently by nature’s wrath... The suffering will continue long after most people have forgotten about the unimaginable destruction of December 25/26.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent societies are collecting donations to help those affected by the crisis. Donations to the American Red Cross International Response Fund can be made by calling 1-800-HELP NOW.
Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres) is also accepting donations.
888-392-0392
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/
A very thorough list of organizations that are accepting donations to help the victims of this disaster can be found at The Command Post.
This latest crisis is no different than other tragedies. Hurricanes that ravage the Caribbean, earthquakes that devastate Armenia, mudslides in Brazil… We tend to forget how violent this planet can be sometimes. Natural disasters are most certainly a part of daily life worldwide. It is my hope that these few words might nudge some of you to take a moment out of your day and make a donation to help in the wake of this most recent tragedy. Every little bit helps.
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I have made a customized EMERGENCY type search engine that links only to crisis situation type websites (like relief aide, evacuation planning layouts, crisis management setup and others relating to disasters caused by terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, disease and man-made war), see http://www.CrisisSearch.com ... This niche portal was made after the Katrina devastation and hopefully it will assist humanity in/during the next disasterous crisis...
Please add related crisis blogs and websites to the database, already 1,000 websites spidered for meta data (fetched meta tags for description, title and keywords, plus we then grab the text from page and cache it for further searchable data)...
Also a portal as at the bottom of every search page has external links. Also a 'Suggestion Bot' that tries to suggest similar terms to use in further queries... Blogs/forums are on the way (being created so people can find more personalized one-on-one advice/help) for people to post missing friends, family, pets or post about volunteering or possible stradegies for Emergency Planning for current crisises or Clean-Up plans for past disasters.
My first ever nonprofit humanitarian project was http://www.SpareSomeChange.com which only covers resources for those living homeless (I had suffered homelessness a few times as a youth). I will try to come up with other helping humanity type portals as I can afford too...