Please donate to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal

I’m going to go madly off-topic here and put out a plea for donations to Haiti to help with the relief efforts.  You probably all already know about the terrible earthquake that struck on January 12th, and that the death toll keeps climbing and climbing.  You may have also heard the harrowing stories about doctors trying to carry out life-saving surgeries but being hampered by delays, about people who survived the quake dying needlessly due to lack of water, food and medicine, and about the ranks of Haiti’s 400,000 orphaned children being swelled by tens of thousands more.

My colleagues at Oxfam have been working tirelessly on the ground to deliver clean water (one of our Haitian colleagues buried her mother in the morning and then came straight to work)  and in our offices to raise funds.  The public response has been wonderful so far – Oxfam Ireland has already raised over a quarter of a million euro – but more money is still needed. This may be the worst natural disaster in recent memory.

Please donate now to Oxfam, or to any of the other repubtable charities that are working on the ground in Haiti.  We also need volunteers to fundraise: please get in touch with Oxfam (scroll down this page for the details) if you can organise a collection in your workplace or neighbourhood.