Bloggers for Haiti

Posted By Laura in Other Stuff | 3 comments

**UPDATE: The current total (at 11.30 Wed 20th) stands at £3560!**

We’re doing no Blog Love this week.

Instead, I’m going to repost a message from the lovely Englishmum, who has been using the amazing power of Blogsville to really do something special, and important.

We’re all thinking about the nightmare that has happened in Haiti, watching in creeping horror at the scenes on the news, and holding our children a little tighter, kissing them a little more, watching them as they sleep, holding on to our loved ones hugs just that bit longer, picking up the phone and ringing parents and sisters and brothers… and offering up a small, guilty ‘thank you’ to whatever powers there are in the great starry universe that it’s not us, not our family, not our children.

But Englishmum has done something more, and set up a Bloggers for Haiti Just Giving page here. Please. Go, visit, and give. Help. In any small way you can manage.

“…seeing as you’re here, I’d like a favour. With several of my blogging friends, I’ve created a JustGiving page for the Haiti disaster. I’d really, really like to be able to collect enough money to send one of these amazing ShelterBoxes. They cost around £500. That means that if just 50 of you give a tenner (and what’s a tenner? A bottle of wine? – or two if you drink crappy ones like me), we’ll be able to pay for a whole one just on our own. Multiply that by all the amazing bloggers dotted across the globe, and we could really make a difference.

**UPDATE: The current total (at 09.15 Sunday morning) stands at £1180!**

ShelterBox is such a unique organisation, because what they provide is an entire rescue kit in a box. Each box contains:

* A ten-person tent with privacy partitions that allow its occupants to divide the space as they see fit
* A range of other survival equipment including thermal blankets and insulated ground sheets, essential in areas where temperatures plummet at nightfall
* Life-saving means of water purification. Water supplies often become contaminated after a major disaster, as infrastructure and sanitation systems are destroyed, this presents a secondary but no less dangerous threat to survivors than the initial disaster itself.
* A basic tool kit containing a hammer, axe, saw, trenching shovel, hoe head, pliers and wire cutters. These items enable people to improve their immediate environment, by chopping firewood or digging a latrine, for example. Then, when it is possible, to start repairing or rebuilding the home they were forced to leave.
* A wood burning or multi-fuel stove that can burn anything from diesel to old paint. This provides the heart of the new home where water is boiled, food is cooked and families congregate. In addition, there are pans, utensils, bowls, mugs and water storage containers.
* Each box can be adapted to the individual needs of the disaster area, for example, following the Javanese earthquake in 2006, when some resources were available locally or could be salvaged from one storey buildings, the overwhelming need was for shelter – so ShelterBox just sent tents, packing two in each box. The box itself is lightweight and waterproof and has been used for a variety of purposes in the past – from water and food storage containers to a cot for a newly born baby.
* And lastly, but I think just as importantly, each box contains a children’s pack containing drawing books, crayons and pens. For children who have lost most, if not all, of their possessions, these small gifts are treasured.

So a small donation, then? That’s all I ask. Please visit the Bloggers for Haiti Just Giving page. And then I’ll feel like I’ve really achieved something out of blogging. Even if it doesn’t make me rich. Thanks xx”

If you’re a blogger, please join us in promoting Bloggers for Haiti.

Thank you for reading.