Help Haiti

Donors can call the DEC’s dedicated Haiti Earthquake appeal line which is open 24 hours a day on 0370 6060 900, or go to the website and follow the simple instructions.

Donations can also be sent to the DEC by post, with a cheque made payable to DEC Haiti Earthquake and addressed to DEC Haiti Earthquake, PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA.

Donations can also be made on the High Street, by calling into any bank or post office and quoting Freepay 1449, or at branches of any of the DEC’s member charities. The DEC is composed of 13 major UK aid agencies: Action Aid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, Care International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund and World Vision.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also has its own appeal, with donors able to give online by going to the ICRC’s website and selecting HAITI from the drop-down list of the ICRC programmes needing support. Donations can be made in four different currencies: pounds, dollars, euros or Swiss francs.

The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which has a co-ordinating role, has an online appeal page for Haiti.

Action Against Hunger is also appealing online for donations to fund the emergency team it has sent out to bolster its 100 field workers in Haiti, who have been running programmes there since 1985.

In the US, people can donate $10 to the American Red Cross’s work in Haiti by texting “Haiti” to 90999 on their cellphone, with the cost charged to their cellphone bill. They can also donate on its website.

Alternatively they can text “Yele” to 501501 and a donation of $5 will be given automatically to Wyclef Jean’s Yele Haiti foundation to help with relief efforts, or donate on Yele’s website.

Details of other way to donate to Haiti from Britain and abroad, including through Medecins Sans Frontieres and the World Food Programme, can be found here.

A DEC spokesman said that giving money was the best way to help, so that supplies can be purchased as close as possible to the disaster area and sent straight to those in need. The DEC aims to buy supplies in areas of Haiti which are not affected by the disaster, in order to help sustain the local economy. If that proves impossible, aid agencies will source supplies from the Dominican Republic and then the US.

Save the Children

Children are in desperate need after the worst earthquake to hit Haiti in 200 years – an enormous earthquake of 7.0 magnitude – struck the country. Save the Children UK are saving children’s lives by providing shelter, clean water, food and medical assistance.

Please help the children of Haiti by donating just a small amount to our JustGiving fund-raising page here:

http://www.justgiving.com/abstroose

Here’s what your money could buy:

• £20 – 3 tarpaulins or plastic sheets to provide basic shelter to protect families
• £40 – 24 buckets to help families carry clean water
• £50 – 21 mosquito kits to protect children from malaria
• £500 – 20 student kits, containing notebooks, plastic water bottles, rucksacks and stationery
• £1000 – 80 hygiene kits with essentials such as soap, detergent, toothpaste and toothbrushes
• £5000 – shelter repair kits for 142 families whose homes have been damaged by the earthquake

Thanks for all your support.

Luke Kirk, Abstroose.com