How to Help Haiti: Top Ten Organizations to Donate to Relief Efforts

Doctors Without Borders has sent more than 130 doctors to Haiti where they’ve set up a hospital in Carrefour and treated hundreds of patients a day. DWB also trains and maintains a Haitian staff. Donations go toward sending more doctors, supplies, and medicine.

Partners in Health, which has been working in Haiti for 20 years, is organizing and dispatching a volunteer corps of doctors and nurses and gathering supplies. The work of PIH aims to provide individual patient care, to address the root causes of disease in communities, and to share lessons learned around the world.

International Medical Corps has sent teams of healthcare workers to treat crush injuries, trauma, and other critical cases. The organization is currently running a 700-bed hospital in Port au Prince and a makeshift clinic in a hotel.

AmeriCares airlifts medical supplies to help critically injured patients. Its emergency response team in Haiti is working to distribute medicine and supplies to hospitals and health clinics treating the injured.

International Rescue Committee provides emergency healthcare, basic first aid, clean water, sanitation, programs ensuring children’s welfare, and shelter for the tens of thousands of displaced Hiatians. IRC works with local aid groups to coordinate with survivors.

Action Against Hunger/ACF International has focused primarily on food, water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in both emergency situations and development contexts in major cities. This week, the organization is aiming to send 45 tons of emergency food rations sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of 18,000 children under five years of age for two weeks.

Save the Children Federation has a duel mission of delivering immediate aid to children and families in Haiti while developing a long-term plan to provide infrastructure for rebuilding. The organization has longstanding roots in Haiti, with a base of operations in the country since 1978.

Mercy Corps is running a sophisticated program to provide clean drinking water to Haiti. Through a partnership with the water treatment and transport corporation ITT, the organization is hoping to bring five water-filtration devices to supply as many as 25,000 people with clean water. MC is also providing sanitation, trauma support and implementing programs for long-term job creation.

Salvation Army has more that 700 workers permanently stationed in Haiti. An additional influx of international volunteers is helping to deliver medical support, vitamins, and food. In the US, the Salvation Army is teaming up with corporate partners and vendors to send bulk food, water, and other basic supplies to Haiti.

American Jewish World Service has created the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund to support longer-term recovery including rebuilding of community centers, clinics and schools; replanting of crops and farms to reestablish the local food supply and provide a source of income; and supporting community-based organizations’ efforts to rebuild civil society.

Haiti mobile money solution now ‘feature commitment’ at Clinton Global Initiative 2010

Haiti, September 23, 2010

Trilogy International and Mercy Corps Partner to Maximize NGO Resources, Expand Access to Financial Services

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) announced this morning that the Commitment to Action by Bellevue, Washington-based Trilogy International Partners and international relief and development agency Mercy Corps has been selected as a ‘Feature Commitment’ for its ability to “catalyze financial access and enable economic empowerment for the rural poor in Haiti through the introduction of mobile money services.” The first of its kind mobile money solution was launched on Tuesday. More on Trilogy and Mercy Corps’ mobile money announcement can be found here.

/////////Jack Dorsey//////////, chief executive officer of Square and co-founder and chairman of Twitter recognized John Stanton, Chairman of Trilogy International Partners and Nancy Lindborg, President of Mercy Corps for their Featured Commitment prior to the Mobile Revolution: Transforming Access, Markets and Development panel at CGI in which Trilogy chairman and wireless pioneer John Stanton was a participant. The panel discussed the explosive growth of mobile phones in developing countries and how new mobile applications can be harnessed to stimulate economic development and lift millions out of poverty. In addition to Stanton, other panel members included Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Mohammad Kilany, co-founder of Souktel Mobile Phone Job Service, and Molly Melching, executive director of Tostan.

“Technology can play a unique role in the rebuilding of Haiti. Mobile Money is a great example of advanced wireless applications serving as a development tool,” said Trilogy Chairman John Stanton after the Mobile Revolution: Transforming Access, Markets, and Development panel discussion. “It’s very exciting to see that, through our partnership with Mercy Corps, mobile money is a reality for thousands of Haitian households today through our subsidiary, Voilá. We look forward to deploying a full commercial offering of mobile wallet services throughout Haiti.”

Trilogy and Mercy Corps’ joint program announced on Tuesday enables Mercy Corps to offer mobile money solutions for Haiti’s unbanked for the first time ever. After piloting and testing the program for the past eight months, cash-for-work, grant and voucher recipients now have the ability to securely ‘store value’ on their mobile phones, withdraw all or part of their money, transfer funds to family members in need directly from their phones, and use phones to pay for goods directly with affiliated merchants. Over the next nine months, approximately 100,000 Haitians will benefit from Mercy Corps’ cash programs.

"Mercy Corps is thrilled to partner with Trilogy International to bring mobile money to Haiti," said Nancy Lindborg, Mercy Corps president. "We know that the combination of mobile phones and financial services is a powerful one that can help people manage, save and strategically spend their money. For impoverished Haitians struggling to recover from January's earthquake, mobile money can open up a world of future financial opportunities. We are committed to helping them realize that future."

For relief and development organizations, wireless applications offer the opportunity to become more efficient and provide aid workers the ability to help build the foundation for economic growth that truly benefits Haiti’s most impoverished families.