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Your tsunami response
Your tsunami response: now there is time to think
Daniel Nelson
28 January 2005
We've just returned from Goa, a friend emailed from India, where I forced the kids to sacrifice their entire summer wardrobe for the tsunami victims - including R's much-loved Spiderman t-shirt - only to see in local paper next day the headline 'CLOTHES MOUNTAIN IN SOUTHERN INDIA. (...)
* Do you believe, like Edmund Cairns, senior policy adviser for Oxfam that more aid, debt relief and reformed trade rules are the key to long-term recovery in tsunami-affected countries and the rest of the developing world? If so, back organisations pressing for such changes. They include not only the major charities, but the World Development Movement (WDM), the only organisation whose sole purpose is to lobby the government on aid and trade. WDM and others will also maintain pressure on Chancellor Brown and Prime Minister Blair to fulfil their call to harness the passionate compassion generated by the tsunami in order to make a breakthrough for Africa.
* If you are worried that the massive donations to the tsunami appeal may eclipse donations for even more horrendous crises, such as Darfur or the Congo, direct your generosity to organisations dealing with those specific problems.
* If you are worried about the way some Western governments tried to sideline the role of the United Nations in the relief effort, then consider supporting the UK United Nations Association in lobbying on behalf of the world body.
* Maybe you, along with Terry Jones, film director, actor and Python, are baffled that the outpouring of generosity has not been matched by support for Iraqi civilians in the man-made tsunami we have created in the Middle East. A search on OneWorld UK will provide the names and contact numbers of organisations working for peace that share your concern.
* Perhaps, like Indian eco-feminist Vandana Shiva of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources Policy, your priority is ensuring that tourism, shrimp farms and refineries do not continue to damage coastal ecosystems. Or like Professor M. S. Swaminathan, a leading Indian agricultural scientist, you believe that mangrove forests that had escaped destruction by commercial interests took much of the power out of the onrushing tsunami. The Indonesian environmental organisation WALHI and Sri Lankas Centre for Environmental Justice have given similar verdicts. In that case, support national and international organisations fighting for environmental protection. (...)
Find this article: http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/102308/1/
Daniel Nelson
28 January 2005
We've just returned from Goa, a friend emailed from India, where I forced the kids to sacrifice their entire summer wardrobe for the tsunami victims - including R's much-loved Spiderman t-shirt - only to see in local paper next day the headline 'CLOTHES MOUNTAIN IN SOUTHERN INDIA. (...)
* Do you believe, like Edmund Cairns, senior policy adviser for Oxfam that more aid, debt relief and reformed trade rules are the key to long-term recovery in tsunami-affected countries and the rest of the developing world? If so, back organisations pressing for such changes. They include not only the major charities, but the World Development Movement (WDM), the only organisation whose sole purpose is to lobby the government on aid and trade. WDM and others will also maintain pressure on Chancellor Brown and Prime Minister Blair to fulfil their call to harness the passionate compassion generated by the tsunami in order to make a breakthrough for Africa.
* If you are worried that the massive donations to the tsunami appeal may eclipse donations for even more horrendous crises, such as Darfur or the Congo, direct your generosity to organisations dealing with those specific problems.
* If you are worried about the way some Western governments tried to sideline the role of the United Nations in the relief effort, then consider supporting the UK United Nations Association in lobbying on behalf of the world body.
* Maybe you, along with Terry Jones, film director, actor and Python, are baffled that the outpouring of generosity has not been matched by support for Iraqi civilians in the man-made tsunami we have created in the Middle East. A search on OneWorld UK will provide the names and contact numbers of organisations working for peace that share your concern.
* Perhaps, like Indian eco-feminist Vandana Shiva of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources Policy, your priority is ensuring that tourism, shrimp farms and refineries do not continue to damage coastal ecosystems. Or like Professor M. S. Swaminathan, a leading Indian agricultural scientist, you believe that mangrove forests that had escaped destruction by commercial interests took much of the power out of the onrushing tsunami. The Indonesian environmental organisation WALHI and Sri Lankas Centre for Environmental Justice have given similar verdicts. In that case, support national and international organisations fighting for environmental protection. (...)
Find this article: http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/102308/1/
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