Today I awoke with the news of the earthquake in Haiti. Last night an earthquake, which measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, ripped through the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. Currently there are reports of an estimated 100,000 people dead and thousands of structures from schools to the UN peacekeeping headquarters reduced to rubble.
As aftershocks continue to ripple through the country, international organisations are teaming together to raise money to help Haiti and the reported 9 million people there who are in need of emergency aid. My worry during this tragedy is to ensure that I am giving to a legitimate charity that can provide the help needed. As I had my credit card stolen last week, I wanted to donate but could only do so with PayPal.
If you want to donate through your PayPal account, Save the Children seems to be one of the top choices. Not only can you use PayPal (amongst other forms of payment) but PayPal themselves are waiving the payment processing fees for donations to Save the Children for the next 30 days.
Other major organisations are arranging donations for Haiti in the US and you can donate directly to them through PayPal on eBay’s Giving Works page. These are all registered charities monitored by Mission Fish and even though they are US based, you can still donate from the UK. I myself used the page to donate to Doctors Without Borders. If you’d prefer to donate to a UK based organisation, you can also use PayPal to donate to:
- the British Red Cross on the UK eBay for Charity page
- Global Giving
- Unicef
For those employees who work for eBay and PayPal around the globe, eBay Foundation will be matching the amount they have donated to the relief effort.
As the rest of the world watches events unfold in Haiti, my thoughts are with those affected by the earthquake as well as those giving their time and effort to help towards the relief effort.
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