Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Doing what I can

The tv in my house has been turned on the whole day and tuned to CNN, where it has been showing little else all day except news coverage of the tsunami disaster. At this point, the combined death toll all over South-eat Asia has reached above 61,000. More than one third consist of children. And yes, that is enough to make my jaw, and my heart, drop too. Videos taken by people who survived the tsunamis are being replayed over and over again on CNN, showing how large boats are tossed around like toys in the ocean, and how quickly the waters gushes into buildings, rising up to the first and second floors. Now fears are rising that communicable diseases could arise due to the high number of decomposing bodies. These diseases could kill a lot more people than the waves itself.
Naturally, I don't want to be doing nothing about it except sit around blogging about the plight of the victims and the politics involved. I've been bugging my mum and dad to donate something to help these people. At the moment, they are not keen on donating money because they believe that money can be misused by the relief organizations. They are more into donating other things likes food and clothes. Which seems fair to me...it is possible that monetary donations be misused. So I've been spending all day trying to find out where I can make such donations of food, clothes and medicines to.
My first thought was to donate to the Star newspaper, so I check out their website and found out that the donations they collect are sent to the Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS) or Mercy Malaysia, the offices of both being located in Ampang. I called the Star office to ask them if I could donate things apart from money to their office. While I was expecting to be greeted with a "Hello, the Star office" or something, I was greeted with a bored "Hello". The bored sounding guy on the other end told me that non-monetary donations had to go directly to the MRCS, and he gave me their number. I told my dad that I'd have to go all the way to Ampang to make our donations, and his reaction wasn't too encouraging. "Wah, so far ah? Haiyoh, they must have some place around Subang Jaya where we can donate, if they are serious about collecting donations for these people." After giving my dad a light chiding for caring more about our own convenience than for the tens of thousands who have died, I called up both MRCS and Mercy Malaysia to find out if there was any place closer to Subang Jaya where I could go.
A lady at MRCS picked up the phone fairly quickly, and after asking her my questions, she promptly said, "Can you come here (Ampang)?" after which, she gave me the address of their office. Next I called up Mercy Malaysia, which told me to call a place called Nationwide Express, which helps collect donations for Mercy Malaysia. So I called Nationwide Express, and after being put on hold for forever, a lady picked up. I asked her my question, she said "Hold on", and I was put on hold forever again... after which another lady picked up. She told me that there is a branch in PJ I could go to, and gave me the address. But I had trouble understanding what she was saying because the volume was too soft, she was saying the address too quickly and she had some accent that made it sound like she wasn't speaking English. I had to ask her to repeat herself so many times, which obviously exasperated her coz' after the third time, she let out a huge annoyed sigh. And I still couldn't be sure that I got the address right after I put down the phone. Very friendly people at Nationwide Express....
After all that hassle, I find out through an internet article that making item donations isn't as effective or efficient as making monetary donations. For one thing, it is more expensive to ship items overseas due to the weight of the cargo. For another thing, it is more time consuming since the cargo has to be thoroughly checked to ensure nothing 'dangerous' or potentially disease carrying is transported into the country. For another thing, the items donated may not be what the victims need the most. Donating money is more helpful as relief agencies will know exactly what the victims need the most and where to channel the funds. Of course, there is a chance that funds will be used misappropriately, but I think the chances are less if they were given to an international organization like UNICEF. So now my goal is to convince my parents to donate money instead of items. Which will be a formidable task since getting my dad to part with his money is like trying to take a bone away from a big, nasty and hungry dog. :P Ah well, a small inconvenience for me to help out those tens of thousands of people.

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