Haitian Earthquake Victims Need Your Help! (solidaritycenter.org)

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http://solidaritycenter.org/content.asp?contentid=1004

Haitian Earthquake Victims Need Your Help!
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Haitian workers need your help in the wake of Tuesday’s earthquake. Please donate now to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers campaign.

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince, Haiti, leaving an estimated 3 million Haitians homeless and without access to basic needs. The Solidarity Center's Cathy Feingold reports from the adjacent Dominican Republic that the National Palace, many ministry buildings, UN peacekeeping headquarters, and other well-known sites collapsed, with hundreds dead and missing. The head of the UN peacekeeping mission as well as the archbishop of Port-au-Prince are confirmed among the dead. The earthquake comes on the heels of a food crisis and the country’s attempt to reconstruct after four devastating hurricanes in 2008.

Phone and Internet communication remain extremely limited, making contact with union and NGO partners challenging. The Solidarity Center continues to attempt communication with key union partners in order to assess the damage and the earthquake’s impact on their members. Many partners have affiliates in hard-hit areas such as Carrefour, Cité Soleil, Léogâne, and Delmas. Eyewitnesses describe total chaos with a film of dust covering the city and people roaming the streets in search of lost loved ones.

The majority of Haitians have no clean drinking water or electricity and live in basic, flimsy structures that did not withstand the earthquake. The earthquake exacerbates the impoverishment of Haiti’s citizens, most of whom are unemployed and survive in the informal economy on less than $1 a day.

The Solidarity Center is preparing to send a delegation of Haitian union activists living in the Dominican Republic to Port-au-Prince in an effort to contact union partners and conduct a needs assessment that will enable unions to receive support for providing basic needs to their members. The Solidarity Center is also working with CNUS, the Confederation of United Unions in the Dominican Republic, to establish a donation center with nonperishable goods that will be shipped to union counterparts in Haiti. Donations to the Solidarity Center’s Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers fund will be passed to partners there, and we will work with them to ensure that assistance reaches the neediest workers and their families. As the Solidarity Center receives more information from its partners in Haiti, we will continue to update our website.

Online donation system by ClickandPledge: https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=20780


You can also send a check to:

Solidarity Center Education Fund
888 16th Street, N.W., Suite 400
Washington, DC 20006

Please designate "Earthquake Relief for Haitian Workers" in the memo line of the check.

The Solidarity Center Education Fund is a tax-exempt charitable organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.