Tsunami Blogs you can rely on, Pt. 2
For more tsunami info, also see Part 1, Part 3 , Part 4, charities that two members recommended, and more photos and descriptions,
First, I should note that the hardest hit areas were Aceh and Sumatra, in Indonesia. Aceh is about the poorest region of the country, which condition helped foster a separatist movement there. And it’s possible that it could take outside relief workers two weeks to get into the area because of Indonesian government restrictions being imposed. At a moment like this, it demonstrates that bureaucrats of corrupt governments are little more than worthless dingleberries serving their master turds. ( :: fume, grumble, grumble, scowl :: )
India’s losses are small enough that it doesn’t require the assistance of outside governments. But Indonesia’s hurting.
Elsewhere, as I noted already (in Part 1), for US charities and some international ones, Charity Navigator’s ratings can help. This site, however, categorizes them, which’ll help you understand what each one does, to a degree. And this one simply tries to list them all, without rating them. Best of all is Benjamin Rosenbaum, who compiled ratings and created a useful chart that’s easily read.
While you’re there, look for ‘on the scene’, ‘Photo Gallery’ for some top notch photos (Note: #6 in that series is the most disturbing and graphic I’ve seen that demonstrates how merciless the tsunami was and what survivors must bear.)
Finally, the Tsunami Help group mentioned in Part 1 also set up this wiki database. Using its sidebar can get you to key info quickly.
The toll now exceeds 125,000 dead.
Now, to the rest…
Photos and solo bloggers
I won’t be posting video sites because many have removed their videos because the bandwidth broke their banks. And others are very hard to surf to at all due to the huge traffic demand. So here’s a few picture sites.
Vincent Thian’s AP photos from Sri Lanka.
67 impressive photos from Phuket Thailand.
First day photos, via an Australia paper.
An award-winning American travel-writer with a top-notch tsunami photo-collection from Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India.
An American in Java, Indonesia.
A Chinese lady in Penang, Malaysia, adds a few noteworthy links and photos.
Brand New Malaysian exhibits a lot of heart in his blog entries.
AlwaysWow! is another technologically astute Malaysian or Singapore blogger worth your purview.
The American site, BoingBoing, has posted at least one dailu entry with useful tsunami relief info.
An excellent Thai newsfeed with good photos, too.
Sri Lanka blog with sidebar links useful if looking for survivors and victims.
Regular SMS reports from a Sri Lanka blogger reporting whatever he observes and discovers, which has moments of intensity.
Jeff Ooi’s blog is one to visit often, for its broad coverage. Here he provides background on the founders of the SEA-EAT blog, which permits me to segue onto the collectives I mentioned.
ABC News blogger and photographer Kevin Sites is now blogging from Thailand, and is always worth a read.
And Mitch Wagner of InternetWeek has been covering a lot of the blogs and sites in use as a response to the tsunami.
Finally, Technorati can be used as a newsfeed such as this.
In addition to all these sources, there’s been a movement afoot to build social networks that wed blogging technology to humanitarian and philanthropic efforts. For any truly bleeding hearts, here’s a few noteworthy ones where you can invest yourself, with a brief explanation of each:
BloggerCorps
An explanation.
The site.
I’m at a fledgling level of involvement here. Because of the tsunami, we’ve discussed setting up a blog (temporarily titled Emergency Action Blog) which will be set up for emergencies across the globe. A crisis in your country? (Or state?) We’d quickly set up an aggregate newsfeed using media sources in the the area, blogroll any agencies and relief organizations working the area, and let people from the area blog about what’s going on and what’s needed. With the bandwidth to meet the demand. But I’ll get back to this.
Some of the following groups share cross-membership; some don’t. Some are taking macro approaches and some micro.
Global Voices Online
Draft Manifesto.
Site.
CivicSpace Labs
A continuation of the Dean-motivated technology build. It seems to be more a platform than an activist group, but it has sponsored ‘I Do’ and a couple of others.
I Do.
CivicSpace.
Digital Divide Networks
They’ve set up an Disaster Relief and Emergency Preparedness blog for tsunami news.
Strengthen The Good
An unusual one, its interests can only be described as eclectic, as they find local micro-causes around the world, advertise it on their blogs and raise funds for them. Among some I’ve seen: one that raised money to pay funeral expenses for child murder victims, and books for schoolkids in the Czech Republic.
Many of its members are conservative bloggers, so it’s a good way to fraternize and develop dialogues across partisan lines. Alan Nelson of Command Post set it up, and his site is another good source of tsunami info, too.
Project Apollonia
Provides grade school level books to Costa Rican schoolkids. Grupo Utopia was one of its founders.
Omidyar Network
Don’t know much about this but they have an impressive list of partners.
But let’s get back to BloggerCorps, because several of the same folks are involved in the two below:
Worldchanging.com
About.
Site.
They helped set up the Tsunami blog.
The Tsunami Blog, again.
Emergency Action Blog
As noted previously, this is the BloggerCorps project that got underway in the past 3-4 days. It’s tentatively planned to be designed to handle future relief coordination activities, within a few hours of an arising need. Worldchanging and BloggerCorps members are involved in this. And there’s a mailing list for those who wish to help with either of these.
Some of the able and impressive individuals currently involved: Rebecca MacKinnon ( bio: here ), Joi Ito ( bio: here ), and Aldon Hynes (also Orient Lodge ) . Here’s his bio.
Also, Jon Lebkowsky ( bio: here ) and Nick Lewis of the Progressive Blog Alliance. There are others, but I’m just passing on enough for interested folks to get started .
The Emergency Action Blog, which is usable now, but is also a work in progress for future crisis response efforts.
Bloggers Without Borders seems to have similar aims as the EAB, but it’s filing for 501(c)3 status so it can process donations that provide tax credits.
Site.
About.
Considering the mass of talent and goodwill among all these groups and individuals, it might be interesting to see if they can combine forces to produce a set of sites that don’t overlap in purpose. Or not. Brilliance has many directions.
Ah, the promise of technology, eh? But coupled with some of the talents I’ve mentioned here, maybe something greater will be grown. And maybe it’s just the addition of YOU that’ll help one or more of these achieve a creative critical mass that changes the world in ways better than we now perceive.
December 30th, 2004 at 6:21 pm
Tsunami Blogs
American Street has Tsunami Blogs you can rely on and Tsunami Blogs you can rely on, Pt. 2.
December 30th, 2004 at 7:09 pm
Hi, I noticed you’re not linking to video sites but have a look at mine. It’s immune to the bandwidth crunch issue everybody is experiencing. 20,000 downloads so far and no pesky mirror links to worry about.
December 30th, 2004 at 7:31 pm
American Street Rounds Up
Kevin Hayden of the American Street has put together a comprehensive collection of the various Tsunami bloggers, organizations, and information centers. If you’ve found this site through Tsunami googling, then I suggest you
January 1st, 2005 at 1:38 am
TSUNAMI IN SRI LANKA : AUTISM AWARENESS CAMPAIGN SRI LANKA’S INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
SRI LANKA’S URGENT NEEDS
The tsunami has devastated Sri Lanka - also affected are Sri Lankans with disabilities.
Ten of thousands of Sri Lankans have died and thousands more will die through disease - Sri Lanka urgently needs doctors and medicine from overseas to cope with outbreaks of typhoid, dysentery, cholera.
The Autism Awareness Campaign Sri Lanka are not collecting money ourselves but we are working with partners all over the world to reach out to all Sri Lankans including the disability community who have been affected so badly by this deadly tsunami which struck the island on the 26th of December 2004 and has caused so much devastation.
Sri Lanka urgently needs:
Tents, blankets,linen, clothing.
Food - pre-cooked or ready to eat meal packs
Water purification tablets - approximately 2 million
Wheat, flour, pulses, rice.
Drugs: paracetamol, antibiotics, dressing, suture material, disposable syringes
Intravenous infusions - saline and dextrose.
Portable generators.
Disabled people will need wheelchairs, crutches.
You can send donations to the Rotary Club of Colombo - the Autism Awareness Campaign Sri Lanka are working in partnership with the Rotary Club, a well respected international organisation who have teams working in the diaster areas.
The Rotary Club of Colombo Regency, plans to implement the relief effort in phases in order for it to be effective.
The immediate need is for water and dry food items like biscuits, and canned fish, as displaced people are unable to cook meals just yet. In addition, basic medicines and clothing are also essential.
The second phase in a few days will be to provide dry rations, milk powder etc. as hopefully by that time people would have been moved into refugee camps.
The third phase (5 to 7 days) would be to conduct health camps to prevent/treat any outbreak in disease caused by polluted water and lack of proper sanitation etc at the refugee camps.
In the longer term, rebuilding of life and property would take an enormous effort and would need worldwide help.
If you wish to contribute by way of any items listed above or by cash or kind, please write into this site or phone/email any one of the persons below:
Mario Perumal +94 777 371204, mario@vigilant-security.com
Chamila Wicramasinghe +94 777 364618, chamila_w@yahoo.com
Shantha Warnakulasuriya +94 777 355288, shanthaw_midaya@sysnet.lk
Bary Jaleel on +94 777 300239, mcabdul@slt.lk
Altaf Ismail +94 777 741855, altaf96@slt.lk
Tharanga Gunaratne +94 777 389075, tkg_lk@yahoo.com
You can send cash contributions in the form of Cheques/Drafts/Money Orders as per the details given below:
Beneficiary - “Rotary Club of Colombo Regency”
Account No: 001-003771-002
Bank Name : HSBC
Postal Address : 24 Sir Baron Jayatilleke Mw, Colombo 01, Sri Lanka
SWIFT Address : HSBCLKLX
For items sent from overseas, The Rotary Club have arranged for duty waivers. Please make sure that you specify the beneficiary as the “Rotary Club of Colombo Regency”, c/o Bary Jaleel, 15 Cambridge Place, Colombo 07, Sri Lanka.
However, send an email The Rotary Club with your full name, contact details and your contribution amounts and modes, so that they could keep a track. You can also log onto http://www.lankafood.com/ and select the items you would like to sponsor, and pay for on line. Details of items needed and their rates will be published on this site.
Sri Lanka desperately needs help. They say the island needs 1 billion pounds to cope with this terrible disaster. Whole communities have been wiped out. Schools and homes have been devastated and scores of little Sri Lankans have perished. Please support Sri Lanka in her hour of need.
Ivan Corea WRC FRSA
Autism Awareness Campaign Sri Lanka
http://members.tripod.com/autism_srilanka
autismsrilanka@hotmail.com
January 1st, 2005 at 2:14 am
We’ve set up a website that makes it even easier for people to generate funds for the tsunami relief effort. Please check out http://www.ReliefSearch.org.
Very simply, when users click on search results generated from ReliefSearch.org, the site earns revenues on a pay-per-click basis. All click revenues generated from these searches will help fund the victims of the Earthquake/Tsunami disaster. People can continue performing searches on the web as they normally would, only proceeds from their activities on ReliefSearch.org will help the cause. So, we’re encouraging users to use the ReliefSearch.org search engine instead of Google or Yahoo!
Our goal is 1 million searches in the next 30 days. Anything you can do to help spread the word about ReliefSearch.org will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much for your help!
January 8th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
My blog offers concrete crisis intervention information of value to the victims of the tsunami. Look for the article called: COPING WITH FEAR. I also have a suggestion for widespread mental health help for these people located in the same article.
The url is gibbsonline.typepad.com
January 10th, 2005 at 12:08 am
Hello. I received this from a good friend. Please help if you can.
Dear Glennis;
This is Geoffrey Barton. I’m the Volunteer Minister In Charge in India and
we are desperate.
50,000 dead and a million homeless. There are 2 of us and a team of Tibetan
Buddhist monks we trained headed for Chennai. Please get your whole group
to help us with money for food, train fare, and mattresses.
We need $5000 as soon as possible as we have to support the team.
I’ve got materials and a huge group moving. Help is on the way but we need
funds so badly.
Geoffrey Barton
You can contact the Volunteer Minister HotLine for information on donations:
www.volunteerministers.org
vm@volunteerministers.org
1-800 435 7498
November 24th, 2006 at 5:01 am
rebecca hall…
Interesting post. I came across this blog by accident, but it was a good accident. I have now bookmarked your blog for future use. Best wishes. Leeann Tweeden….