December 7, 2010

How to Help Haiti

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/savethechildrenusa/4321945081/in/photostream/">Save the Children</a>/Flickr

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Read human rights reporter Mac McClelland’s dispatch from Haiti, or see the full Mother Jones special report on Haiti’s reconstruction.

Since I live-tweeted about my day with a rape survivor in Haiti and ran this story about a displacement camp in Port-au-Prince—and now, additionally, there’s the cholera crisis—we’ve gotten a LOT of letters from people who want to know who’s making a difference in the beleaguered country. This info will appear as a handy sidebar in the January issue of Mother Jones, but in the meantime, here are some groups doing great on-the-ground work—plus a bonus charity involving underpants.

KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims) and FAVILEK (Women Victims Get Up Stand Up)
Founded and run by Haitian rape survivors, both of these organizations assist victims with medical, legal, and moral support, in addition to building a movement against sexual violence. Visit them here and (through an American partner) here, respectively. 

Partners in Health
The group cofounded by American superdoctor Paul Farmer has been battling health care problems in Haiti since 1987, and now it’s at the forefront of the cholera response. The J/P Haitian Relief Organization, Sean Penn’s charity, is also teaming up with PIH to tackle the disease.

KONPAY (Working Together for Haiti)
Provides assistance and support to grassroots environmental, women’s, and human-rights groups. Since the quake, KONPAY has also fought to get Haitian voices included in foreign-run relief and reconstruction meetings. konpay.org.

Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
In addition to providing legal support to Haitians and creating a force of Haitian human-rights lawyers and advocates with its partner, Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, Boston-based IJDH publishes extensive reports that keep a light on conditions in the displacement camps.

PACT
Somebody gave me a pair of this company’s organic man-panties recently, so I can personally attest to their awesomeness. But more important, every pair you order from the Winter Lights collection gets a solar-powered lantern donated to a displaced woman or family in Haiti.  

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From the desk of Mother Jones CEO, Monika Bauerlein...

Newsrooms can be funded in many ways. One of the most controversial (and volatile) ways is by a for-profit corporation or a billionaire owner. We see it across the headlines on a weekly basis: the claw backs in public media, the gutting of The Washington Post, the bending over backwards to appeal to Trump and his allies.

But not here.

When Mother Jones first started publishing 50 years ago, our founders made a critical decision: to be a reader-supported nonprofit. They knew that no corporate owner would be interested in a muckraking newsroom; they also knew that no muckraking newsroom would be interested in following the agenda of a corporate owner.

And so, we’ve been reader-funded for half a century. We rely on contributions from our readers—readers like you—whether it’s $50, or $15 a month, or whatever fits your budget. People give what they can, and every donation makes a difference for our newsroom, which has grown tremendously—in size and reach and renown—since its inception in 1976.

You may be wondering: What does it take to publish an investigation? And what does my donation actually fund? The answers are one and the same: It takes people, resources, and time. And that’s what your donation funds directly.

Every donation Mother Jones receives from readers fortifies our newsroom, whether we’re covering underreported scandals out of Washington, DC, or the most important news of the day. And right now, each donation will be doubled because of our $50,000 match. So when you make a donation—$5, $50, any amount—it’ll go twice as far.

Your support keeps us going. If you’re able, donate today.

Thanks for reading.

—Monika

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