Maybe it will start a “bidding” war among the rich corporations like it has with the rich nations! Wouldn’t that be fabulous!
Maybe after this tragedy has passed, the goodwill will just continue everywhere. Wouldn’t that be fabulous!
One very bright spot this past week was visiting with my own “nieces”, actually the daughters of my cousin, Amy and Andrea. Their older brother has a fully outfitted Toshiba M200 – docking station and all, but they have never been allowed to touch it. So they were astonished that I let them use mine for hours and hours. Of course, they were thrilled with Math Practice and loved drawing, handwriting recognition and all of the coolness of it.
http://www.redcross.org
From Bali, Aceh Aid Bucket Brigade blog details the type of skills that can be used on site:
Indonesian Language (essential)
Medical
Nursing
First Aid (wilderness/disaster first aid, not pre-hospital first aid, these people won’t get to hospitals)
Rescue and Evacuation
Emergency Sanitation (as in refugee camps, devastated/recovering villages)
Water Purification / Clean Water Systems
Also, they can use some technical help too
We are encountering some “desk work” that take up time we could be using to get medical supplies on planes, get relief workers into the field, coordinate with NGOs, etc. Things that don’t need to be done here. I mean work that could be “outsourced” to “virtual volunteers” (you?), such as updating our distribution list, and fixing it, making a database compiled from forms filled out by people applying as volunteers, maintaining specific lists, solving software problems by IM and email . . . .
We are doing lots of very important things here, that not many people in the world can do . . . in a language that most of you reading this will never need to learn to speak . . . so I think our time is crucial here on the ground in Indonesia . . .
Veer Ji Wangoo in New Delhi asks questions that are similar to my own:
As a SQl DBA what can I contribute?
Unless you have some special skills, the best thing we can do is send money to the organizations who know what to do and know how to do it. So that is good inspiration for me to keep working and send what $ I can. I am sending my money through the Red Cross, though there are many other aid organizations as well. It’s a crappy feeling to realize that my skills aren’t very useful when they could really count.
I have had no desire to blog lately because nothing seems relevant in the wake of what is going on in Asia.
However, finally, I saw something that definitely cheered me up. Steve Smith is back in the U.S.
http://www.redcross.org