Christoph
31-12-06, 22:13
By Don Lajoie, The Windsor Star
Published: Friday, December 29, 2006
Two years after local donors joined in the international giving frenzy for tsunami victims in South East Asia, the world is learning that billions of dollars can be collected much faster than spent. Political upheaval in Sri Lanka and Indonesia since the tsunami’s 18-metre wall of water crashed ashore in a dozen countries on Boxing Day 2004 — killing more than 220,000 people and leaving millions homeless — is just one obstacle hampering reconstruction.
International aid agencies estimate that about one-third of the housing has been rebuilt in some of the hardest hit areas and that hundreds of thousands of survivors are yet to be adequately housed. But Diane Barrette, community services co-ordinator for the Windsor branch of the Canadian Red Cross, said local donors who contributed more than $1.8 million to tsunami relief in the weeks immediately following the disaster need not worry that their generosity was misplaced. The day after the disaster struck, local donors flooded the Grand Marais offices of the Red Cross, causing staff to abandon Christmas vacation plans and come into work to handle the crowds.
Ultimately, the Red Cross raised $2.5 billion world-wide. “In total, Canada raised $372 million for tsunami relief,” Barrette said. “So far, $100 million has been spent and $122 million has been committed to projects. That’s 60 per cent of donations.” More would have been done, she said, if not for the continuing challenges faced by the Red Cross, other non-governmental organizations (NGO) and international foreign aid programs in the region. She pointed to political unrest bordering on civil war in Sri Lanka as one example of the difficulties to be surmounted. Barrette said even if hostilities were to end today, there would remain enough concern over unexploded munitions and land mines to delay many reconstruction plans. She said 32 Red Cross reconstruction projects are on hold or have been “significantly obstructed” because of the situation.
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=5e3d1a77-2324-40d0-b7ae-da86b563fb2e&k=0
Published: Friday, December 29, 2006
Two years after local donors joined in the international giving frenzy for tsunami victims in South East Asia, the world is learning that billions of dollars can be collected much faster than spent. Political upheaval in Sri Lanka and Indonesia since the tsunami’s 18-metre wall of water crashed ashore in a dozen countries on Boxing Day 2004 — killing more than 220,000 people and leaving millions homeless — is just one obstacle hampering reconstruction.
International aid agencies estimate that about one-third of the housing has been rebuilt in some of the hardest hit areas and that hundreds of thousands of survivors are yet to be adequately housed. But Diane Barrette, community services co-ordinator for the Windsor branch of the Canadian Red Cross, said local donors who contributed more than $1.8 million to tsunami relief in the weeks immediately following the disaster need not worry that their generosity was misplaced. The day after the disaster struck, local donors flooded the Grand Marais offices of the Red Cross, causing staff to abandon Christmas vacation plans and come into work to handle the crowds.
Ultimately, the Red Cross raised $2.5 billion world-wide. “In total, Canada raised $372 million for tsunami relief,” Barrette said. “So far, $100 million has been spent and $122 million has been committed to projects. That’s 60 per cent of donations.” More would have been done, she said, if not for the continuing challenges faced by the Red Cross, other non-governmental organizations (NGO) and international foreign aid programs in the region. She pointed to political unrest bordering on civil war in Sri Lanka as one example of the difficulties to be surmounted. Barrette said even if hostilities were to end today, there would remain enough concern over unexploded munitions and land mines to delay many reconstruction plans. She said 32 Red Cross reconstruction projects are on hold or have been “significantly obstructed” because of the situation.
http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=5e3d1a77-2324-40d0-b7ae-da86b563fb2e&k=0