Unfortunately, this is often the case.

For those [like me] who won't give money to the Red Cross I ran across this: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Haitia...1741232?ref=mf

Bunch of links on there for donations. I can't vouch for any of them, make your best decision.

If you just search the web, be careful with what you find. SANS put out an alert on one set of scammers, I'm sure there's more. http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=7987

Aye, this is what we can hope. I usually don't give money away for this very reason: Money has value for everyone, thus it may be "lost" on the way to the receiver. Instead I donate blood, which (hopefully) noone outside the hospitals have any interest in. But I can't give blood to Haitians...so money it is. Hell I gotta do something!

Well if you go and donate blood to a Swedish aid organisation that's currently engaged in helping the Haitians then that will basically mean money to that organisation. So that's very close to actually helping the Haitians.

Not sure how the blood donation system works in Sweden.

Controlled by the state (that controls the hospitals etc. too). Don't think there are other (legal) organizations where you can go to donate blood, so unless the hospitals declare that they will send blood/money to Haiti, donating blood will not help them. But it will help the swedish hospitals, blood is always needed...

I've donated blood a few times. It's a good way to help although the blood plasma that the organisation you donate to gets from the blood is a very expensive product so in fact you're giving them something of real value. Especially if you happen to have a rare blood type that's in demand.

Here they only give you juice and maybe sandwiches after you've donated but I know that in US they give money also.

On topic, US has been criticized by France for focusing on saving their own nationals from Haiti and ignoring the plight of the Haitians.

Same here, no money, but sandwiches etc. You also get to pick a gift of liking, like a pair of socks etc.

Anyway, you saying they concentrate on american citizens? A shame if it's true, but not very surprising. The countrymen is always the priority for any country when these things happen. Sad, but true.

Five days in and they are still finding people alive....but sadly, not much aid is getting through :hmmm:

A majority is going barge. Not by choice. It is the only viable mod of transportation for the moment. The D-Day invasion took some time to get together. :03:

Apparently, the record for staying alive under those circumstances are a week. Time is running out.:nope:

Oh crikey! :o

We all know what happened to Mulberry Harbour :DL

Yes sir. Here is the deal, this will be a long haul relief effort. The goods and supplies will have to keep flowing in for months to come...if not years. Most if not all relief effort take that long. Some areas in the US from past hurricanes still receive supplies. The mobile home cities are still functioning. It never ends.

Good suggestion especially if the aid goes to a poor country which usually has a corrupt bureaucracy. I believe that happened to Aceh aid too....and the people who suffered the most must suffer again for their aid money such as those to be used to build their new home I guess must have been misused and cut leaving them with substandard homes which they refused to live in(as reported on tv). . .:dead:

sent a fwe dollars their way with my facebook game, god knows if it will get there, but i feel better, egads, thats awful there, wasnt much there to begin with, but what little they had in the way of infrastructure, they needed.

Yes while aid is desperatly needed unfortunatly it is not without serious consiquences... dependancy.

I guess its just human nature that once you are on the dole to stay on the dole. They tried to close one of the mobile home citys and all hell broke loose.

American and other coutries resources will be pouring into Haitai for years, even decades now.