S$2 million and more coming

There were odd bits of human­i­tar­ian activ­ity here amidst the end of year shop­ping mad­ness. A cou­ple of friends have been online urg­ing peo­ple to drop off dona­tions at col­lec­tion cen­tres around Singapore.

The gov­ern­ment has sent a DART team, two Chi­nooks, with sev­eral Super Pumas on standby for Thai­land and Indone­sia, and has said that this is ‘over and above the $2 mil­lion assis­tance the gov­ern­ment had announced to help affected coun­tries’. It’s OK guys, no need to do PR dam­age con­trol, just send help.

And the search for a pla­toon mate, who my reservist pla­toon thought had gone to Phuket for Christ­mas, ended with a phone call with him say­ing ‘wrong per­son lah. I never go Phuket, but I remem­ber you and me talk­ing to some­one one night in the jun­gle, very dark, so can­not remem­ber who it was. But he say he was going to Phuket with his wife’.

We’re still try­ing to fig­ure out who it is.

Mean­time, here’s a list (gleaned off BBC) of NGOs on the ground at the dis­as­ter sites:

Cafod
Care Inter­na­tional
Inter­na­tional Red Cross
Medecins Sans Fron­tieres
Oxfam
Save The Chil­dren
Unicef
UN World Food Pro­gramme
World Vision
Chris­t­ian Aid
Islamic Relief

Click on to find out more about what they’re doing, and how they’re try­ing to get aid to the sites.

I’ve also heard that some of the stuff Sin­ga­pore­ans have been donat­ing, like old clothes, blan­kets and tow­els, are not quite that high on the pri­or­ity list, and that these items are:

1. Tents
2. Food (Pre-cooked or ready-to-eat meal packs)
3. Water Purifi­ca­tion Tablets
4. Wheat Flour, rice, other sta­ples
5. Drugs: Parac­eta­mol, anti-biotics, wound
dress­ing, suture mate­r­ial, dis­pos­able syringes,
vit­a­mins, and vac­ci­na­tions for diar­rhea, cholera
and malaria.
6. Intra­venous infu­sion (saline and
dex­trose)
7. Portable generators

So, don’t be in a hurry to dig out your old clothes from your cup­board yet.