Best Charity to Donate to for Tsunami Relief

[Regicidal Insomniac]

Hey everyone.

I'm helping to plan a coin-drive at my school to help organizations relieving the effects of the south-east Asian quake disaster. I'm been charged with picking out the charity to donate to and I need to figure it out by tommorow because the government is only planning to match donatins dollar-for-dollar up until this Monday!

I was thinking along the lines of:
- Oxfam Canada
- CARE Internation
- Red Cross/Crescent
- actionaid


Anyways, I could really use your help deciding this. Keep in mind that I am in Canada so something with an arm here may be preferable.
Also, it would be great if you could include any info on which charity is the most effective, accountable, etc. And we want to stick to secular organizations.

Thanks!

[cormacobear]

The international Red Cross has received virtually every penny of the donations to date. So I would encourage you to consider OxFam, and Dr.s Without Borders. Both of these are highly respected organizations recomennded by Amnesty Intl., national governments the UN etc..

Best of luck.

[The Feral Underclass]

I would donate it to 'CARE International' or 'Dr's without borders' or you could just divide what you collect.

[Djehuti]

Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (the strongest leftist movment in Sri Lanka) have started a "Relief Services Force". They are marxists and the most important organization in the Sri Lankian new left. In 1989 the goverment tried to vipe them out, and killed 60:000 party members. Today they have joined with Sri Lanka Freedom Party (reformist socialists) and formed United Peoples Freedom Alliance. and accually won the election.
The JVP got the most "personal votes", and their parlementary sitters take no wages for their work but gives everything away to social causes. And they are definitly the strongest party within the student movement.

They do not seem to be corrupt at all, and I do believe that they are able to aid those in need. They have a vast network of organizations in all the affected areas (they are strongest in those parts), except for a few areas that are under the controll of the Tamilian Tigers. And they do have av very close connection to the people, etc.
I do believe that its bether to give your money via the JVP. The western organizations also tend to focus on diseases that are common in the western world over the diseases that are most dangerous to the native population. Since western tourists are valued more. And they also tend to focus more on Thailand and those countries, rather then those that are most affected and least able to handle the disaster, such as Sri Lanka for example.

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Process of sending money from foreign countries:

Method Telex - Swift (Swift Code : PSBKLKLX023)
Please send money to People’s Bank International Division, Colombo, Sri Lanka for further credit of Acc. No. 0174 165 0108156 of RELIEF SERVICES FUND – JVP with People’s Bank Nugegoda Branch."

http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/activities.htm
http://www.jvpsrilanka.com/relief_service_fund.htm

[FatFreeMilk]

Shit sorry I didn't see this earlier. Give donations to operation USA instead. 100% of donations are used in the relief effort. Well, that's what they say.Operation USA. (http://www.opusa.org/)

[Regicidal Insomniac]

Thanks for the help, everyone. At the moment I'm considering Oxfam the best option. MSF has said that they don't need anymore donations and Operation USA may seem somewhat funny, since we are in Canada and we like to remind ourselves of that whenever possible.

[FatFreeMilk]

Forget the name. It's a good organization.