Free the Children's Craig Kielburger on the ground in Haiti

Posted by Dalai Lama Center - January 19, 2010

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti who are recovering from a catastrophic earthquake. A third of Haiti’s population has been affected. The latest estimates indicate that the death toll may reach 200,000.“

– Victor Chan, DLC founding director.

Craig Kielburger, the founder of Free the Children (FTC) and a partner with the Dalai Lama Center at the Vancouver Peace Summit, is on the ground in Haiti after last week’s devastating earthquake.

Free the Children has a school near Port-au-Prince, but luckily the school and its 450 children were left unharmed by the natural disaster. Craig remains in Haiti to assess the situation and coordinate FTC’s response with their fellow aid groups.

The following is Craig’s call for support:

On Jan. 12, an earthquake reaching a magnitude of 7.0 devastated the people of Haiti just 15 km from the capital of Port-au-Prince. While the death toll is still unclear, hundreds of thousands are feared to be dead. Another three million are affected as schools, homes, and hospitals have collapsed.

Free the Children is doing everything possible to respond to this crisis. With a 10-year history of working in Haiti, we’ve built schools in the past and maintain strong ties to those communities as well as locally-based groups.

Your donations will support the people of Haiti in three ways:

Emergency relief through a partnership with Partners in Health an organization that has provided on-the-ground healthcare in Haiti for over 20 years.
Shipments of medical supplies where $1=$10 of medical supplies (through a partnership with World Medical Relief that allows us to purchase medical supplies below cost).
Education projects to equip schools locally with supplies, school kits, teacher training and more.

The people of Haiti urgently need your help.

To learn more about how to donate to the FTC Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, visit freethechildren.com