Overthinking It’s overthoughts and overprayers go out to the people of Haiti at this great time of crisis.
One of OTI’s favorite Perfect Gentlemen, Wyclef Jean, is already on his way to Haiti through the Dominican Republic (probably there by the time you read this) to help out people on the ground. His foundation for Haiti, Yele, is one of the many organizations gathering donations to help with relief efforts. OTI knows you can find any number of other organizations doing good work, but there’s little substitute for having the people who sound the call be people like to listen to. So, whether you give to Wyclef’s foundation or to somebody else, listen to Wyclef, and do something—however you figure out how to do it—to help these folks.
Wyclef is also soliciting donations to his foundation, which looks like it is refocused now on earthquake relief through his twitter feed. (I’m not going to recommend those text to donate things because I don’t have confidence in them; but if you do, sound off in the comments.)
Here’s Wyclef on Anderson Cooper 360. An interesting cultural moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4VmUdz4KFA
And here’s a repost of Wyclef’s message from www.yele.org.
STATEMENT BY WYCLEF JEAN ON HAITI EARTHQUAKE
Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 02:05PM
“Haiti today faced a natural disaster of unprecedented proportion, an earthquake unlike anything the country has ever experienced.
The magnitude 7.0 earthquake – and several very strong aftershocks – struck only 10 miles from Port-au-Prince.
I cannot stress enough what a human disaster this is, and idle hands will only make this tragedy worse. The over 2 million people in Port-au-Prince tonight face catastrophe alone. We must act now.
President Obama has already said that the U.S. stands ‘ready to assist’ the Haitian people. The U.S. Military is the only group trained and prepared to offer that assistance immediately. They must do so as soon as possible. The international community must also rise to the occasion and help the Haitian people in every way possible.”
Many people have already reached out to see what they can do right now. We are asking those interested to please do one of two things: Either you can use your cell phone to text “Yele” to 501501, which will automatically donate $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund (it will be charged to your cell phone bill), or you can click here to DONATE.
Thank you,
WyclefThe regular Yele Haiti website will resume in a couple of weeks. In the meantime our focus is on providing real-time information about the situation in Haiti.
Oh, and one more note from OTI — if you think there’s any reason why you shouldn’t do what you can to find some effective way to lend a hand or a dollar in Haiti, well, Wyclef has this much to say about whatever stands in your way (out of context, of course):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmv–UJ3eJM