Over 40,000 dead. Over 60,000 injured. 3.3 million homeless, with winter fast approaching.
The South Asia earthquake is the third major natural disaster in the past twelve months, following Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami, and as such, risks facing a world tired of donating, airlifting, and rebuilding. As a mother, I cannot read stories of entire schools wiped out, a generation lost, and many more injured or orpahed, without feeling a pang and going to check on my own sleeping son. I am not a superstitious person, but feel I have some karmic and human responsibility to give when something like this happens.
If your personal circumstances allow, please consider a donation to the organization of your choice. You may want to consider giving through the Rainbow World Fund, a “gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and supportive-heterosexual humanitarian service agency.” 100% of your donations go towards helping the survivors, since RWF is an entirely volunteer-run organization. Why donate through them? Doing so means your money is counted as LGBT-and-allies money, raising our community’s visibility and showing us as caring members of the larger world community.
The earthquake has prompted small signs of cooperation among traditional rivals–India and Pakistan, the U. S. and Iran. We know enough to be compassionate in the face of disaster. Let us hope we learn to do so even when the skies are clear and the earth is calm.