Red Cross - Haiti Observer Blog

According to a report released Thursday by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, The American Red Cross Spent almost $125 million or 25 Percent of donated fund after the 2010 Haiti earthquake on its own internal expenses. This is far more than the organization had previously disclosed. Red Cross had reported in the past that only 9 percent of donated money were used to cover international expenses. The following is a partial list of some of the abuses reported by the report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley:

In 2010, the American Red Cross issued a check for $4.3 million to its sister organization the International Federation of the Red Cross. The purpose is disaster preparedness.

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US$500 million in Haiti is a lot of money. In 2010, the Red Cross had a deficit fund of about $100 million, but it has long been known for providing emergency disaster relief -- food, blankets and shelter to the people in need. And they worked in Haiti too. When a devastating earthquake leveled Haiti in 2010, the American Red Cross received an outpouring of donations after the quake, nearly half a billion dollars. Millions of people donated to the American Red Cross, it was one of its most successful fundraising efforts ever. They undertook a project (named LAMIKA, a Creole acronym for 'A Better Life in My Neighborhood') to build homes to more than 130,000 people. But with little experience in the difficult work of rebuilding in a developing country, the number of permanent homes the charity has built so far is just six. That is just over $83.3 million a house.

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Chaos emerged last Saturday at Port-au-Prince where two male partners were holding a private engagement ceremony. The British national and his male partner were attacked with rocks and molotov cocktail by angry locals.

In an attempt to prevent loss of human life, Haitian Police arrived just in time. According to rights advocates the act was not justified. One of the homosexual's rights defenders condemned the action saying that it was homophobic act.

The homosexual community followers are now pushing for justice to be done. They believe that the perpetrators are guilt of crime.

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Haiti will forever live to remember the worst earthquake that hit its capital about two years ago. Despite the fact that the damage caused was immense, international community and the long supportive US to Haiti gave substantial hopes to Haiti's government and entire Haiti at large through reconstruction pledges. According to US top government officials who were actively involved in the life saving operation after the catastrophe, they were later to venture into rebuilding Haiti and give it a strong base for reconstruction.

There were great hopes in the success of the initiative but the catastrophe chose to hit at the cornerstone of Haiti, Port au Prince, bringing all plans to a standstill. The earthquake that flattened Haiti's capital at first seemed manageable but a destruction of major Ministry apartments hindered any progress in the restructuring process. The US in particular had pledged to provide $1.8 billion for the reconstruction but lack of stable government to set up transparent strategies on the projects to be funded ruined it all.

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Well, if I told you that an organization whose core business is to provide aid to those in distress while relying on donor funding is thinking of investing that very money, you would probably say that am out of my mind.

Right?

How do you even explain that idea to people who gave willingly because they had a desire to alleviate the suffering of some individuals?

Is it that the organization has done everything it desired to do, so that now there is nothing else to do with the money?

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