There is no worst feeling than feeling helpless and I have never felt more helpless than now.
A lot of people must have already heard about the disaster that struck in Nepal this past weekend. I have Nepalese roots and although my family is safe and sound, a lot of people lost their loved ones including everything they owned. It breaks my heart just to look at the pictures. Fortunately, I have been in constant contact with my family via Viber and I can tell the situation is very chaotic. Even though our house is unharmed, there is a fear among everyone in my family. My family didn’t sleep properly for 2 days. They were constantly running out to open space because of aftershocks. They couldn’t even sleep outside because it has been raining on and off. My mother called me this Sunday morning (Sunday night in Nepal). She is a pretty strong person but the aftershock they got Sunday morning was so strong that even it made her weak and Nepal has already got more than 50 aftershocks in less than 48 hours now. The tremors are so continuous that my father has reached to a point where he is doesn’t know if it is a real tremor or just a hallucination.
If my family who is in a pretty good condition compared to a lot of people in Nepal is shaken up so much, I can’t imagine what is going through those people who lost everything that they had ever owned. I wish I could be home at this time but I also know that it won’t be more useful than professionally trained volunteer. Judging by the condition of the country, it needs trained forces with sophisticated equipments. General layman are helpful but when there are a lot of them, they tend to be burden rather than aid; causing more chaos than necessary. I learned this lesson during an emergency response training at my work. The reason you assign different responsibility to different individuals is to keep the scene of incident less crowded. This is also the main reason you send a second person to check on the first person who is actually doing the work. Hence, I am making an informed decision of donating to a reputed organization that has mobilized their disaster recovery team to Nepal. Red Cross and Direct Relief are two organization that are already on ground. As we speak, Direct Relief is mobilizing its emergency response team to Nepal. Direct Relief has provided $1,000,000 worth of medicine and supplies to charitable healthcare partners in Nepal since 2008. In addition, both Red Cross and Direct Relief are registered 501(c)(3) organization.
So give generously. Give what you can. Even a dollar is a big amount for people in need. If you decide to donate please make sure you chose to send the funds to Nepal Earthquake and if you can, please choose PayPal as your method of donation. PayPal is donating 100% of your donation to charity.
My country is going through its darkest days and it needs your help.
