Support the Relief and Rebuilding of the Lands and Families Hurt by the Tsunami

January 15, 2005

NOW members and supporters may not have the deepest pockets, especially after the election and holiday season, but they have the biggest hearts. Many have asked where they can donate money that will go directly to local women’s organizations that will ensure that our gifts will be used for direct services and long-term rebuilding. Once the world’s attention has turned away from their plight, women will bear the greatest burden for rebuilding not only the homes and commerce of their villages and towns, but they will also have to provide the emotional and psychological courage as poverty, disease and despair threaten their lives, families and future.

MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that works in partnership with women's community-based groups in conflict areas worldwide. Since they began in 1983, MADRE has delivered over 21 million dollars worth of support to community-based women's groups in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and the United States.

MADRE reminds us that in Sri Lanka alone over one million people have been displaced. Among them are tens of thousands of pregnant and nursing women, who are especially susceptible to waterborne diseases and require emergency medical attention and trauma counseling.

MADRE has chosen to partner with INFORM, a human rights organization based in Sri Lanka. In the present post-tsunami crisis, INFORM is working with women's networks on women-specific issues. They are also working separately on other issues that have to do with participation of all affected communities, including women, in decisions regarding resettlement and reconstruction and ensuring that land allocation for resettlement is done without prejudice or discrimination.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) and its 46 member associations throughout the Americas are committed to promoting the right of women and men to decide freely the number and spacing of their children and the right to the highest possible level of sexual and reproductive health. To ensure that everyone has access to quality, affordable reproductive health care, they provide more than 12 million services - from contraceptive counseling and supplies to HIV prevention, testing and treatment - to the neediest people in the region.

IPPF reminds us that, according to the UN, roughly 50,000 of the 150,000 pregnant women in the tsunami-affected areas of Asia will go into labor in the next three months. Appalling conditions -- a lack of food, clean drinking water, and shelter, combined with the destruction of clinics and hospitals, and the injury and deaths of doctors, midwives, and other key staff make giving birth both dangerous and scary.

The Global Fund for Women, an international network of women and men committed to a world of equality and social justice, advocates for and defends women's human rights by making grants to support women's groups around the world.

Recognizing that that local women's groups are among the leaders responding to the disaster, the Global Fund for Women is reaching out to women's groups in areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami and prioritizing proposals related to the crisis. The Global Fund is committed to supporting the long-term reconstruction of women's rights organizations affected by the disaster and will be making emergency grants to groups in South and Southeast Asia who are dealing with the disaster at the local level.

Further reading:

• New York Times editorial on Tsunamis and Trafficking
• Women's Enews: As Tsunami Recedes, Women's Risks Appear