Monday, May 12, 2008

Myanmar Cyclone Aid Caught in Red Tape

Stan Guthrie interviews an emergency communications officer for World Vision about the situation on the ground, regarding the red tape and what readers can do to help. Here's the final answer:
One of the things that makes World Vision unique as an NGO is that we are "child-centric." We were founded with the biblical call to work with women and children—to protect them and to be an advocate for them. And we're very concerned about the children that we have.

We have about 10,000 children in the center of the destruction in the five regions that have been marked as the hardest hit, and we have 42,000 children total in Myanmar. We're concerned for them because in a natural disaster, children in particular are very vulnerable to disease. They're vulnerable to dehydration. And they're also vulnerable to the emotional stress and the toll that takes when a little child has to go through a situation like this.