Help Japan @ Livejournal!

[Xylia]

Hey guys, in case you haven't heard, an (8.9?) earthquake hit Japan earlier this week, causing hundreds of deaths and, well, I'm sure I don't need to detail all this out for you!

Anyway, I thought we'd all be interested in helping out with the relief efforts since, well, we're the anime club! This is relevant to our interests!!

There are a lot of ways you can donate, but I'm here to speak about an alternative if you have talents or stuff you can offer (and I know you all do!)

Over at help_japan, you can buy and sell fiction, art + artistry, audio work, food, graphics and "interesting things". I've gone through all the interesting things pages, and they're offering things like merchandise, books, manga, care packages, pen pals, postcards, crafts, clothes-- you name it! It doesn't have to be Japan-related; it's kind of like a weird version of e-bay where all the proceeds go to charity. I myself am offering a series of at least 12 snail-mail letters of correspondence to be delivered over the course of one year! (I wouldn't recommend bidding on mine because it wouldn't be as cool.)

Anyway... If you can offer any of these things, I encourage you to sign yourself up for something! Or if you don't mind paying for the shipping (and some people have even requested that the bidder send them money for shipping to a private paypal) you could maybe sell some things of yours that you may not even want anymore!

The only thing is: you need a livejournal account. These take a whole 5 minutes to get and they're FREE! You can get one here or if you want, I can set up a vendor post for you under my account. I'd rather not do any bidding under my account, but again, LJ accounts are really easy to get and it'd probably be more of a hassle to use me as a medium for anything anyway.

Anyway, thanks for reading through this post and I wish you all happy posting and happy shopping.

[ShadownetZero]

Copy-pasta from my facebook feed:

"Play-Asia is having a Japan Relief fundraising with the endorsement of the Hong Kong Red Cross.
Purchase listed eligibile items from Play-Asia and a certain amount will be added to the Red Cross Donations per item.
A bunch of Square Enix items are also included.

Check out the list in the following link."

www.play-asia.com/paOS-00-3-donations-49-en.html

[ceredron]

This is the US government's list of approved charities that are most able and set up to help Japan ASAP.

www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-support-japan-earthquake-response

In my opinion, as someone who spends a lot of time critiquing charities and their efficiency, the best among that list are UNICEF, American Red Cross, and Mercy Corps (who has a partner charity set up in Japan already). Instead of buying another skin for Sivir, for example, I donated 10 dollars to UNICEF. You guys should really consider doing things like that - skip the morning coffee for a couple of days and send those dollars to aid relief, every little bit counts.

(also, the bandit skin for sivir wasn't out yet, which was what I was planning on getting)

[chzrm3]

Take this with a grain of salt, because it's sankaku after all, but;

www.sankakucomplex.com/2011/03/21/unicef-well-give-your-quake-donations-to-africa/

The gist of the article is that even if you specifically want to donate to Japan, going through UNICEF means it might end up somewhere else. It might be worth looking into which charities are solely giving money to Japan, if your goal is to donate money just for Japan.

[ceredron]

Well... this is more of a systemic problem with Unicef than a real problem. If it's deemed that there is too much money coming in, they'll divert it to saving dying Africans... I love how easily everyone discounts the importance of saving dying Africans.

This is only a problem in first world countries, where there are significant rainy day funds for emergencies, like there is in Japan. Of course they need some extra help, but it's not like Haiti, where there was no safety net, or the Tsunami a few years back. It is a very real concern that too much money comes in through the Japan channel, and I'm pretty sure every major charity is planning to divert resources in case way too much comes through (which it doesn't look like is going to happen anyway...)

The only time a charity deems that there is no real need for help, especially one like UNICEF, is when there is literally nothing left to do. I would be more worried about where the money being sent toward those church-affiliated groups is going... no offense to any religious people but the transparency and lack of accountability on the part of most of those groups is atrocious. Most of them find at least half of their donation suddenly disappear, replaced by missionaries and bibles instead of food and clothing. Sankaku, of course, doesn't care lol

[shinkiro0]

You two have absolutely no idea about what's going on while rambling and regurgitating facts......

First and foremost, don't be looking down on UNICEF in any way, shape, or form. They've done a lot of good in the world, specifically providing relief to mothers and children in need both in our country as well as those in third-world/developing countries. To give you some stats, they've cut preventable deaths of children by 1/3 over the last four years. They've helped 1.8 billion people gain access to clean drinking water. They've immunized over half of the world's children. Do you seriously think they are the morons who will re-route the donation funds as they please? The only country that disagrees with their fund usage is the Vatican, whining about how that money should not be used for abortions in Kenya.

Just because there is a "safety net" doesn't mean anything. The "rainy day funds" you speak of hasn't fixed New Orleans even to this day. A friend of mine in Tulane has kept me fairly up-to-date. The areas around tourist attraction look all dandy, but practically everywhere else you can tell a hurricane hit. The real issue here is that money is not being spent wisely or just not being spent at all ($5 billion still unspent for the New Orleans relief funds, fyi).

What you're reading about is UNICEF Japan, a completely separate entity from UNICEF. While they are the largest private supporter of UNICEF (the only reason why UNICEF allows them to use their name), bottom line is they are private (they're essentially unable to be held accountable for anything). Now UNICEF Japan is filled with the worst kind of people that I despise completely and utterly. While real children are suffering, they want to ban loli. While real children are dying, they spend money on a lavish HQ. While real children are in pain, they send "moral crusader" Agnes on a vacation to somaliland trying to pass it of as somali.

And I've talked too much now. Seriously, DO NOT HESITATE TO HELP AND FUNDRAISE/DONATE money. It can only do good, bottom line.

[ceredron]

Mar 21, 2011 6:16:25 GMT -5 shinkiro0 said:

You two have absolutely no idea about what's going on while rambling and regurgitating facts......

I don't think you read my post, but that's alright. Defending UNICEF is always a good thing. And I think I might know more than you think, my philosophical focus is on contemporary ethics and the need to give to charities.

And the fact of the matter is that there is a very significant backup fund in Japan for earthquake relief - they just weren't expecting an 8.9. I'm not really sure what kind of safety net New Orleans had, but I'm sure it's not even comparable to the kind of preparations the entire country of Japan had in place for another earthquake, in a country that experiences earthquakes on a regular basis. Yes, they need help, but no, they're not Haiti.

The fact also still stands that there is some systemic inefficiency at UNICEF, and that it remains as one of the largest, least transparent organizations in the charity community.

www.givewell.org/international/disaster-relief/UNICEF

That is one of the most commonly accepted charity watchdog sites in the world, and unfortunately UNICEF is not highly regarded in their ability to explain where their money goes and how it's used. This isn't a huge deal, however, a less efficient charity is still a charity, and UNICEF, while being somewhat less efficient than a good charity, still does a hell of a lot of good for the world and the children of the world. Just cause they're not the most efficient group in the charity pool doesn't mean they aren't still angels among men for the most part.

tl;dr UNICEF ain't the best at doing good, but they're doing good so donate anyway. Whurrr

[chzrm3]

So to clarify, there are two separate UNICEF channels that I could donate through - one is actually UNICEF, and the other is UNICEF Japan, which isn't actually part of UNICEF but has rights to use the name? And on top of that, UNICEF Japan is notorious for spending the money in the wrong places and being a bad charity, whereas UNICEF itself is pretty solid?

If that's the case, which one is on this page?

www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Is it the real UNICEF, or the Japan UNICEF? Also I've said UNICEF like 50 times now, feels like I'm talking about a pokemon.

[shinkiro0]

That one is the legit unicef, Paul. If money is donated there, it will go to a good cause. Unicef is about as solid as a charity can get. Unicef Japan only solicits money from Japan, so there is actually no worry (for us) about those morons getting their hands on your money. As I said, the only reason why UNICEF allows those morons to use their name is because they have no presence in Japan (unless you count 2 dudes in a one room office a presence), and that UNICEF Japan donates a lotta money to the real UNICEF (their only good point).

Oh boohoo, you don't know where every penny they spent goes towards. I personally put overall accountability above transparency. And I admit, transparency definitely isn't UNICEF's strong point by any means. However, it's still ranked #3 in overall accountability amongst IGO/INGO/TNC by "one world trust", it received the highest 4-star rating from "Charity Navigator", and it received the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance Seal of recognition. These are all legit organizations that have looked very meticulously at UNICEF. Their conclusion is quite clear: UNICEF can be trusted, and they are both accountable and efficient.

Givewell actually never did an in-depth review of UNICEF, as you can tell by their report. They merely peeked at some numbers on UNICEF and decided it wasn't good enough. Fyi, goodwill is more of an "outstanding charity" finder than anything else. The organizations that I listed actually focus on in-depth reviews of charities (noting again Charity Navigator, THE most trusted and used charity evaluator).

I agree that it's not the best charity. But I do believe that Unicef is one of the best charities. Their response to complaints, evaluations, and stakeholders is top-notch, and that is a fact. Their results are real, and on-par with the other big charities such as Red Cross and such.

And New Orleans Relief Fund from the government was $20 billion. Note just the government, not including any charity. I'm actually not sure of how much Japan put into its own relief, but I highly doubt it was more than $20 billion.

I value accountability overall, you value transparency. Difference in opinion, I really don't care. I do care when you degrade UNICEF with a half-baked report.

[ceredron]

Givewell published that report as research into the disaster relief branch of UNICEF... which is what I was commenting on. And pure $$$ doesn't translate into relief or aid, as you probably understand. UNICEF is not an effective disaster relief organization, and never claimed to be. I'm saying that other charities are vastly more effective in this area of expertise.

The real reason UNICEF gets good ratings is because they're accountable, not transparent or efficient. They set goals and reach them. Transparency is required for efficiency, unless you are somehow giving UNICEF your seal of approval without being able to look at their books. UNICEF is a massive organization, and almost by default the larger an organization gets the less efficient it will become.

I'm not attacking UNICEF in any way. You should probably stop reading my posts as aggressive, and instead as legitimate concerns about what I consider to be a good charity. They make good results out of massive budgets, which is a good thing no matter how you're looking at it, but in no way are they somehow a better charity than the rest of the non-secular large ones. OXFAM, for example, is a comparable one. When it comes down to it, Microfinance has easily been the most helpful charitable style of giving to significantly increase the standard of living in terms of dollars and cents, but I'm not pretending to care too much. Giving is giving is giving, it's all good and if it's inefficient that's okay too, because giving is better than not giving.

[Xylia]

whoa what the fuck is going on in this post?

guys it's a post about charity let's save the arguing for another thread!

anyway, i have issues with the american red cross myself but it's charity-- let's all agree that, even if it's not going to japan, it's going to somewhere in need, end of story!