Somalia: How YOU Can Help

Photo: MSF / Kenya 2011 © Brendan Bannon

So you can’t, for practical reasons, be on the ground in Somalia with a humanitarian agency helping the refugees. Maybe you are feeling helpless that you cannot provide any tangible assistance to those suffering. That’s OK, read on to find out how you can help out:

• If you have a credit card, set up a monthly recurring payment plan through a humanitarian agency’s website (see below).

For people residing in the US long term, I recommend using a credit card, if you have one, because after the card is charge with the donation, you can automatically pay off the donated amount using your bank account when the credit card bill is due. This way your credit score will gradually go up. It works best if you have a dedicated credit card for humanitarian donations, because it will be easy to keep track of of your contributions. You’re effectively hitting two birds with one stone, improving your credit (by paying off the donated amount every month), and donating to a charitable cause.

• If you don’t have a credit card, and live in the US, then you can use your debit card to do the same, as long as it has the Visa or Mastercard logos on it.
• If you don’t have a credit or debit card, but have a bank account, then go to your online profile and set up a monthly recurring payment to be sent to the agency of your choice. The bank will then send a check to the agency at no charge to you*(it’s called BillPay). If you live in Europe, you can do an IBAN transfer to the agency’s European account. 
• If you do not know how to use the online features of your bank account, then head over to a branch, or call them if you don’t have the time, and ask a representative about how you can set up a monthly recurring payment plan to the humanitarian agency of your choice.
• Remember that, wherever you are, most banks will accommodate requests to set up a monthly deduction from your account to be deposited elsewhere. You can use this feature to have your donations (based on a pre-defined amount) sent regularly to a charity, this way you need not worry about it. These deductions are also included in the monthly statement for your account. 
• Please specify that your donation be used towards relief efforts in Somalia, otherwise the funds might be used elsewhere.

You can donate to the following reputable international humanitarian organizations that are helping alleviate the suffering in Somalia:

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) 

The World Food Programme 

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 

Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières 

Islamic Relief Worldwide / Islamic Relief USA 

Zakat Foundation of America 

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies 

PLEASE DONATE! Any amount helps. Give to those who are less fortunate than you.

Remember that being a sustaining humanitarian by donating a small amount ($25-50) every month is a much more effective strategy than one-time donations. 

Think of it this way: $25/month comes out to $0.83 cents a day, while $50/month is $1.60 a day. So, the decision to be made here is whether you should get your daily dose of coffee/tea/latte or help a fellow human being get through life? You choose.

*Some banks may charge a small fee for non-electronic BillPay transactions (i.e. sending out physical checks), just check with your bank beforehand.

Read academics’ letter of complaint over Times of London’s racist cartoon

Sir,

At a time when News International is being investigated for alleged unethical media practices, we write to object in the strongest possible terms to a recent cartoon by Peter Brookes in the Times (21 July 2011). It features three emaciated African children with distended stomachs, holding begging bowls, with a caption reading ‘I’ve had a bellyful of phone-hacking’.

Many have noted how coverage of the phone-hacking scandal has shunted equally, if not more, important news items from the front pages: the humanitarian crisis in Somalia; the reforms intent on privatising the NHS and English universities; the huge cuts in the UK to legal aid and benefits budgets.

Yet for one of Murdoch’s newspapers to use racist caricatures in an attempt to deflect attention from legitimate public scrutiny of its actions is wholly unacceptable. The cartoon is cynical and repugnant, a blatant piece of propaganda that demonstrates precisely the self-serving irresponsibility for which News International is being criticised.

At best hypocritical, since Murdoch’s publications do little to support aid to Somalia or other African countries at times of crisis, at worst, inhuman, it is clear to us that nobody who genuinely cares about the lives of men, women and children, in a country subject to worsening conflict, drought and famine, could fail to react to this cartoon with anything but shock and anger.

1. Tom Akehurst (University of Sussex)
2. Graham Askew (University of Cambridge)
3. Mark Bergfeld (NUS)
4. Cuneyt Cakirlar (UCL)
5. Jennifer Cooke (Loughborough University)
6. Sam Cooper (University of Sussex)
7. Simon Englert (University of Sussex)
8. Priyamvada Gopal (University of Cambridge)
9. Stella Hawkins (Hounslow Library Network)
10. Ben Highmore (University of Sussex)
11. Chris Kempshall (University of Sussex)
12. Laleh Khalili (SOAS)
13. Slawek Krolak (University of Warsaw)
14. Chris McCabe (Cambridge)
15. William McEvoy (University of Sussex)
16. Shamira Meghani (University of Sussex)
17. Vincent Quinn (University of Sussex)
18. Lucy Robinson (University of Sussex)
19. Tessa Roynon (University of Oxford)
20. Matthew Smith (Kingston GMB)
21. Aaron Winter (University of Abertay)