Okay, as I posted earlier this week, my mind has been completely off from blogging or thinking about technology topics in general. However this week I’ve had the great opportunity to work with a group called Youth Ending Poverty, and help them launch their website. Hopefully I’ll be working with them more actively in the future.

The exercise of working with them gave me insight into how technical expertise can actually help with humanitarian and goodwill projects. You can use almost any type of technical expertise to somehow assist a non-profit organization in optimizing a certain part of their organization, whether it be the financial / bookkeeping aspect, the donation/donor management aspect, or just getting their organization known by helping them with a website or some type of media.

So for the next week to ten days, I’m on the hunt for two things:
1) Individuals that are using technology, specifically their expertise related to the internet, to help good causes around the world

Before I outline the second thing let me explain. It’s been a month since Cyclone Nargis in Burma and stupid news agencies across the board are still more concerned with trivial issues than large-scale humanitarian crises. Therefore it’s been a little difficult to seperate the regurgitation of old hearsay from the current reality. I really want to make a commitment of my time, part-time but for a long-term, to helping people in impoverished communities in Burma, Ethiopia, Somalia and farmers in Punjab, but I don’t know which organizations are doing work out there in a more efficient and reliable manner. So I need to find…

2) Organizations to which I can contribute money and time, which are highly efficient (good result of their work but not too much administrative cost), and are helping directly to alleviate the problems of impoverished communities around the world.

If you can help me with my hunt, please e-mail me at info [at] kulpreetsingh [dot] com, or leave a comment below. Thanks!

stay in high spirits,

-k.s.

Hi Everyone,

For those of you living in BC, imagine the population of Ladner or Tswassen or Port Moody completely vanish. In Burma, more than 22,500 people are confirmed dead by the military regime, but tens of thousands more are missing. There are estimates from other agencies of much larger numbers. I have been looking for agencies we can get in touch with that will provide emergency medical assistance, food, etc. to the victims and have lower administrative costs. If you know of any in particular, please post them in the comments.

The only thing that’s kind of annoying me (about the Burma government, not the agencies) is that so many agencies have on their websites “we are now mapping, planning, strategizing, etc. etc.” What I think that means is that the relief agencies don’t have the access they need, due to the government and army restrictions, so they can’t get to the victims as soon as they could in another situation. I hope that’s not the case.

UNITED SIKHS is an international UN-affiliated non-profit organization that is working to provide relief to the victims. You can learn more about their efforts and support them on their website.

You can also check out Direct Relief. They seem to be a very efficient relief organization:

-k.s.

There is a real humanitarian crisis happening right now in Burma. After Cyclone Nargis, the military regime has released reports of over 22,000 people dead and 41,000 missing, although a US diplomat in the country claims the death toll may actually be over 100,000 and the missing over 70,000. There are real concerns for peoples access to basic needs and prevention of diseases. If you would like to donate to relief efforts, please visit FeedTheHungryCanada.com - they will forward 100% of proceeds to the victims aid.

If you know about any other reliable relief agencies that will not misuse the funds and will only use the funds to provide direct aid to the victims, please post them in the comments.