CLICK HERE TO DONATE NOW! (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/)
In case you've been living under a rock for the past week, I've got a story to tell you.
What happened?
On Tuesday 12th January, a tiny little Caribbean country called Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake.
Haiti is already one of the poorest countries in the world; to have its capital city, Port au Prince, at the epicentre of the earthquake, was the stuff of nightmares. The buildings are - were - simple concrete structures, with none of the damping and stabilising features of the buildings of richer countries. And this wasn't just a single earthquake - if the initial magnitude 7 quake wasn't bad enough, more than 10 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or above followed.
This city of a million people is gutted. It is estimated that up to 50,000 people have died. Heaps of rubble lie everywhere, with countless people trapped underneath. Rescue teams are racing against time to find the survivors among the bodies, but time is running out and the death count rises every day. Communications are down, so people have no way of knowing if their families have survived.
And the outlook isn't good for the survivors, either. Food, medicine and water supplies are almost exhausted, and there is nowhere to shelter - refugees are having to camp in the street under blankets, many sporting serious injuries. They may have survived the earthquake but, without aid, disease will rapidly spread among them. Others may starve.
What can I do?
There are people working night and day to relieve the situation, to help these poor people. Rescue teams are still searching for survivors; medics are seeing to injuries one by one; volunteers are distributing the scant food supplies and blankets to the needy.
But they need our help.
By donating to any one of these charities - Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org.uk/), DEC (http://www.dec.org.uk/), Red Cross (http://www.redcross.org.uk/index.asp?id=39992), Christian Aid (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/), and countless others - you can help. You can even donate over the counter at a bank or post office. Any amount will do; just £10 will provide a family with much-needed healthcare. Still got some Christmas money kicking around? You could buy the Joe McElderry CD.. or you could save a life. Admit it, saving a life is a pretty nifty thing to do with your spare cash.
Please, please give anything you can.
(Now! Go on, do it!)
But Kay, what's in it for me?
You get a warm fuzzy feeling; shame on you for asking!
Just kidding ;) as we did with the tsunami appeal a few years back, we will be rewarding donators with a little something for your profile: your Pokéballs will be magically turned into Safari Balls. Just send us some sort of confirmation that you've donated (a screenshot or something of a confirmation that your payment has been received, maybe forward the confirmation email, with all personal information blanked out of course) and your username before the end of January to seniorstaff@pkmn.net. We will delete all emails immediately after altering your profile, for security reasons.
You also get golden e-brownies, fresh out of the virtual oven. They smell delicious.
So go get giving! Do something that really matters today.