On campus today a group of Japanese foreign exchange students handed me a slip of paper asking for donations to aid the earthquake and tsunami victims in their home country. To donate, one must text a number and then $10 would be donated to the Red Cross. I was skeptical at first, but after looking it up on the Red Cross's website, it checked out. It works by charging $10 to your wireless carrier, which then donates the money to the Red Cross.
There was also a text donation service for the victims in Haiti and so far over $22 million has been raised through the Red Cross. I found this new way of getting aid to victims of natural disasters very interesting and it seems to be a very effective way of using technology to give help to those who need it.
http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_nolnav_text2help
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/technology/2010/01/haiti_text_90999_american_red.html
Funny you should post this today, because I just read something about how there is a delay with some wireless carriers about getting these donations to Japan. They said it could take up to 3 months for donations to arrive:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-delay-on-donations-to-japan-2#?opt_new=t
So while it's a good idea, it's still something people need to be cautious of.