Haiti: Too Difficult to Watch but Very Easy to Help

Don't know if you're like me but I just can't bear to watch anything about the earthquake.

Watching it on tv isn't going to save anybody. All it's going to do is make me upset, so I switch over and watch the football instead.

Honest, that's what I've been doing and maybe you've been the same.

You might think, I'll raise some money or I'll donate some money. But will the money really reach the injured, the homeless and the sick?

You read a bit of background about Haiti and you wonder.

While Haiti was the only country in the Western Hemisphere to have undergone a successful slave rebellion, its recent history hasn't been glorious.

Francois Duvalier ("Papa Doc") and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier ("Baby Doc") were textbook 3rd world dictators, murdering and terrorising their people.

Baby Doc was the Saddam of the 1980s. (The US could have invaded and established democracy, the way it does now, with some countries. Back then it arranged for Baby Doc to be exiled in France!)

Since democracy arrived the country has been badly mismanaged. 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth. Most of the country lives on less than $2 a day. Half of the population cannot read or write.

The people who who were blown out of their beds on 12 January really are among the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth.

But, you can do something to help them. Glasgow the Caring City's Campaign means that if you text HELP to 88008 you will donate £1 (although it will cost you £1.50 plus your text charge)

There can't be too many people in work in Britain today who would actually miss £1.50

Its a cliche but those £1.50s really will make a difference to these people. GTCC are a NGO you really can trust to deliver.

You'll never personally be thanked by someone in Haiti for it and I'm not trying to make you feel guilty if you don't text or donate.

But I do know you'll feel better about yourself if you do.