|
| |
|
|
HELPING HANDS
Oxfam America pulls together tsunami aid
BY CAMILLE DODERO
|
|
|
|
|
It’s Tuesday morning, more than two weeks after a massive earthquake sent tsunamis crashing into South Asian and East African coasts, and the headquarters of Oxfam America (OA), based in Boston, is relatively calm. Amid color photos, taken by OA’s community finance manager, of Ethiopians, Cambodians, and Zimbabweans, a congenial receptionist fields phone calls — one every few minutes, which is a dull roar compared to last week’s shrill scream of telephonic pledges. "Last week was this times 100," explains OA press officer Helen DaSilva, seated in the relatively quiet fourth-floor offices of the humanitarian agency that’s been at the forefront of tsunami relief. Over the past two weeks, the incoming donations were so incessant that OA conscripted every person in the administrative office, along with all willing loved ones ("wives, husbands, girlfriends"), to take pledges, which reached $18.5 million in two weeks. Since the West Street site is the command center of the British charity’s American affiliate, about 120 employees occupy the third through sixth floors of the structure. The first floor is rented out to Blaine Beauty School, the cosmetology academy formerly located in Kenmore Square. ("Strange bedfellows we are," laughs DaSilva.) Despite the organization’s work overseas, the downtown location seems more like an administrative building than a field office. Says DaSilva, "It’s not like we have water-desalinization tanks in the office or anything." Such tanks are one of the many lifesaving tools that Oxfam America is in the process of shipping overseas. Since the tsunami more or less dumped the ocean onto the land, the affected countries’ drinking-water supplies are largely tainted by salt, which desalinization tanks help to separate from fresh water. Prospective volunteers aren’t swarming the Boston headquarters, since Oxfam encourages Americans to contribute money rather than time. Nor are the premises filled with old clothes or canned goods, as Oxfam discourages people from sending in-kind donations. The agency’s policy is to purchase comestibles and clothing from merchants near the affected areas to build up the local economy; Oxfam also insists that aid workers on the ground know what victims need better than people who are far away. DaSilva cites an example often proffered by Oxfam president Ray Offenheiser, who’s been in Bangladesh during major flooding. "The French donated frozen croissants and the Americans sent peanut butter [to Bangladesh]. But they didn’t have freezers for the croissants, and they didn’t have anything to spread the peanut butter," says DaSilva, paraphrasing Offenheiser. "So those donations weren’t the best way to help." In DaSilva’s recent memory, the only natural disaster to evoke such a response was 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, off the coast of Honduras. But the donor response to the tsunami has been nearly unprecedented for an international crisis. "Unlike Sudan — a situation that’s unraveling over the course of days, months, years — this happened all at once," says DaSilva, about why she thinks so many Americans felt compelled to give. "And so many countries were affected." The Rhode Islander adds, "I think media attention also helped fuel generosity." Right now, another Oxfam press representative is over in Sri Lanka, at a satellite office. DaSilva says the organization sent him because "it’s different to talk with someone who’s seen it." Besides, this isn’t a problem that will be solved in six months — it will take several years — and so having someone over there may help keep the situation relevant. "Once the media spotlight dulls and people sort of forget about it," DaSilva says, "our job is to make the story stay alive." And the people.
|
