How to Help with Sichuan Earthquake Relief...

An email written by University of Washington Professor of Anthropology and the Director of UWWW Sichuan Exchange, Steve Harrell. UWWW Sichuan Exchange is the program I am a part of.

Dear Friends:

As the massive earthquake fades from the US media, the needs of the survivors continue. We are proud that a team from the University of Washington, including the students and site manager of our Sichuan Exchange program, the people at the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students, and the UW Combined Fund Drive, have united to find a way that the UW and other university communities can make a difference in the massive relief effort now going on and the even more massive reconstruction effort that will have to begin soon.

People and organizations in Sichuan need money and supplies. We have arranged with the Combined Fund Drive and FIUTS to be able to transmit money quickly to our people on the ground in Chengdu, who will in turn provide money and supplies to local branches of large international organizations who cannot necessarily get funds quickly from their own central offices (such as a joint project of Conservation International and Oxfam) and to purchase supplies for local Chinese organizations that cannot receive foreign funds directly, such as the Chengdu Urban Rivers Network, which is working in the devastated city of Dujiangyan, as well as student organizations at Sichuan University.

You can contribute now through CEA or with FIUTS, where you will find a fuller description of what we are doing as well as a way to contribute on-line. You can also contribute in other ways specified on the websites.

Tonight at 8:30pm, the Chinese Student Association and the Chinese Students and Scholars Association will be holding a candlelight vigil in the Quad on the University of Washington Seattle campus. They will take donations on site.

Finally, on Thursday at 7:00pm in Kane Hall 220, there will be a panel about the earthquake, co-sponsored by the Jackson School of International Studies, the China Studies Program, and the Northwest Seismic Network. It will include descriptions of what it was like by people who were there and are now here, an analysis of the geology, and more about our relief efforts.

Thank you very much for considering us.

Stevan Harrell
Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195