Charities start drive to send a little love to Iraq

As the number of casualties in the war escalates, a few of Taiwan's charity groups were gearing up to bring humanitarian assistance to Iraq yesterday.

Without setting up any goal or clear plan, the Eden Social Welfare Foundation (伊甸基金會), yesterday launched a "Love to Iraq" charity drive yesterday at SOGO department stores, aimed at raising money and collecting blankets, sleeping bags, and food to be delivered to Iraq.

According to the foundation, the money and goods will be delivered to Iraq with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' assistance. The group said that other details of the campaign will be announced at a press conference on Wednesday.

Also yesterday, World Vision of Taiwan (WVT) sponsored a charity garden party at a Chiayi campus to raise money for relief for children orphaned by the war in Iraq. The organization aims to raise US$100,000 to be sent to Iraq in the near future to help Iraqi children, a spokesman for the WVT Chiayi chapter said.

World Vision of Taiwan, one of the major charitable organizations on the island, sent US$50,000 to Iraq late last week when the war commenced to be used as relief for Iraqi refugees, its spokesman said.

Lin Shou-fen (林秀芬), public relations bureau chief of the Taiwan chapter of the Red Cross', the only organization staying in Iraq, meanwhile, appealed to the public to donate money but not goods at this point, saying that delivering donated goods is very complicated right now.

Lin added that they would announce the categories of relief goods right away, if the Red Cross headquarter releases its demands.

Aside from the two organizations, the Tzu Chi Foundation, the largest and most influential charitable organization in Taiwan, sent relief goods to Iraq after the war started.

The first batch of 300 gas masks the foundation donated were sent via express delivery last Friday to the Iraq-Jordan border area in an effort to meet the needs of medical personnel and personnel responsible for coping with a possible influx of refugees from the fighting in Iraq, according to a foundation spokesman in Hualien.

The Tzu Chi relief goods that are expected to be delivered to Jordan from the end of March will include 200 more gas masks, 15,000 blankets, medicine and canned foods, the spokesman said.

While more and more non-government organizations are raising money or goods for Iraqis, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) reminded the public to donate money and goods to well-known organizations to avoid any possible abuse to the public's compassion.