Pakistan flood aid picks up

TORONTO - After a slow start, Canadian Catholics have responded, online and in parishes, to the flood crisis in Pakistan.

Contributions over the Internet pushed the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace disaster relief fund for Pakistan over the $100,000 mark on the Aug. 22 weekend. In the archdiocese of Toronto, the ShareLife Pakistan Flood Relief fund went from less than $11,000 on Aug. 16 to $38,497 as of 3 p.m. Aug. 23.

With the federal government giving in to pleas from Development and Peace and other agencies to establish a dollar-for-dollar program to match private donations, Development and Peace is hopeful Canadian generosity will begin to equal the massive scale of the floods in the Indus River valley.

While there’s no dollar limit on the dollar-for-dollar program, the government matching funds will only be available for contributions made to approved charities between Aug. 2 and Sept. 12. Development and Peace, the international development arm of the Canadian bishops, is one of the approved charities.

Caritas Internationalis is asking for $5.5 million from its global network of Catholic aid agencies to help flood victims.

As a member of the Caritas network, Development and Peace responded with an initial $50,000 from its emergency relief fund Aug. 9, and immediately began appealing for donations.

Development and Peace has not called for a national parish collection in Canada. But a letter has been sent to Canada’s bishops asking that some mention of the crisis in Pakistan be made in parishes. Development and Peace is also preparing inserts to be downloaded from the organization’s web site (www.devp.org) and used in parish bulletins.

“We just want the general Canadian Catholic public more aware of this as people come back from summer break,” said Development and Peace executive director Michael Casey.

Initial response in early August was weak, said Casey. But it wasn’t just Development and Peace that was having trouble raising money after huge response to the earthquake in Haiti, he said.

Development and Peace raised $20 million for reconstruction efforts after Haiti’s massive earthquake in January.

In the development community, various theories have been advanced about why Canadians were slow to contribute to disaster relief in Pakistan, Casey said.

“The news literally dribbled in about the extent of the thing,” he said.

Because news of the scale of the floods was slow to develop, few people formed the clear picture of devastation they had following Haiti’s earthquake, said Casey.

Perceptions that Pakistan’s government is unstable and corrupt, and that Pakistanis are closely allied with insurgent groups fighting Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, have not helped the fundraising effort, he said.

The increasing frequency and intensity of various crises is creating new challenges for Development and Peace, which has traditionally concentrated on the business of development, not emergency relief, said Casey.

Flood facts At least 1,500 have died. Approximately 20 million lives have been disrupted. At least four million people are homeless. 1.5 million flood victims in Pakistan have been treated for conditions including diarrhea, skin infection and acute respiratory infections. The World Health Organization reported on Aug. 22 that it has seen 204,000 cases of acute diarrhea, 263,300 cases of scabies and other skin diseases and more than 204,600 cases of acute respiratory infection. More than 200 hospitals, clinics and dispensaries have been destroyed, according to the WHO. The United Nations has appealed for $460 million over the next three months. As of Aug. 23 it had raised 70 per cent of that amount. The World Food Program has delivered 16,000 metric tons of food to 1.3 million Pakistanis. The United States has contributed $150 million to flood relief. Prior to the dollar-for-dollar program, Canada had contributed $33 million — the fifth largest amount among governments, according to Government House Leader John Baird.