Holland gives for tsunami relief
January 7, 2005 neville
News about fundraising efforts for victims of the the tsunami disaster tends to be focused on what's happening in countries like the US, the UK, Australia, Japan, the EU as a whole, etc.
Donations have been pouring in from governments and individuals – the UN says it has received up to $4 billion in pledges so far. The BBC has details of who's giving what.
Well, here in The Netherlands, people throughout the country have been selflessly giving on a very large scale, according to a report today on Radio Nederland:
A national fund-raising drive for the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami has collected a record 112 million euros – nearly ten euros per inhabitant, including children.
The funds raised do not include 25 million euros the Dutch government pledged at Thursday's donor conference in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The funds raised by individuals and companies will go to relief operations being carried out by nine aid organisations working in South East Asia.
The drive, which culminated yesterday with a day-long media event, sets a new Dutch record. It far exceeds the 50 million euros raised in the late 1990s for Kosovo, or the 30 million collected in the 1980s to combat famine in Africa.
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2 thoughts on "Holland gives for tsunami relief"
Stuart Mudie says:
A friend of mine helped organise an SMS-based fund-raising campaign that raised nearly €1,700,000 in just nine days.
You can read more on their company website – http://www.goldenbytes.com/
Neville Hobson says:
Thanks Stuart. After I posted this commentary, I saw your post in my RSS feed about the SMS campaign.
But I've not seen any front-page press coverage here this week about that campaign. Maybe it was covered earlier.
Nice tongue-in-cheek review by Radio Nederland correspondent Rob Greene re Dutch press coverage of fund-raising:
http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/news/dutchnewspapers/10697793