Typhoon Haiyan has impacted approximately 12 million people and killed nearly 4,000. Experts are indicating that this storm is one of the most severe to make landfall in history.
U.S. citizens, businesses, and various organizations have been donating en masse to help the storm's victims. Even Major League Baseball has made a substantial donation, lending poignant meaning to the phrase "time to step up to the plate."
When storms such as Typhoon Haiyan strike, developing nations are severely impacted. Often, local institutions lack the capacity to provide medical treatment and ensure adequate water and food, and even getting to those in need is compounded by poor roads and crumbling infrastructure, creating a logistics nightmare.
But it is not only during natural disasters that developing nations face difficult challenges. Everyday, individuals struggle to grow enough food, cope with rampant epidemics, or deal with a lack of sanitation or clean water. These everyday disasters do not attract attention, simply because they do not have the same sensational appeal.
The truth is that people are dying and suffering on a large scale throughout the developing world. For example, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all these hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries.
It is because of this disproportionate suffering that Planet Aid chooses to support projects in countries such as Mozambique, Malawi, the DR Congo, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Our mission is to serve the poorest of the poor and help break the cycle of poverty. We believe that the impact of climate change makes this mission increasingly urgent. We ask for your support through your clothing donation or by donating online.