Adele McAlear (@adelemcalear) of McAlear Marketing contacted a friend with strong ties to and knowledge of the Myanmar/Burma situation, and he produced this guidance on where to direct aid donations. Another good place is the Nargis Action Group Myanmar.

Dear Adele,

Here is also some other information that might provide helpful for your friend:

For those wishing to respond to the terrible devastation in Myanmar/Burma caused by the recent cyclone, it is recommended that you contribute to organizations that already have staff in place inside the country and so are not dependent on foreign aid workers. Some of these organizations are:

ADRA International
Myanmar Cyclone Fund
12501 Old Columbia Pike
Silver Spring, MD 20904
(800) 424-ADRA ext. 2372

CARE
151 Ellis Street N.E.
Atlanta, GA 30303
(800) 521-2273

INTERNATIONAL BURMESE MONKS ORGANIZATION (in cooperation with Avaaz.org) Avaaz is raising funds for
the International Burmese Monks Organization and related groups, which will transmit funds directly to
monasteries in affected areas.The monasteries are the only source of shelter and food for Burma’s poorest people. They have been on the front lines of the aid effort since the storm struck. Go here for more information.

Project HOPE
255 Carter Hall Lane
Millwood, VA 22646
(800) 544-4673

Save the Children
54 Wilton Road
Westport, CT 06880
(800) 728-3843

U.S. Fund for UNICEF
125 Maiden Lane, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10038
(800) 4UNICEF

World Concern
19303 Fremont Ave. North
Seattle, WA 98133
(800) 755-5022, ext.7706

World Vision
P.O. Box 9716
Federal Way, WA 98063
(888) 56-CHILD

(Compiled by M.L.)

This blog is link in the previous post, but their page on the cyclone is worth its own post, particularly for the map detail (which originated from Mizzima)

Cyclone Nargis « Rule of Lords

So the provocative question that Christopher Penn asked is this, can a boat from India get into any of the ports near the hardest hit areas? Were shipping facilities there also destroyed? How creative can we get?

Image via WikipediaOn Twitter, Friday, I admitted: I’ve been shamefully, intentionally, avoiding news about the cyclone in *Burma/Myanmar. It’s much worse than I’d imagined.

• @digitalmaverick yeah. pop 53 million. 1.5 million affected/endangered. 60,000 “officially” dead. Junta seizing supplies/barring aid workers
  
• Wall Street Journal article about the hope that at least this disaster could begin the end of the oppressive Junta regime.
• Will there be calls for an invasion?
• some social media context: Myanmar crackdown on bloggers

THE best idea I heard in 2007 was from Hans Rosling: approach international strife by connecting, one-to-one, with individual people outside our own cultures. Seek to better understand complexities behind the problems.

So I asked: Has anyone been able to find bloggers or other individuals in Myanmar who are getting word out from the ground?

Please subscribe to at least one of the information sources below and share them widely. (Twitter replies, Google and comments on this draft post turned up the following:)

FEEDS/TWITTER:
• @mmblogs is twittering links to Myanmar bloggers’ posts. (thanks @admore)
• @marshallk scraped this feed of Myanmar bloggers’ voices and also posted a widget (and code) in this post

BLOGGERS & DIRECTORIES:
• Rule of Law (tip: @stales)
• Rule of Law on Cyclone Nargis (LOTS of resources and a detailed map here)
• Global Voices Online
• Read this blogger who will be headed into the region shortly. She blogs on the Our World Community Ning group (tip: @jefdee)
• Myanmar Blog Directory
• Sharbar: Myanmar Blog Directory

NEWS SITES:
• Mizzima
• Irrawady
• Democratic Voice of Burma
• Here is an update from the Doctors without Borders Website

What can be done?
Not much. The junta government is seizing aid supplies and turning back relief workers at the borders. That government is itself extremely wealthy from Natural Gas sales to Thailand.