Be it No-shave November, ramen noodles or PBR 30-packs, we college students like to carry ourselves in the mold of the poor intellectual. And in many ways we are.
Forced into serfdom to pad our r?sum?s with unpaid internships, any actual money we have goes to rent, Wando’s and if we are feeling fancy, textbooks. There is a reason free pizza is offered by so many student groups to attract new members.
While the “poor college student” phase makes for a fun role to play — who doesn’t love an excuse to buy 10 frozen pizzas because they are on sale? — the horrors in Haiti have inadvertently proven just how wealthy we are. Not to slap you in the face with propaganda, but if tuition hikes and TiVo failing to record Jersey Shore are the biggest problems you currently have, please reconsider any and all statements about how hard your life is.
This is normally the part of the column where I explain how much Haiti needs your help. And to an extent that’s true. The country needs food, shelter, medical supplies — basically everything we take for granted on a daily basis.
But my guilt driven plea stops here. Chances are you already know whether you will donate time, money, food etc….You have made it 216 words into a student newspaper opinion column, so I have faith you are well-read, and restating all the problems The New York Times is reporting would be a waste of everyone’s time.
Instead, the point of this column is to advise those who already want to help. Donating whatever resources you have to spare is a commendable act — just please proceed carefully.
Charities, like all sects of life, touch both ends of the spectrum for good and evil. Some — we would like to believe most — will put to good use whatever you are able to spare. Food will be brought to the hungry. New shelters will house the dislodged. Children will be reconnected with families. In many cases, everything you thought your money was doing, it really was.
A few select charities, however, serve as nothing more than self-promoting profit whores that will milk every dollar you give for their own use and send the remaining scraps to those who it was intended for in the first place. As Illinois politics have proven, money can always be manipulated behind the scenes.
The first instance of any such “charity” belongs to Haitian native and millionaire musician Wyclef Jean’s foundation — Yele Haiti. While there is little to suggest Wyclef is corrupt himself — he has been volunteering in Haiti pretty much since the earthquake hit — his plea for Americans to send $5 through text message to his charity is doing much more harm than good.
Consider this research done by “The Smoking Gun.” According to Yele Haiti Foundation’s tax returns for August 2009, Wyclef’s charity pulled in $1 million worth of contributions in 2006 and divvied up the money the following way: One-hundred thousand dollars went to Wyclef Jean himself for performing at a benefit concert. Yes, Wyclef Jean’s own charity paid him to play at a benefit concert. And this is just the tip of the corruption iceberg.
“But the largest 2006 payout — a whopping $250,000 — went to Telemax, S.A., a for-profit Haiti company in which Jean and Duplessis were said to ‘own a controlling interest,'” The Smoking Gun wrote. “The money covered ‘pre-purchased… TV airtime and production services that were part of the foundation’s ‘outreach efforts’ in Haiti. No further description of these services was offered.”
Awesome. So at least $350,000 of $1 million worth of contributions might have gone to Wyclef himself.
While this was going on in 2006, Yele Haiti has reportedly raised at least $1 million since Wyclef made his plea via Twitter. Even if the charity isn’t corrupt — a big if — there is no evidence to suggest Yele Haiti is capable of handling such a large flow of cash. Chances are it will be squandered as the organization tries to figure out how best to use the money, whereas an organization like the Red Cross understands how to handle disaster relief.
And this is really the point of the column. Haiti needs your help. They also need you to be smart about it. Consider which charities are best positioned to help before you make a decision. Donating to a native of Haiti and a celebrity may feel more personal, but the faceless Red Cross will get the job done — and a job done is all that really matters right now.
Michael Bleach ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.
