As the Haiti recovery efforts intensify, HandsOn Network continues to structure its efforts for maximum impact, realizing that recovery and restoration will be an extremely long-term effort, with different skills needed at different times along the way. For the time being, money, not feet on the ground or material goods, is still what is needed most. That said, there ARE a number of emerging volunteer opportunities needing support.

What We Are Doing:

MissionFish on eBay has raised more than $1,000,000 and counting towards Haiti relief efforts from its fundraising Web page at www.ebay.com/haitiearthquake. We urge you to donate.

Volunteers for future efforts, as the long-term recovery progresses, may sign up and register their skills here. We urge you to sign up. Three years after Hurricane Katrina, volunteers are still helping people rebuild their lives in Mississippi and Louisiana. The Haiti recovery will surely take much longer. Now is the time to convert your strong immediate need to help into long-term commitment.


What YOU Can Do Now:

1. Volunteer Your Time and Expertise
Volunteers with computer skills can donate technical expertise or time to Haiti relief by supporting the efforts of Crisis Commons, The Extraordinaries or a local initiative:

• The Crisis Commons facilitates partnerships and maintains a network of technology volunteers to respond to specific needs in times of crisis. People work on projects based on their skills and interests, creating technological tools and resources for responders to use in disaster relief efforts around the world. Visit www.crisiscommons.org to find opportunities, many of them related to the Haiti disaster, to donate your tech skills and time.
  
  
• The Extraordinaries have pioneered the concept of "micro volunteering" , which allows people to complete micro-tasks for organizations or efforts passionate about, using a mobile phone or web browser. Each Micro-task takes just a few minutes to complete. They have created a Haiti support page to harness the power of the crowd to help locate and identify missing persons.
  
  Two of their current micro-volunteering opportunities are:
  
  
  • The Image Tagger - Sort through news photos coming out of Haiti and categorize (tag) them with keywords such as "adult, child" -- the kind of classification easy for people to do and extremely difficult for computers to do.
    
    
  • The Matcher - Match the faces of missing people to faces in photos coming from Haiti. The goal is to help desperate families find their loved ones.

2. Recruit Your Friends to Give their Time and Resources
Share volunteer opportunities through your social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

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"HandsOn Network plans to support the massive rebuilding and restoration phase - much as we did in the aftermath of Katrina, mobilizing and facilitating the efforts of volunteers where their skills are most needed and potentially supporting the resettlement of Haitians who may relocate into U.S. communities," Said Michelle Nunn, Ceo of Points of Light Institute and Co-Founder of HandsOn Network. "Clearly the situation is very fluid, so our strategy will continue to evolve. "

The State Department continues to say that currently the best way for individuals to help the people of Haiti is to donate money. In fact, well-meaning volunteers who show up uninvited in Haiti can jeopardize relief efforts by requiring resources themselves. Material goods sent lack warehouse storage or a means of distribution.

As an organization, in the weeks and months ahead, we will be actively working to identify the most effective ways for ourselves and our partners to make a long-term commitment to the Haiti recovery.


Recent scenes from Haiti: