Charitable needs around the world

A look at acute needs in various regions of the globe — from aid for refugees in countries neighboring Syria to the effects of Zika in Latin America — and charities working to help. Map illustrations by Jacob Turcotte. 

3. Hurricane Matthew

Jacob Turcotte/Staff
Map illustration

Where: Haiti

Why here? Haiti was hit hardest when hurricane Matthew ripped through the Caribbean and the US East Coast in early October. The storm killed an estimated 900 people in the small island nation, which is still recovering from a major 2010 earthquake.

Aid organizations:  Direct Relief, Compassion InternationalHaiti Emergency Relief Fund

About these groups: A giant among disaster relief and public health organizations, Direct Relief is headed up by a former top Peace Corps executive. The organization topped Charity Navigator's 2015 list of "The 10 Best Charities Everyone has Heard of." Compassion International arranges sponsorships for children in disaster-ridden or war-torn areas, including Haiti. Haiti Emergency Relief Fund is an NGO on the ground in Haiti that donates to grassroots organizations in the nation for both disaster relief efforts and "the long-run development of human rights, sustainable agriculture and economic justice in Haiti," according to its website. 

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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