Cuba For Haiti Appeal

CNC's Cuba for Haiti Fund

The Hamilton Friendship Association with Cuba (HFAC) is pleased to forward the letter below from the Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC) announcing the launching of the Cuba for Haiti campaign. This campaign will raise urgently needed funds so as to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti after the devastating earthquakes they have faced that have caused great human loss and devastated large parts of the country. The HFAC calls on all Canadians with a humanitarian striving to provide such assistance to do so through this fund which can be trusted to deliver the needed aid.

All Out in Humanitarian Support for the People of Haiti!


Canadian Network on Cuba

www.canadiannetworkoncuba.ca  

January 18, 2010

Dear Friends, 

In response to the horrendous suffering of the Haitian people resulting from the earthquake and its many aftershocks, many Canadians have been wondering what the most effective way to provide aid is. The Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association of Toronto has proposed the Cuba for Haiti fundraising campaign which is also endorsed by the Canadian Network on Cuba as a national effort. 

Cuba has an unequalled record in helping people in crises such as the earthquake in Pakistan and natural disasters in many other countries.  In fact it has set up a special emergency unit, the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade, to respond to such disasters.  At the time of the earthquake in Haiti, 402 Cuban internationalists, 302 of them medical personnel, had already been helping Haitians.  These together with many of the 500 Haitian doctors who had been trained in Cuba free of charge formed the essential early group of lifesavers, attending to 1,102 Haitian patients in the first 24 hours after the earthquake. They have continued their work, boosted by an additional medical brigade which arrived promptly from Cuba.  

We believe that this kind of unprecedented and invaluable help which Cuba has been giving Haiti for eleven years deserves to be supported as strongly as possible.  The CNC urges you to support Cuba in this work by giving a donation to The Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund, indicating on your cheques memo line Cuba for Haiti.  

Charitable receipts will be issued by the Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund (Charitable Org - Revenue Canada Reg, #88876 9197RR0001).  

Your donation should be mailed to: 

The Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund & 

Friends of the Mac-Pap Battalion, Int'l Brigades

Att: S. Skup

56 Riverwood Terrace

Bolton, ON L7E 1S4

The Cuba for Haiti contributions will go into a special account, ensuring that 100% of all donations are used for medical support and aid to Haiti. We are working directly with The Cuban Embassy in Ottawa and the Consulate General in Toronto.  

Sincerely,

Isaac Saney, CNC Co-chair & and National Spokesperson,

Tamara Hansen, CNC Co-Chair

Keith Ellis, CNC Coordinator “Cuba for Haiti


COAT Endorses the Effort (Ed.)...

Dear friends,

I, like many others no doubt, had been wondering how to send financial donations to support the excellent work of the Cuban medical brigades in Haiti. I called the Cuban embassy to inquire and received a positive call from them today.  I also received an email this afternoon from the Hamilton Friendship Association with Cuba, which conveyed the same good news. Yes!  We can indeed donate money to support Cuba's medical brigades in Haiti and, if this matters to you, we even get a tax receipt.  The material is appended below.

All of the money will go to support the 300 Cuban medical personnel who had already been working in Haiti for years before the earthquake. Plus, Cuba sent additional doctors and supplies immediately after the quake (before the US took control of Haiti's main airport). There are also 500 Haitian doctors in Haiti, who were trained -- free of charge -- in Cuba!  (In striking contrast, there are many more Haitian doctors than that working in Canada who were encouraged to leave their country and come here by the Canadian government. (It's called the "brain drain" and it is one part of the problem now being faced by Haitians in need.)

I hope you will consider supporting Cuba's exemplary humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti by donating to the charity described in the letter below. Please encourage others to do likewise!

In solidarity,

Richard Sanders

Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)

http://coat.ncf.ca

P.S. The email below refers to the Mac-Pap Battalion and an NGO called the Mackenzie-Papineau Memorial Fund, which is collecting the money for the "Cuba for Haiti" campaign. In case people don't know this history, the Mac-Paps were a group of Canadians (mostly communists) who volunteered to go to Spain between 1936 and 1939 to fight in the civil war against Franco's fascism. (As an interesting aside, the Canadian government tried to stop the Mac-Paps from going to Spain and eventually refused to give them passports. Then the Canadian government refused to let them return! When they finally did let the Mac-Paps come home, many were persecuted by the RCMP.  Their sacrifice has never been recognized by the Canadian government and the Mac-Paps are not commemorated in federal war memorials or in Remembrance Day services.)


CNN Has to Admit that Cuba is Providing REAL Help...