Long term Tsunami volunteers and direct aid needed in Thailand!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) January 29, 2005 -- Pressrelease


Long term and direct aid needed to Tsunami victims!

The Openmindprojects, a Thai/European NGO arranging education projects in SE Asia and for international volunteers to participate, works in the Tsunami hit regions in Thailand to understand problems, priorities and to adapt its work accordingly.

They learn many things! About how unequal the distribution of aid is, whether a result of chaos, bureaucracy, corruption or other.

They learn about forgotten villages! They visit them, one just outside the famous Patong in Phuket! 150 people lost their homes and most fishing boats. They still wait for aid!

They learn of the problems of organizing efficient volunteer work in Refugee Camps and elsewhere too. Some places are overwhelmed, others neglected!

Their conclusions are;
- Education to activate distressed people and to help the young to a future life and the jobless to new jobs is of paramount
- And so is to identify the anonymous who do not get any help or have to wait for it too long!

Through its local and grass roots contacts Openmindprojects is constantly in touch with these people!

Therefore Openmindprojects wants to

- Support schools, refugee camps and summer camps for orphans, with volunteers and material support.
- Support the people who search for the ones who do not get any help
- Invite international volunteers to help long term
- Help to find sponsors, supporters to the forgotten and help the sponsors to get in direct contact with the forgotten people. To act as a broker of aid!

Help the Forgotten Villages!
Says Sven Mauleon of Openmindprojects:
� Probably there are many more than we know of, forgotten villages, undetected by media, not supported by their governments.

A group of Thai writers has found many small and forgotten villages. Thanks to them we could help some tourists to help the village directly. Our own volunteer Leen donated 3000 Euro collected in Belgium to another village. They used it for food and even drinking water�..�

The Virtues of Direct Aid.
�Many contact us to help, some to donate money� continues Sven Mauleon, �we do not accept money but are happy to advise to whom and what to give! Direct aid to the ones who need the support is one of the best ways to help if you know whom to help, when and how! You avoid delays caused by bureaucracies, losing money in the overhead costs or outright corruption, endemic in many developing countries.�

Concludes Sven Mauleon: �Handed out indiscriminately, direct aid will have little if any effect. When we meet with people, organizations, villages that we believe can benefit from direct aid or contribute to it we are happy to act as a broker�

Tsunami volunteers wanted in Thailand.
Openmindprojects invites volunteers to support primary and secondary schools, colleges, orphanages and refugee camps in Thailand.

For more information go to www.openmindprojects.org or email info@openmindprojects.org