Nepal Update: You can Still  Help

News cycles have a way of playing havoc with our emotions. Something bad happens and we all rally immediately (especially since the dawn of social media) but then a kitten playing with a string or worse, an equally horrific tragedy, distracts us from the first thing that upset us and we move on. It’s normal. We don’t seem to have the emotional capacity as human beings to hold on to all of it all the time. And yet, the tragedies themselves aren’t resolved quite as quickly.

photo credit IFRC/Carl Whetham

It has been 20 days since Nepal – that remote area between India and China that has long welcomed travelers to its unique place on earth  – was decimated by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
The attention it received was swift and immediate. Entire villages were wiped out anyway – too far off the beaten track to get the help they deserved when they needed it.
But in recent days the mentions, the Red Cross appeals, the fundraising efforts seemed to have grown quiet. More likely, the media has moved on taking the vast amount of public attention with it.
This week an aftershock to the area registered at 7.3 and reminded us they still need our help.

The good news is that while the public at large has moved on, the people who are invested in doing the work on the ground have not.
We’ve written about the ways you could help through GAdventures and now I want to remind you of another company that I often laud in this space: Aeroplan.

Aeroplan Canada has already made a corporate donation of 1 million Aeroplan Miles,  and its parent company Aimia is matching its employees’ individual contributions worldwide to the Red Cross until May 25th. You can help too.

Nepal | Aeroplan Miles can Help

Want to use your Aeroplan Miles for good? Here’s how you can help:

The Beyond Miles program works year round to provide much needed help to charitable organizations. At times like these the resources of those organizations are called upon more than ever.

In 2014, Beyond Miles hit a major milestone when they crossed the threshold of more than 400 million miles donated to charitable partners since the program’s launch 8 years prior.

Equally impressive: One of the charities it serves –   Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders – hit a milestone of its own with  more than 100 million Aeroplan Miles donated. As impressive as that is, it’s also a grim reminder of how much more is still needed by these charities to do the work that helps so many.

Today, one of those places is Nepal.

photo credit IFRC/Carl Whetham

The three organizations that are part of Aeroplan’s Beyond Miles efforts and are on the ground there are:
• Canadian Red Cross – Disaster relief and preparedness fund
• Beyond Miles partner  Médecins Sans Frontières
• Canadian Medical Assistance Teams

If you’re looking for a way to help, donating some miles to any of these organizations is a perfect way to start. I’ll be doing exactly that.

Looking for more information? Visit www.aeroplan.com/donate

Disclosure: This post was subsidized in part by Aeroplan. The subsidy will be donated to efforts in Nepal. As always, all opinions are my own.