THE Balearic Red Cross has collected more than one million euros in only one month for the humanitarian aid programmes for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, which is the second largest collection ever to be raised by the Red Cross.
The results of the Jo collaboro campaign were yesterday presented by the President of the Balearic Red Cross, Miquel Alenyá, at a conference. The campaign received help from the Eroski Center SYP group of supermarkets in the Balearic Islands.
The Director of this shopping chain, Santiago Izaguirre, explained that the supermarkets helped to raise money by selling calendars for one euro in all their 130 centres.
This iniative finished this week and Santiago Izaguier said he was very satisfied with the results as it shows how much people care.
In total the Eroski SYP supermarkets collected 45'339 euros, which was yesterday given as a cheque to the Balearic Red Cross.
A hefty 734'412 euros was raised by individuals donating amounts into bank accounts. Also various public companies in the Balearic Islands donated 273'495 euros. These two collections together gave the Red Cross a total of 1'053'246 euros to add to the tsunami fund.
This impressive collection is the second largest amount ever raised by the Balearic Red Cross: the largest collection was for Hurricane Mitch in 1998, although this campaign was running for an entire year and not a month, Miquel Alenyá said.
The amounts the Red Cross has raised, a total of 40 million for Spain, is still below the amount specified as necessary by the Spanish Co-operation Agency, said Alenyá.
Alenyá said that he wants to thank all those that took part in collecting and raising this money for those suffering in the tsunami affected countries. He also said that he wants to assure everyone that these funds will go 100 per cent to humanitarian projects in Sri Lanka, Sumatra and the east coast of India.
Nowadays it is much easier to collect donations thanks to all the technological advances that exist like electronic banking or text messages on mobile phones, he said, and even though people have outdone themselves in the last month for the Southeast Asian disaster the most important is now when these reconstruction projects begin.
The Red Cross has estimated that the humanitarian aid projects in Southeast Asia will last for the next 7-10 years owing to the great magnitude of the disaster. Among other tasks to be completed in these regions, it includes rebuilding infrastructures, bridges, roads and health systems.
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