HOW TO DEAL WITH A NATURAL DISASTER

          Your favorite TV show is interrupted for a breaking news story. A massive tsunami has washed ashore in Tamil Nadu, leaving a path of destruction and death in its wake. A 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck Gujarat and hundreds of thousands are missing, or maybe a powerful flood has ploughed through Uttarakhand, leaving thousands homeless.

            As you sit on your couch, surrounded by the comforts of home, you try to wrap your head around the scale of the natural disaster and the suffering of strangers halfway around the world. You feel compelled to act. You want to help these people, but you don't just want to go online and donate to various organizations that are willing to help these disaster areas. You want to send them something they need, right now.

Here are a few things that we should be careful about while donating:

• Used clothing - It might only hinder rather than help the recovery effort
• Shoes - Those shoeless flood victims might not need or want a pair of patent leather pumps
• Blankets - While it's true that blankets are often critical in recovery efforts, they are seldom in short supply
• Medicine - Not only is it a waste, they will need to be thrown away as they might not be prescribed for everyone. Disaster relief agencies will work directly with drug companies and medical suppliers get the right supplies to the right place
• Canned Food and Bottles – Food is of the highest requirement in a disaster affected place, but when it comes to canned food by the time it reaches the affected areas it might get expired. It basically ends up being thrown away
• Money to the wrong people – Often a lot of money is donated to such disaster affected places, but it never reaches to them as it ends up in the wrong hands
  
  
  
  
  
  
          We have opened our hearts, our homes and our university to families and individuals displaced by disasters. But as the relief effort moves from despair and destruction to rebuilding, all of us are being called on to share our blessings in this unprecedented undertaking to rebuild communities and help those in need put their lives back together again.