Empathetic Charity

The heart-wrenching travail that earthquake-struck Haiti faces with 180,000 considered to have died, another 200,000 injured and many more homeless has the world's attention. That attention has been turned to charity in an international attempt to ameliorate a dreadful situation where millions of people are hungry, thirsty, ill and in need of shelter.

From all over the world: Netherlands, United States, Canada, Israel, Cuba, Taiwan, Spain and countless other countries, medical teams, search and rescue teams, military, and humanitarian NGOs have converged on the country to help the desperate survivors. And as much aid as is being provided, it has not yet been sufficient to meet the needs of those survivors.

Thousands of children have been said to have been orphaned. Young children without their parents, without hope for the future, wandering about, unaided. Families tenting under absurdly inadequate shelters. People still in danger of dying from wounds that have not been tended to. Food rations given out, but to the hale who can retrieve them, shoving away the weak.

Seven thousand criminals have been loosed from the national penitentiary; they have joined ordinary thugs in looting and stoking fear of assault and rape. Children are being abducted and attempts made to sell them to high bidders from abroad. Bodies are still not all collected and are causing a health hazard as they decompose.

And in this mix there is the instance of a number of volunteers from Quebec, who went on their own initiative to Haiti to aid and assist as orthopedic specialists. Spurred by the grace of humanitarian impulse. And now that they have had second thoughts on the matter; they have made overtures to the Province of Quebec to pay their $800-per-day stipends.

There are of course, other medical professionals from Quebec engaged by the Red Cross and other NGOs, paid by their organizations for their humanitarian work in Haiti. Theirs are true stipends, paid by public subscription through charitable donations to advance the work of NGOs like Medecins sans Frontieres, in amounts bearing no resemblance to that which the Association d'orthopedie du Quebec believes they should receive.

Perhaps they don't quite understand the definition of "volunteer". Nor, come to think of it, charity.

Main Entry: ¹vol·un·teer

Pronunciation: \ˌvä-lən-ˈtir\

Function: noun

Etymology: obsolete French voluntaire (now volontaire), from voluntaire,voluntarius adjective, voluntary, from Old French, from Latin

Date: circa 1600

1 : a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service: as a : one who enters into military service voluntarily b (1) : one who renders a service or takes part in a transaction while having no legal concern or interest (2) : one who receives a conveyance or transfer of property without giving valuable consideration