A chartered plane from Philadelphia carried a truckload of supplies and 30 doctors (including BMH osteopath Dr. Goldberg) to Haiti on Saturday, January 23rd. Dr. Goldberg, who is with the relief agency, Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT & AMURTEL), will be in Port-au-Prince for two weeks, helping the victims of the recent earthquake. AMURT has had a standing presence in Haiti for the past two decades. AMURT’s workers report that the city and surrounding areas are still largely without medical supplies, food, and water, and that doctors are still in short supply. The generous donations made to AMURT by Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Hotel Pharmacy, The Mad River Valley Ambulance Service and others were delivered by a local AMURTEL volunteer from Putney, Claudia Matta, to Miami, Florida, after which a shipping company with bases in the Dominican Republic and Haiti was to ship the supplies to the former. They were then to be trucked in to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Dr. Goldberg also assisted in the AMURT relief effort for victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He reports that tax deductable donations are desperately needed for the Haitian effort and are greatly appreciated. AMURT has a fundraising overhead of just 1% and administrative costs of only 7%. This is one of the lowest percentages of overhead of any NGO in the world. These figures mean that 92% of your donation goes to direct tangible aid to the affected population.