This year’s rainy season has taken upwards of 200 lives and left 1.6 million people homeless in Colombia. Local businesses, foreign governments and international aid organizations have given financial support for Colombia’s struggles, and there are ways you can help too.
Colombia’s Consul General in Miami, Angela Suarez Velez, told Colombia Reports that financial support is the best way that foreigners can help.
The Consulate’s website provides a list of bank accounts that will accept money transfers to support the victims of the rainy season.
Colombia has also set up a PayPal donation account through their website conexioncolombia.com. Use the links on the right to find the government-approved PayPal page.
A representative from the Colombian Embassy in Washington said that they are currently working on setting up an online donation facility on their website.
Suarez said that the government would prefer to receive financial donations rather than donations in kind, so that the government can better direct the relief efforts.
Alongside the government’s relief efforts there are many NGOs working to aid Colombians in need. Donacion Colombia is one example of an effort to raise money for disaster relief. The organization recognizes that the government would rather receive funds than donations of items and is coordinating a variety of efforts to raise money.
According to Portafolio, the Red Cross has already collected COP480 million and 520 tons of clothing and food for victims of the rainy season.
The Colombian Red Cross and churches are taking donations of non-perishable food with expiration dates no later than six months, hygiene items, kitchen utensils, mattresses, blankets, hammocks and mosquito nets.
A group of artist have also collaborated in a project called Dar por Colombia, an effort to raise money for the Red Cross.
Colombia has received a $350 million loan to help recover from the damage and two private Colombian companies have donated a total of $13 million to help the victims. The United States Embassy in Bogota on Tuesday announced it will add $700,000 to the $300,000 it already had promised to the Colombian Red Cross.