PRESS RELEASES

04/01/05 : Solidarités urgently needs donations to continue to supply aid in Asia

Following the televised debate at 1pm on Tuesday (on France 2) during which MSF announced that they no longer wished to receive donations for Asia, SOLIDARITES would like to make the following points:

- As far as SOLIDARITES is concerned, we are still in need of the great generosity shown so far by the people of France, in order to provide humanitarian aid in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, where our teams are at work.

- SOLIDARITES, which has operations in around ten countries, is currently striving to deal with the emergency and will then start on the reconstruction phases. This means that we will be working in these countries on a sustainable basis and that we will still be there long after the campaign for Asia has finished.

– MSF are perfectly entitled to request that no more donations be sent to them. This decision is honourable and even courageous. But there is a risk that public opinion will be affected, and not all the NGO’s are in the same situation.

– We consider that we have a responsibility to those who have made donations, which is to keep them precisely informed as to the humanitarian requirements and resources needed, and as to how they are used.

- SOLIDARITES is therefore appealing to the generosity of the nation in order to finance their humanitarian action and subsequently the reconstruction process in Asia.
- SOLIDARITES is also appealing to organisations, which may have received too many donations for their operational capacities, to provide financial support for our programmes, or for those of other NGO’s in a comparable situation. We are ready to present our projects to them and to report on them.

PLEASE send your donations to:
SOLIDARITES – Pour l’Asie. BP 1OO. 75O2O Paris.
Or to Solidarités. Villa Souchet. 1O5, avenue Gambetta. 75O20 Paris.
Or on line at our site: www.solidarites.org

Press contacts:
Alain Boinet O6 82 59 29 O7 and Véronique Sentilhes on O1.43.15.13.13