Alice Smeets' Haiti Project

In 2008, her UNICEF Photo of the Year touched people all over the world.

The young Belgian photographer regularly travels to Haiti and, together with the small German organisation HaitiCare, personally supports various projects there - especially those that benefit children, like HaitiCare's orphanage and Montessori school in one of the poorest quarters of Port-au-Prince. Helped by almost two decades of hands-on experience, these close personal ties assure that every cent of your donation truly makes a difference where it counts.  

Right now, funds are needed there most urgently to rebuild the school building destroyed by the January earthquake, as well as a bridge necessary for transporting all building materials, before the hurricane season is even further advanced than now.

For more information and the story of HaitiCare, please read my blog articles from July 14th and 25th.

Click here for Alice Smeets' website including her blog and here for the HaitiCare website (sorry, only in German)

Donate to

Contact details: 

Alice Smeets
Belgium
Website: www.alicesmeets.com
E-Mail: alicesmeets(at)googlemail.com

Alice Smeets about herself

"I’m a young freelance photographer based in Belgium. I decided to dedicate my life to showing with my camera the stories life has written. In the end, it’s all about trying to recognize the beauty of things and, at the same time, trying to capture the cruelties the human race has to deal with. I want to touch people’s feelings without shocking them to provoke a reaction as a result.

Every small amount counts: I am collecting donations to help children in Haiti. I regularly travel there and assure that every cent or penny will reach those children in need.

With the donations I support mostly children or groups of street kids. I pay school for a few of them, I buy medicine and food. When I meet a charity organization in Haiti that does great work (like an orphanage self-created by Haitians), I give them a part of it. Last time I supported an orphanage by buying beds for the children.

I always write on my blog about what I do with the money when I am there."

How to donate to   :

by credit card: 

PayPal cannot provide a donation form in English for a German charity. :-(

We are very sorry for the nuisance but assure you that it is absolutely safe to proceed as described on the right.

The form language will change to that of your country before you enter any personal or credit card information.

You can read the story of how we managed to solve the problem in my blog on June 17.
And thank you so very much for taking the trouble!

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1. Click on the PayPal button in the upper right corner of HaitiCare's homepage,
under the banner and the word "Donations".

2. The PayPal page will open with a form in German - please don't worry.

3. Behind "Spende für HaitiCare" (= Donation for HC"), enter a number in the field for "Stückpreis" (= Unit price). Without this step, the language will not change.

    As a test, just type "1" and click the grey button "Summe neu berechnen"
(= "Recalculate amount") to confirm your entry. 

4. Next, select your country in the drop-down menu "Land".

5. The form will now reappear in your own language! :-)))))

6. Since you cannot change the amount once entered, start again with step 1 to type in the sum that you wish to donate and continue as described. You know now that it really works.

7. Only at this point will you enter your personal and credit card information!

8. To allow HaitiCare to attribute your donation to my project, please use the optional address line 2 to give the designation "Charity Triathlon". They know to look there.

Donations are made in Euros; find the regularly updated Yahoo Currency Converter here.
(1 Euro corresponds to about 1.27 US $ on September 10th 2010)

If you have your own PayPal account (or know someone who does), you can also log into your account ("Einloggen") and proceed in your own language as usual.

Since it isn't possible to specify a designation in this case, HaitiCare have kindly agreed to attribute all "untitled" credit card donations coming in until August to my project, too.  

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from a bank account in the EU:

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You can donate safely and easily by bank transfer - at the same cost as within your country.

You will get the correct form at your bank, and here is HaitiCare's bank information:

Bank: Commerzbank AG, Berlin - Bank Account: 877 0000 00 - Bank code: 100 400 00
IBAN: DE70 1004 0000 0877 0000 00 - SWIFT-BIC: COBADEFFXXX

And please remember to add "Charity Triathlon" as the Reference on your bank form.

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You can donate safely and easily by direct debit and find HaitiCare's form here.

There you can either determine exactly what your donation will buy, or donate a sum of money (in that case, select Einzelspende (= individual donation)).

And please remember to also add "Charity Triathlon" in the field for Notiz (= comment).

If you prefer to donate by bank transfer, you find their bank information immediately above.

And please remember to add "Charity Triathlon" as the Verwendungszweck (= reference)
on your own bank form.