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Bulgaria Helps Pakistan

08 September 2010 News

Pakistan has just experienced its biggest floods since 1929. On account of the continuously growing damages, this calamity has been described as the gravest natural disaster in that country’s history. According to various sources, over 20 million people have been affected by the flood. One-fifth of the country’s territory – an area as big as  Bulgaria – is under water.

The Pakistani Red Crescent, jointly with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, has started a campaign to help  flood victims. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies launched an urgent appeal for raising 56.3 million Euros to assist 130,000  families in need over a period of 18 months.

In response to the appeal of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent, the Bulgarian Red Cross and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are jointly launching a nationwide charity campaign to raise funds for the benefit of the victims of the heavy floods in Pakistan.

The Bulgarian Red Cross is setting up a hot line, 1255 with all three mobile service providers, for volunteers to donate money by sending short text messages , and has opened a designated bank account for collecting the funds:

Unicredit Bulbank
BIC: BG 64 UNCR 7630 1078 6609 13
IBAN: UNCRBGSF
Bulgarian Red Cross
(for the victims in Pakistan)



Duration of the campaign
The period proposed by the Bulgarian Red Cross is September 9th through October 20th, 2010.

Goals of the campaign
The natural goal of the campaign is to collect as much donations for Pakistan as possible in the bank accounts of the Bulgarian Red Cross, by raising public awareness of the enormous scale of the disaster.

The campaign will also rely for its success on the support of the media. To that end, a special infomercial will be broadcast on Bulgarian National Television.

“We have named this campaign ‘Bulgaria helps Pakistan’, because it is not a state-sponsored campaign but  rather one in which we rely on the support of the Bulgarian public,” said Vessela Cherneva, spokesperson for the MFA,  live on TV on September 8th. Ms. Cherneva clarified that Bulgaria is not in a position to send food or tents, items that are much needed in such disasters, because transporting them to the scene would be prohibitively expensive. The only means we could effectively assist by are financial contributions. In the words of Vessela Cherneva, no matter how much money gets raised in the end, it will demonstrate Bulgaria’s compassion for other peoples’ problems.

The funds raised will be made available to Pakistan via the International Organization of the Red Cross based in Geneva, clarified Yasen Slivenski, director of the Disaster Management Directorate of the Bulgarian Red Cross.

Meanwhile, rains in Pakistan continue unabated. Over 400 thousand people have been evacuated yesterday alone. Eight million inhabitants are in immediate danger, Slivenski said.


 

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