The for-profit company behind the well-known Hunger Site (www.thehungersite.com) and Save the Rainforest site (www.therainforestsite.com), which provide food or save a piece of the rainforest every time you click on the sites, has branched out. At www.thechildsurvivalsite.com , a click helps some of the 100 million children and mothers who are vitamin A deficient (a deficiency responsible for 350,000 cases of blindness and over three million deaths from diseases such as malaria and measles, according to the site). At www.thelandminesite.com , a click provides outreach assistance to victims of landmines. Or shop at www.greatergood.com where up to 15 per cent of each purchase goes to your cause.
The not-for-profit Net Aid, which uses the Internet to empower people to take action on extreme poverty lists a variety of click-to-donate sites, including Bringing Children Home (reuniting refugee children with their mothers), Breaking the Silence (to help communities in Africa and Asia to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS), Learning for Life (educating Peruvian children) and Clear Water in Honduras. Or volunteer online, at www.netaid.org
Donate and shop at the same time. The 200 shops at the Charity Mall pay a commission each time you make a purchase (Amazon pays 5 per cent, Dell 1 per cent and Delta Airlines $2.50). Select a cause from a huge list, which includes UNICEF and the Antarctica Project.At www.charitymall.com
The only e-mail service which allows you to save five square feet of the Amazon Basin rainforest with every e-mail sent or received, says the for-profit Planet Save website (which is funded by banner advertising, apparently) at www.planet- save.com Another free e-mail service, which benefits non-profit environmental organisations, is at www.andearth.com Or send an e-mail greetings card and do good, from www.smiles4all.com
Got good intentions, but simply forget to click to donate? Sign up for a daily reminder (Monday to Friday) for a different donations website each day, at www.altruisticweb.com
Looking for even more click-to-donate sites? For a long list of sites, go to http:// freebies.about.com/shopping/freebies/cs/ clicktodonate/index.htm
Not got two minutes to donate? Quickdonations (www.quickdonations.com) promises to speed it up with quick categories such as AIDS, hunger and animals.
smarriott@irish-times.ie
Next week: Irish wildlife
