AFT members and affiliates are invited to support relief efforts for teachers and other education and public sector employees in countries around the Indian Ocean that have been devastated by the recent tsunami disaster.

As the union this week extended condolences to teacher and public employee unions in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, Malaysia and Burma, it also has created a tsunami relief fund through the AFT Educational Foundation to provide direct humanitarian assistance. The union is working through three organizations—Education International, Public Services International and the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center—to provide support for union colleagues and their families affected by the Dec. 26 natural disaster.

Education International, which includes more than 345 organizations (including the AFT) representing 29 million education personnel in 165 countries and territories, estimates that more than 10,000 teachers alone died or were gravely affected by this natural disaster. The EI regional office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is consulting with the member unions in these countries on how best to provide relief and support.

Public Services International, a global union federation made up of more than 600 trade unions, represents more than 20 million workers who deliver public services, including healthcare, in 160 countries around the world. Both the AFT Public Employees and AFT Healthcare divisions are affiliated with PSI. The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center is a nonprofit organization that assists workers around the world to build democratic and independent trade unions.

In letters to EI and PSI affiliates in the region, AFT president Edward J. McElroy expressed the union's "deepest condolences to and solidarity with you and your countrymen in the wake of the horrific natural disaster you are enduring."

Tax-deductible contributions should be made payable to the AFTEF and sent to the AFT Educational Foundation, 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Fourth Floor, Washington, DC 20001.  Please write "tsunami relief" on the memo portion of the check. [Trish Gorman, Helen Toth]

January 6, 2005