Look, I know a good number of you are from the US and things aren't amazing there either, but my country is literally on the brink of collapse. So I'd love it if we could talk about that for a minute.

If you can't do anything else, please just read and reblog.

1 USD = 75.22 Indian rupees

1 euro = 90.99 Indian rupees

1 pound = 104.40 Indian rupees

Even a small amount of 5 or 7 or 10 of foreign currency will help a lot. Our government has essentially abandoned us. People have turned to social media for help. WhatsApp groups and DMs on twitter/insta is where we find help. Our helpline is a Google doc. Situation is so dire that hospitals are discharging patients due to lack of oxygen. Every night the same story, oxygen running out in hospitals, citizens running around to somehow arrange for oxygen with minutes to spare. Last night, we had manged to get oxygen to a hospital with 14min to spare.

Some of you in the US have asked what else you can do. I'm not the best person to answer this since I'm not from there, but I do know that Biden is being urged to ship supplies to India. Maybe a more informed person can chime in with how best you can help but calling your representative and registering your concern sounds like a good starting point.

EDIT: Reblogging with donation and resource links all in one place: Here's a great post with links to petitions in the US and UK and a list of active charities and donation centres in India

And some more donation links from @spacegirlstuff

Here and Here

Some more posts with links, resources, and ways to help collected by @groundzero-and-deku who is doing the absolute most:

Here and Here

A few more NGOs that are helping:

Habitat for Humanity India

Oxfam India

Give India

Uday Foundation

Goonj

Not every listed charity has the infrastructure to accept international donations, so please be sure to check this list which has specific information about charities that can and are accepting international donations.

Also re-adding the link to the give2asia charitable foundation for those who don't want to go through the whole post.

One more comprehensive resource link here

And another one with many more NGOs, resources for oxygen and plasma, and other info

Y'all, this is a good time to mention that I am not affiliated with any charity or donation center and am not receiving donations on behalf of anyone.

This is a list of resources compiled partly by me and more importantly, by other people who have a better grasp on the situation than myself.

They are to the best of our knowledge great resources but I still encourage you to do your research and put your money where you believe it will be used best.

If you find more ways to help or donate, add them in a reblog - let's get as much information out there as possible.

Much love and please stay safe

And now for an announcement from your friendly neighborhood IT worker.

If you use Ad Block Plus, you should uninstall it and download and install uBlock Origin immediately.  (There are Firefox versions of all the extensions I’ll talk about here, just google ‘em.  And some for IE, Edge and Opera.)

Ad Block Plus is now now only letting advertisers pay them to whitelist some ads, but is now letting advertisers pay them to put their own ads on websites INSTEAD of what you would normally see on that website.

Please remember that it’s possible to spread malware, including Crypotowall type malware, through ads on websites.  Yes, ads are how websites make most to all of their revenue, but until ads can be trusted to not destroy your machine, you should not view them if possible.

Please make sure you get uBlock Origin and not just uBlock. 

I also suggest installing a flash blocker like FlashControl.  This will keep flash from automatically loading on websites you visit.  Unfortunately, malware can be spread through just about any version of flash. Make sure you keep flash up to date, as well. FlashControl will be slightly disruptive to your browsing habits, but most things will load with just a single click.  You can always disable it on a website if it’s being too disruptive somewhere.

If you really want to protect your privacy, install Privacy Badger.  Privacy Badger will stop trackers / cookies from knowing who you are and where you’ve been on the internet.  It also can be slightly disruptive, so if a site isn’t working correctly, disable one or both of FlashControl and Privacy Badger.

But what happens when I don’t get enough iron is that I get tired. Not normal tired, soul deep depression tired.  I want to go to sleep at 7pm instead of 11 but I can’t actually fall or stay asleep because I’m not lacking sleep, I’m lacking iron. I have no energy to do anything. Nothing interests me. Worse, I get a full on “doom is coming for me” anxiety paired with “Everything is bad and I should give up on life.”

Sleeping doesn’t fix it. Eating doesn’t fix it. Trying to pick myself up and carry on doesn’t fix it. Eating red meat helps- which is how I decided to try grabbing a bottle of iron pills to see if it would make a difference (given that in hs the doctor suspected anemia was responsible for me literally passing out in class).

As it happens, yeah. Iron is apparently important. Even just taking one once in a while has helped me almost completely avoid that horrible state of being for almost a year. Forgot the last few weeks, and have spent days now feeling like shit for apparently no reason until my partner asked if I’d taken any iron lately. Took one yesterday, one today, will take one more tomorrow, but I’m already feeling like myself again.