Facebook cancels a crowdfunding with 40,000 USD for victims of the tornado in Havana
HAVANA, Feb. 3th Disillusioned and devastated. This is how crowdfunding promoters Help people, organized from the United States, through Facebook to raise funds to help rebuild the houses of the victims after the passage of the tornado of 300 km / h
that on January 27 last swept the Havana municipalities of Diez de Octubre, San Miguel del Padrón, Regla, Guanabacoa and Habana del Este.
The promoters of the initiative knew that they ran the risk of being canceled because of the US embargo that prohibits sending money to Cuba. The companies that manage credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, etc are obliged to respect the American law.
The promoters of Help to your people did not put the word Cuba anywhere. Still, Facebook notified them today that their crowdfunding has been reported. “We do not know who was able to do it, that information is not given by Facebook,” she explains, a volunteer who has worked to raise this aid fund for those affected by the tornado.
At first, the promoters of Help your people set a goal to raise $ 20,000 in 15 days, but that goal was small: they got it in the first 24 hours.
That’s why they went up to 50,000 dollars. When they went for 40,000, Facebook canceled the initiative and re-entered the money raised to the donors.
Initially, the promoters of the initiative had in mind to help five families, but to the extent that their proposal went viral, they were adding more families. At the same time, they contacted Cuban artists to adopt specific families. They assure that they have detailed the affectations suffered in 147 houses, as well as the names and address of the victims, verified by collaborators in Cuba.
“I am devastated, we have paralyzed our lives to raise these funds, it is not easy, but every time a case came to us and we saw the level of affectation, that gave us the strength to continue and collect more and help more people. We do it for us, we do it for them and it takes planning, we have to start from scratch when we could already be sending the help … “
What happened to the Help Your People initiative had happened to other crowdfundings for Cuba, but the closures had been immediate. “We are disappointed, but we remember the families that need it and that gives us the strength to open another account, we are analyzing whether we do it or not, but to get ahead we need people to share.”
“We are still in shock because it was suddenly and without a notification,” he comments to this portal.
Taken from Cibercuba
