Nonbelief Relief, a humanitarian agency for atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and their supporters to improve this world — our only world — recently announced that it has given $20,000 to Doctors Without Borders.
Nonbelief Relief was incorporated in 2015, with the Freedom From Religion Foundation as its sole member and a board created to carry out the donations. Nonbelief Relief seeks to remediate conditions of human suffering and injustice on a global scale, whether the result of natural disasters, human actions or adherence to religious dogma. Such relief is not limited to but includes assistance for individuals targeted for nonbelief, secular activism or blasphemy.
One of NonBelief Relief’s first gifts after its creation in 2015 was to Doctors Without Borders, following the bombing by U.S. forces of its hospital in Afghanistan, killing 22, wounding 37 and destroying the facility. Now, Nonbelief Relief is supporting its invaluable work in Nigeria and Haiti.
“We are giving these funds to this secular organization because of its work in Nigeria, where the Boko Haram insurgency is creating famine and illness, and in Haiti, following Hurricane Matthew,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “In wishing to help Haitians, we felt Doctors Without Borders would make the best use of these funds.”
Many hundreds died, medical structures were destroyed, 175,000 were displaced and 1.4 million people are in need of aid.
Gaylor noted that the Nigerian situation, due to the Islamist Boko Haram, is critical.
Other major donations this year include:
• More than $60,000 total distributed to about a dozen Bangladeshis, who are on a hit list because of their public atheism.
• World Food Program, USA, $20,000 earmarked for Syria, and $10,000 earmarked for Sudan.
• $10,000 for National Center for Victims of Crimes, going directly to survivors or victims’ families of the Orlando shooting.
• $10,000 for the Livingston Parish Public Schools, in Baton Rouge, following the flooding that destroyed school buses and classrooms in Louisiana in early fall.
Nonbelief Relief will additionally seek to challenge the Internal Revenue Code’s discrimination in favor of church-related charities, which, unlike secular charities, are not required to seek tax exemption, file papers, fees or the onerous Form 990 reports to the IRS and public.
