JEDDAH, 8 July 2005 — “What brought the reality home,” said Jon Harrison, “was watching pictures of the tsunami sweep over that beachfront terrace. I had sat there with my friends. It could have been me.”
Jon Harrison is a quiet spoken man of considerable artistic talent and deeply charitable disposition. A 12-year resident of Jeddah, he is the regional creative director for Horizon FCB, an advertising agency that handles corporate accounts. Involved with like-minded people, Harrison has used his experience and talent to mobilize charitable relief for the victims of last December’s tsunami. He arrived in Jeddah because an advertising agency had been trying to get him here and so he finally came. “I had spent some time working in European cities; Jeddah was an opportunity,” he said, “and I hate to be thought of as a ‘could have done’ person.”
Harrison’s charitable connections in the UK involved him in building and financing a hospice for the terminally ill in Surrey; it took 10 years to complete. Using his professional advertising skills as part of his contribution to the project, he wrote and designed the prospectus to help raise the money. It bought an old stately home which was renamed and refurbished and now treats people with just weeks or months to live. “No one pays to go there,” said Harrison, “the whole thing is supported by the charity.”
Harrison has visited the Far East and Thailand many times. “Last year when I saw the wave smashing over the terrace I knew well, it brought things home. It was just too near.” That was the trigger.
Nursing the seed of the idea for a few days, he announced it to a group of friends at an end-of-year party. “Contributions started with clothes and bedding,” he said. “That was the immediate need and I didn’t want to get involved with handling money.”
As with his previous charity, he designed a logo. “People like to unite behind something; that was something I could do.” To get the “Turn the Tide” charity going, he launched it in e-mails. “I let it trickle like a river out from there.” It did. “Before I knew it, the forecourt of the villa was 20 feet high with hundreds of bags of clothes, blankets and gifts.”
Accumulating items was one thing. Getting them to where they were needed was another. “I went to business contacts who responded magnificently.” Tetra Pak Saudi Arabia donated packing crates; compounds made collections and Basateen donated a lorry whenever I needed it. Local schools and hospitals also joined in enthusiastically.
Stickers came from Horizon FCB for the crates. “That was to list the contents as they were ready sorted and it speeded up distribution.” Crated and sorted, the donations were taken to the International Islamic Relief Organization for distribution. This way they would be seen to come from Saudi Arabia. “I wanted the logo to say that this was help and support from the people of Jeddah,” said Harrison. He is disinclined to give money or items to anonymous organizations as much is hived off in administrative costs and you don’t see the relief getting through.
“By giving through the IIRO you know it is going where they say it is. It has a good reputation for that.” Even in the frenzy of activity, there was a moment of humor. “When I made the first delivery to the IIRO, they asked me to put it in their lobby, assuming that I had a couple of suitcases. They were speechless when I told them I had three truckloads.”
Saudi Arabia was criticized in the press at the time for its slow reaction. “That was not my experience; there were already IIRO personnel in Indonesia seeing exactly what people needed, and the IIRO here got our crates out to them the day after we delivered them.”
The people who contributed were an eclectic mix of cultures, classes and religions. “This is something in Jeddah’s character,” he said. “It was something we in Jeddah could get behind and make happen. Jeddah is a melting pot and one of the few cities of the world in my experience where such a rich mix of people gets on together.”
There were moments when the true feelings of the donors manifested themselves. Two ladies sent “a few blankets.” Forty bales in fact, all packed in cotton. Brand new fluffy wool blankets in their original wrappings and perhaps most touching of all, bales of clothes with small toys scattered through them so that children would come across them by chance as they unpacked the gifts. “It was a wonderful human touch that told the victims: ‘Someone in Jeddah is thinking about you and we are doing what we can,’” said Harrison.
Some people just wanted to contribute money. “I was a bit concerned about that but a member of the diplomatic community made introductions to a group of women in Phuket.” The financial contributions are now set to go through the group and on to students at schools who lost their parents or their breadwinners. Some of the money will go to training nurses.
A Jeddah school held a children’s fund-raising event that raised large sums and parents added personal contributions as well. “I want to get it to those who need it with the minimum shrinkage. Ideally I want to go there, put it in their hands and meet the people it is going to so I can go back to the school and donors and show them exactly how they are helping,” said Harrison.
Thinking about his visit to Phuket after the tsunami, Harrison said it was chilling to walk along a beach where there had been houses and see only a tiled bathroom floor. “You walk inland half a kilometer and come across 10 meter-high walls of debris. Goodness knows who or what is in it. Streets I knew have disappeared and apart from the tiles, it is as if nothing was ever there. That and the human disasters are left behind.”
“The outpouring of goodwill and the desire that came from the whole Jeddah community to help was amazing,” Harrison said. “It’s the right thing; a Jeddah thing.”
