A little Pittsburgh nonprofit is about to play a big role in Cuban disaster relief.

Global Links, a Garfield-based medical relief organization, holds one of only a handful of federal licenses allowing legal humanitarian aid to Cuba.

To deal with the aftermath of two major hurricanes walloping the island nation in just more than a week, the World Health Organization asked Global Links to serve as a conduit in delivering medical supplies to the country.

Because of the United States' trade embargo, individuals and corporations are barred from sending money, care packages or other goods to Cuba.

"Going through an organization like ours is one of the only avenues where you can offer assistance right now," said Kathleen Hower, executive director of Global Links, which has donated medical supplies to more than 70 countries since its founding in 1989.

The group is asking for financial donations to be made through its Web site, www.globallinks.org, to fund medical supplies such as syringes, medication and hospital linens. Contributions are legal and tax-deductible.

The Washington, D.C.-based Pan American Development Foundation, the disaster relief arm of the Organization of American States, is also accepting donations for Cuban hurricane relief at their Web site, www.panamericanrelief.org.

Hurricane Gustav last week destroyed about 100,000 homes and countless agricultural fields in Cuba, while Hurricane Ike hit yesterday with 100-mph winds and as much as 10 inches of rain.

Global Links expects to send at least two 40-foot sea containers full of medical supplies to Cuba in the next week or so. Since 1994, when Global Links started providing medical donations to Cuba, the group has sent about 75 containers.

Over the weekend, Cuba declined a U.S. relief offer of $100,000, asking instead that the United States temporarily lift the trade embargo to allow relief supplies. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declined that request, citing Cuba's human rights record and authoritarian government.

To Ms. Hower, who was e-mailing yesterday morning with Cuban friends and colleagues hunkering down for Hurricane Ike, the U.S. government actions send the wrong message to the world. "It's not humanitarian to not lift restrictions in a disaster," she said. "It doesn't show the good-heartedness of the American people."