Rebuilding lives in Haiti

23 February 2010

The following is an update from Haiti Survie about their ongoing work to rebuild lives on the island:

Haiti has been terribly hit on 12 of January 2010 by a violent earthquake with a very disastrous result: more than 200,000 deaths, more than 50,000 disappeared, more than 100,000 injured, more than 1 million homeless, more than 20,000 totally damaged houses and an indefinite number of partially damaged houses.

The earthquake has damaged the main symbols of the government: the presidential palace, the justice palace and different ministries.

After the earthquake, several solidarity actions have occurred in favor of the Haitians. Haiti Survie/FoE-Haiti, who has also suffered damages to its office, has put in place an emergency program to help the victims and injured. This program has received the financial help from the entire Network and from other friends who have expressed solidarity with the Haitian population.

We want to thank all the persons who have helped and supported the victims and injured from the earthquake via the solidarity fund put together by Friends of the Earth International.

The program started on 13 January has 3 main topics:

1. Medical assistance

With the help of the Haitian doctors living in Haiti and in the United States, we have put in place 3 mobile clinics.
We have helped more than 1,600 persons during the 3 weeks of execution of the medical assistance. More than 60% were women, 28% men and 22% children. On top of the injuries (light to heavy), we have received other ailments (flu syndrome, pneumonia, infectious diarrhoea...). The majority of the cases have been treated in the clinics. 3 heavy cases have been transferred to a better-equipped hospital center.

We have received part of the medical material and medicines with the help of the Haitian doctors living in the United States. More than 45 health professionals (doctors and nurses) have helped us and we still continue receiving their help for the functioning of the Delmas 65 center (mobile clinic). As for the office, because of the registered damages, it is not recommended (for security reasons) to still continue receiving cases.

We expect to open a mobile clinic in a rural area during this week starting Monday 8 February 2010.

2. Foodstuff assistance

To help the victims, we brought food to more than 700 families with an average of 5 persons per family, which gives around 3,500 persons helped. These families live in open air camps where they live under sheets or without any protection structure. The food we are distributing consists of rice, peas, oil, salt, dried fish or sardines and milk (for the kids).

This intake food has been calculated per person in order that their caloric needs are fulfilled. It will be distributed for 15 days.

In every camp committees have been created and people prepare the food. This strengthens the solidarity between the persons in the camps. We are working to include local products in the intake food.

3. Non foodstuff products

We have distributed hygiene kits to the families in the camps. We have also distributed canvas covers (a total of 40). These are used to protect against the weather.

As mentioned, more than 1 million persons are homeless and live outdoors without any protection. We will work in the coming days to distribute tents because the rainy season is going to start in March.

4. Water distribution

During the 2 last weeks, we have brought water to the victims. We have distributed around 8,000 litres of drinking water in 3 camps and also 19,800 litres of water for hygienic and domestic needs.

The drinking water has been distributed in bottles and jerry cans. For domestic use the water has been stored in tanks. It is handled by commities in order to avoid waste.

At the moment we are working on another plan to install drinking water tanks in the camps. This plan will be executed in the coming 2 weeks.

5. Planned activities

We continue to strengthen our program which will now include the damaged rural zones helping with agricultural production in order for people to increase the availability of food with local produce. This help will be given to the agricultural workers affected by the earthquake and will begin this coming spring.

We have created a little area to have a temporary office for Haiti Survie/FoE-Haiti. The office was damaged during the earthquake. We could have continued to use the area that has been partly damaged but there is a house next to the office, which is very damaged and could be dangerous.

We have to say that there is a trend to run away from Port-au-Prince, the injured are transferred to hospitals in the other towns or abroad. Other persons affected by the earthquake leave Port-au-Prince to go back to their home area. Still there are persons who stay in the destroyed areas.

We will continue with the running activities to help the victims fulfil their daily needs and we hope to increase our help (double if possible).

Apart from those activities, we hope to install drinking water tanks in the camps. During this month we are going to organize a new area that will be the temporary office of Haiti Survie. We also plan to organize punctual actions in some rural areas hit by the earthquake.

Lastly, we are working with other partners to coordinate the actions and avoid duplication in some areas.