This time last year, I was in Haiti working with a sister city program and reporting to the ONE Blog. One of the most meaningful experiences I had there was when I met with the mountain community Savanèt, located near Jacmel. I had run into Jackson Jean-Batiste, the chair of their community committee Komité Relèvman Savanè, on a hike the day before, and he had asked me to meet with his organization. I was interested in learning about the earthquake- and food-related challenges they faced, so I did.
At the meeting, I was careful to let them know that I was not going to do anything for their community directly, and, although I would take what I learned to Washington, I would not be lobbying for their community, or even for Haiti, but for people around the world who also depended on land and faced similar challenges.
Last week, ONE’s agriculture expert Kelly Hauser visited Haiti to work with another nonprofit, From Gainesville with Love. Little did she know that she would catch cholera on her trip…
My friend Dave and I talking with a displaced family at Port-au-Prince Cathedral, a few hours before I got sick.
I caught cholera in Haiti. I lived. And, because I had immediate access to the incredibly simple treatment for cholera, it wasn’t so bad. Because of how simple the treatment is, I am astounded that nearly 4,000 people in Haiti have died from Vibrio Cholerae in less than three months.
With cholera, people die from dehydration, not the cholera itself. They lose a ton of fluid from pooping (rather, pouring out) what looks like rice water for as long as the illness lasts. Because of my access to rehydration solution and antibiotics, my experience with cholera wasn’t much different than experiences I’ve had with food poisoning or gastro-intestinal flu here in the US. However, many people in the world aren’t so lucky.
My treatment consisted of drinking large quantities of an electrolyte solution and taking a single 300 mg dose of an appropriate antibiotic. Antibiotics help shorten the duration of the diarrhea (mine lasted about six hours and stopped almost immediately after I took the antibiotic). However, medical experts say that rehydration is the key to saving lives. Electrolyte solutions, such as Pedialyte and others, can be found in pharmacies, but one can also make them at home by mixing water, salt and sugar. Rehydration is so important that using dirty water is better than no water. In fancy medical terms, drinking these mixtures is called Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT). It is simple and it saves lives.
Of the 194,000 people in Haiti who have reported being affected by cholera, nearly 4,000 people died because they did not have access to treatment advice and/or materials they need to rehydrate themselves. I think that, above all, this illustrates a very deep need for community health worker training, basic public health education, and clean water and sanitation in Haiti and other parts of the world.
To learn more and to act, our friends at Partners in Health ask you to Stand with Haiti one year after the earthquake. Learn more about community health workers in other parts of the world by watching this Living Proof video.
Last week, Kelly Hauser was in Jacmel, Haiti, helping out with her alma mater’s sister city program, From Gainesville with Love. After visiting a community arts program for Haitian children, she learns that restoration and recovery also comes in the form of creativity.
“I love my little country. There is always something, but what can I do? I love my country so I keep coming back,” a Haitian woman told me as our flight descended into Port-au-Prince. The earthquake of January 12 was undoubtedly “something.” Some have doubted whether Haiti has the strength to pull itself out of the tent camps, the cholera epidemic and the fragile government that have kept it in the international news in 2010, but I think it can. The Haitian spirit is resilient, resourceful and creative.
On January 12, 2010, a massive earthquake crushed Port-au-Prince, Haiti, claiming the lives of more than 230,000 men, women and children, and leaving over million Haitians homeless. Today, the persistent lack of coordination between international donors, NGOs, government ministries and local people severely hinders Haiti’s prospects for “building back better.”
Photo credit: David Walton
Partners In Health (PIH) and our Haitian sister organization, Zanmi Lasante (ZL), have advocated for a human rights-based approach to earthquake recovery and reconstruction. Such an approach engages and employs the Haitian people, strengthens public institutions and governance, and works not just to repair the damage caused by the earthquake, but also to address the extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure that greatly worsened the disaster’s impact and weakened the country’s ability to respond.
This week, Kelly Hauser is in Jacmel, Haiti, helping out with her alma mater’s sister city program, From Gainesville with Love. She will discuss some of what she sees in a short blog series in honor of those who died and lost family members in the January 12 earthquake.
Over the next few days, I will write about the resilient and creative spirit of Haiti and in particular, of Jacmel, the small coastal city where I am spending my vacation. After the January 12 earthquake, 85 percent of Haiti’s buildings were damaged, most of its 18th century New Orleans-esque downtown was condemned, and thousands of people were moved into tent camps.
Today, I met with Roland Zenny, Jacmel’s Chamber of Commerce President, to talk about whether foreign direct investment is happening in Jacmel. Upon arriving in his office, Zenny handed me a 2′ 8 block of what looked like really dense Styrofoam. This material is the basis for a vision that he and a group of private investors from the United States are making a reality just a few miles outside of the center of the city.
Using an incredibly sturdy version of polystyrene patented by the company MilleniumBlok, the investors plan to build a village of earthquake and hurricane tolerant houses that will be sold for around $10,000. While this may seem like a lot in a country that where the GDP per capita is around $733, they expect that people with steady jobs will be able to afford them.
In an effort to create a market, they will develop a textile factory in the village that will provide 1,200 jobs. Tax incentives will encourage other factories to set up shop nearby. Local banks like Fonkoze have committed to marketing a mortgage product for houses in that price range, making such housing affordable for more people. Zenny’s plan is for the development of inexpensive earthquake-resistant housing and a mortgage market to spur increased movement from tent cities to permanent housing.
While this project is not targeted to the poorest of the poor (the private sector rarely has the capacity to do so), it has the potential to spur growth, change the public’s perception of what is within their reach, and introduce builders and aid groups to disaster-tolerant materials. As an indicator of how much hunger there is for opportunity and reconstruction, Zenny estimated that 4,000 people attended the Chamber’s information session on the project.
Could the private sector be a key to reconstruction in Haiti? Earlier this week I passed a cooperatively-owned agricultural school in the countryside outside Jacmel. I asked my companion, a local pastor, about who funds the school. “It is part of a cooperative,” he said. “The classes are funded by the farmers who take them. That is the Haitian way.” In many ways, this is similar to how the planned village will work in that, in the end, they will both be funded by the same people who benefit from them and will be driven by demand for the final product.
People here want to make their own way and are hungry for opportunities to do so. A great question to ask is: What can we do to support that?
David Orr of the World Food Programme talks about cash- and food-for-work projects that put money into the pockets of the Haitians who need it and pave the way for reconstruction.
On a recent visit to Delmas 32, a neighborhood in the heart of Port-au-Prince, I had the opportunity to see Haitians rebuilding their country and their lives firsthand. Here, at one of the 30 food-for-work and cash-for-work projects financed by World Food Programme (WFP), I meet Cassandre Chery, a would-be beautician-turned-rubble remover.
It’s got to be tough digging with a shovel under the hot sun, but Cassandre, 28, is glad to have work. As the mother of two who has been homeless since the earthquake, she is now able to pay school fees and feed her two daughters.
Although reconstruction efforts in Haiti haven’t been perfect, it’s no reason to cast aside some of the victories that the NGO community has achieved in the past year. Take a look at the numbers and see for yourself — it may come as a surprise that many of these initiatives were made possible with the support from everyday citizens like you.
With more than 20 years of experience in Haiti, a network of 12 hospitals and health centers, and more than 4,400 Haitian staff, Partners in Health has recorded more than 240,000 patient visits at their clinics in spontaneous settlements.
Despite countless challenges, InterAction, with the help of more than 200 member organizations like IRC, CARE, Mercy Corp and IMC, was able to keep 1.3 million people fed, hydrated and sheltered in the camps established for displaced people.
International Medical Corps has helped facilitate the distribution of more than $16.2 million worth of donated medicines, supplies, services and equipment.
In just the first three months, CARE was able to reach more than 290,000 people and provide emergency relief such as water, tarps, mattresses, blankets, birth kits, kitchen sets, hygiene kits and food.
MercyCorps helped Haitians help themselves by creating temporary jobs for almost 172,000 people and improve basic infrastructure for 45 communities.
In the past year, the UNDP has contributed to the clearance of 1 million cubic meters of debris, a key part of beginning the reconstruction process.
The World Food Programme is currently feeding 1.1 million children a hot school meal every day, since the earthquake damaged 4,200 schools throughout Haiti.
After a year of intense detective work, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has reunited more than 1,300 children with their relatives. More than 250 IRC case workers have scoured camps and neighborhoods across the country to locate living parents and extended family with missing children.
Little by little, we can help create a better and stronger Haiti — and statistics like these show that we are making a difference on the ground. Got any numbers you think we should add? Tell us in the comments below.
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