The fact that I’m finding it difficult to begin this post pales in comparison to the difficulty aid workers are facing on how to begin the relief effort in Haiti. As we all know by now, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday, just south of the nation’s capital, Port au Prince. It was the strongest earthquake to rock the island since 1770, originating six miles below the surface and followed by a series of perilous aftershocks. The prime minister’s palace is in shambles and the U.N. headquarters has also collapsed, with 150 of its employees still unaccounted for. The immediate death estimates hover around 100,000 and the imagery coming out of the city and surrounding shantytowns is nauseating and graphic. Corpses pile up outside of the mortuary and tent cities pile up anywhere there is an absence of rubble. Haitians remain in a state of desperation while they wait for help to arrive and sadly, it is a state of desperation that is all too familiar.
Haiti is a nation plagued by unrest – advocated both by its extreme poverty and Mother Nature. The 1990’s brought instability and uncertainty under the fluctuating power of Jean-Bertrand Aristide until he was finally ousted in 2004. 7,000 Brazilian peacekeeping troops, known as MISTUH, were then sent to keep order and decrease crime in the notorious Port au Prince. They enjoyed a fair amount of success in doing so and life started to look up for Haitians. In 2005, Reme Preval was elected new Prime Minister and received laudatory international support. Favorable international treaties were put into place between Haiti and the United States. Yet in 2008, disaster struck again. Four hurricanes and tropical storms pounded the country in the span of 30 days and its people were forced to start over once more. Now, barely into 2010, it has happened again, only on a far more catastrophic scale.
For those of you who feel compelled to help in this time of crisis (that means everyone, eh-em!), I wanted to offer you two and only two suggestions. Like the Kiva micro-lending kerfuffle, people are often deeply concerned when they donate their money to organizations like Red Cross or Oxfam. They want to make sure it goes directly to the current disaster relief situation rather than the organization’s general fund. It’s like sending your friend a birthday card with money only to find out it went to someone else for their birthday. Not cool.
I have aid worker friends well-traversed in Haiti so I’m not going to slap up your standard donation links or overload you with options. Here’s where I’m putting my money and why…
Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation – http://louisianahelp.org/
After Hurricane Katrina, Haiti came to the aid of New Orleans and its residents in need. With the large number of Haitian immigrants and descendants that call Louisiana home, the aftershocks of Haiti’s recent earthquake are being felt in the United States in many ways. In response, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation has set up a “Recovery Village” fund. In just four weeks, they will be traveling to Haiti to begin construction on a brand new village for earthquake victims in order to repay the favor to their Haitian neighbors who are now the ones in need.
Doctors Without Borders – http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
If you feel more comfortable going with a more widely recognized name, here’s why I love the strategy behind Doctors Without Borders. As Paul McPhun, operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, announced at a press conference earlier this week, “We’re prepared now and we have prepared freight, including emergency inflatable hospitals so we set up exactly those services that we’re missing.”
That’s right, inflatable hospitals. These hospitals are constructed from the same fabric of inflatable life boats while the air pumped through the the nylon walls creates a comfortable insulation effect. Doctors Without Borders has deployed these futuristic portable hospitals before, most notably during the 7.6 earthquake that struck Pakistan in 2005. There, they set up a 9 tent, 120-bed complex to service victims in the immediate aftermath and they hope to install the same kind of complex in Haiti. According to their website, the first inflatable hospital is due to arrive today.
Contributor Profile: Ashley
Ashley is a friend of anyone who is fighting the good fight for social change. She currently resides in Bilbao, Spain where she is teaching English and researching the history of the Basque conflict. Personal blog
Twitter: @socialearth
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