Haitian communities struggle to get help after earthquake

Two weeks after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the southern coast of Haiti, some communities are just beginning to receive aid, as medical care and other resources struggle to reach some isolated areas further cut off by damaged roads and landslides.

In a country that has not fully recovered from the devastating 2010 earthquake, and where many are reluctant to receive foreign aid after poorly managed development projects over the past decade, residents rely on local networks and organizations to meet basic needs.

On the morning of August 14, thousands of Haitians woke up to the quake that struck the southern Tiburon peninsula, and felt tremors dozens of miles away in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

At least 2,189 people were killed in the quake, more than 12,000 injured and dozens missing, according to Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency.

In addition, nearly 53,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 77,000 were damaged in Haiti’s worst-hit provinces or provinces, Sud, Grand Anse and Nippes, according to the government office.

Days after the disaster, rescue efforts were complicated as rain from then-Tropical Storm Grace rained over the area, diverting from a tropical depression as it moved west of Les Cayes, one of the worst-hit areas.

Project Hope, an international healthcare organization with emergency responders on the ground in Haiti, said in a situation report Wednesday that an estimated 650,000 people still need humanitarian assistance in the three affected provinces, with more than 119,000 missing in the country. Region. Get drinking water.

Severe damage to buildings and roads in the area due to the earthquake and subsequent landslides also limited efforts to reach populations in need, with Project Hope reporting that 32 health facilities were damaged or destroyed during the earthquake.

Doctors Without Borders told The Hill it was coordinating several medical response efforts across the country, including by opening an emergency center in Port-au-Prince to help patients evacuated from the southern part of the country.

The international group also has medical staff stationed in the departments of Grand’Anse and Sud, including a hospital in Port-à-Piment, where patients in the hospital in the affected area during the earthquake had to be moved to tents.

The organization explained that even with all these efforts, significant obstacles still exist, noting that “many hospitals have had to evacuate their patients, and facilities that are still operating are overcrowded and suffer from a shortage of medical equipment and medicines.”

With groups like Doctors Without Borders and other aid organizations miles away from some of the hardest-hit areas, communities are relying on organizations that already have strong connections in hard-to-reach areas.

At Hope for Haiti, a leading development organization based in Florida with offices in southern Haiti, many of its employees are local civilians who have worked to meet the needs of communities, although affected both physically and emotionally. earthquake.

Skylar Badenock, CEO of the organization, is traveling with other employees across the South, working with local leaders to meet the immediate needs of Haitians, including by providing access to food, water, shelter, and health care.

“What I see in the highly affected areas is the destruction of livelihoods,” he told The Hill. “And by that I mean that people’s homes are either completely damaged or destroyed, and people live in tents and tarps.”

However, Badenoch said support will still be needed long after these immediate needs are met, saying his organization plans to “go to help people and families restore livelihoods, help rebuild their homes and work alongside community leaders to get any access to water.” clean, help the Ministry of Education there”, among other measures.

“These are the kinds of things that will really define our efforts to recover,” he added.

Groups like Hope for Haiti with strong ties to communities are also more likely to gain trust among civilians, especially after the fallout from the international aid campaigns for Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.

More than a decade ago, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people, many of them concentrated in Port-au-Prince.

While the New York Times estimated that nearly $13 billion in foreign aid went to Haiti after the earthquake to help build the Caribbean nation’s infrastructure and government, local institutions have largely failed to make improvements to the Haitian economy and livelihoods.

A wave of criticism has been directed especially at the American Red Cross, which raised nearly $500 million in a relief campaign in Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 disaster.

A NPR-ProPublica report published in 2015 found that while the Red Cross claimed to have provided homes for 130,000 people, the organization built only six permanent homes.

In a statement to NBC News this month, the Red Cross said it “strongly rejects” allegations that it mismanaged funds for Haiti, and indicated it was not currently accepting financial donations to the country, which is considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. .

When contacted by The Hill, the Red Cross said it was not providing interviews, but indicated that it was providing support to the Haitian Red Cross, the World Red Cross and the Red Crescent network to reach victims in need after this month’s earthquake.

Mariam Zarnegar-Delover, associate professor of international affairs at George Washington University, told The Hill that Haiti has been plagued by “decades of failed international intervention,” due to groups’ lack of understanding of the kind of help Haitian people want.

“The criticism of humanitarian aid in Haiti has been that international organizations are not listening to what Haitians want,” explained Delauvrey, who is also director of the Humanitarian Action Initiative at the JW Elliott School of International Affairs.

“They always spend money on things Haitians don’t need, which is why you get the results you get, which isn’t a huge improvement in their livelihood,” she added.

The professor explained that one potential reform that international aid organizations can implement is to bring Haitian leaders and civilians into conversations about aid and development projects, similar to local groups.

“In the past, Haitians were not present at the table when there were coordination meetings,” she said, explaining that there are often language barriers with discussions that “are often held in English, and Haitians speak Creole.”

“Even when the dominant language is French … they can still be excluded from those spaces, they are not invited to those places,” Delauvray said. “So one of the calls that I see in a lot of news articles from Haitians is, ‘We need to be at the table, we need to be in these coordination meetings, we need people to reach them physically and also in terms of our language so we can be heard. ”

Badenok echoed these sentiments, noting that Haitians feel empowered when they have a voice and are able to play an active role in their future and the development of their communities.

“They respond in so many heroic ways, and I was thinking about that and thinking, ‘Why would our team of 60 Haitian professionals advance in this way, even when the impact is in their community? “And I think it’s because the service heals,” she said.

“This is because when we serve others, it is healing, and therapeutic,” Badenoch explained. “You feel like you’re part of something bigger themselves.”

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