Haiti Relief

Long before the earthquake, Haiti was a heartbreaking, cry for help. The worldwide focus of attention on Haiti’s helplessness, served to remind everyone that children are being abandoned and suffering in this poverty. We were active before the earthquake and we will continue to be here with abandoned children, for the duration. One of our post earthquake projects has been to purchase and provide industrial grade cement block making machines, and empower Haitians with the practical means to rebuild homes, and schools in the rural areas where the displaced homeless fled for sanctuary.

It’s not enough to say that Haiti is the poorest piece of real estate in the America’s. As true as that is, it refers only to a material fact, which has limited meaning without context and comparison. For instance in Burundi (often considered the poorest nation on earth) 31 percent of the population have no access to clean water, yet in rural Haiti 77 percent have no access to clean water. In war torn Congo 108 of every 1,000 children will die before reaching the age of 5 while in rural Haiti 149 out of every 1,000 children will die by the same age. The average Haitian boy will receive only 2 years of schooling (1.3 years for girls) and the vast majority of children will never attend any school at all. This is a staggering and intractable poverty of an essential human quality.

There is another context to consider, the lens of human slavery, which has proliferated in Haiti and brings a sense of urgency to the situation. According to a Pan American Development Foundation report published in December 2009 there are more than 225,000 child slaves (known as Restavaks) being abused and exploited (physically, sexually, psychologically and as sources of cheap hard labor) in a population of 9 million people. That represents more slaves per capita than any nation outside of Asia, and it’s a number that is growing parallel to the burgeoning population of Haiti’s capital city.

Port au Prince was built to accommodate a population of about 140,000 people. Over the last 50 years 2.3 million people (1/4 of the nation’s population) have relocated here from the even poorer rural countryside. In this city of rubble-strewn roads, deteriorating corrugated tin and cinderblock shacks, and bumper-to-bumper traffic, luxuries such as electricity, running water and sewage are scarce exceptions. With a functionally absent government, an unemployment rate of 70% and severe shortages of food, clean water and medical provisions of any kind, dawn gives place each morning to a life and death struggle for survival that places at risk the care and protection of children.

Before the devastating earthquake in January rocked Haiti to her knees these conditions existed. Now that a steady stream of displaced refugees are being driven by the tens of thousands in their necessity to the poor and ill equipped countryside, our attention is being drawn to ask, “How will these children be protected and provided for?” “What can we do to assist in their resettlement?”

You can still be part of the healing and recovery of devastated earthquake child victims and hundreds of thousands of displaced families by donating! Remember, every dollar helps!