Haiti Quake Updates

However, having met people from different places, students and professionals, anonymous or famous, who have decided to give their time and efforts to settle in Haiti and help, fills me with optimism. Sean Penn, for example, personally leads one of the largest refugee camps in the country. He has been living in a camp for nearly three months. He sleeps in a small precarious tent no different than those of the 60 thousand displaced people that live there, while he tries to relocate them. He has been able to get a considerable amount of international aid and through his daily work he continues to inspire many people that, like him, have volunteered to help. U.S., Filipino and Indian Marines, as well as many young volunteers, have mobilized to the area to join forces.

Everyday there are more and more people in the world who connect with the needs of those less fortunate. Newer generations absorb these examples and know that in today's world the problems of one group of people are the problems of the whole world. My hope is that through education and communication this message is spread and becomes the legacy we leave our children and our children's children.

This entry was posted by Coco McCabe on February 26th, 2010 at 10:11 am and is filed under General, Humanitarian, News Blog,

In part one of a special two-part report, Oxfam America’s Coco McCabe meets a group of inspirational young leaders helping people get the supplies they need in one of Port-au-Prince’s many makeshift camps, following the earthquake that destroyed so much of their city.

Members of the Delmas 62 camp leadership committee including Stephan Durogene (left) and Jennifer Banessa Destine (second from the right). Credit: Coco McCabe/Oxfam America.

An estimated 230,000 lives lost, huge swathes of the capital destroyed, more than one million people left homeless. Where in the sea of turmoil left by the January earthquake does Haiti begin to right itself? What are the first steps?

Whenever I asked those questions during my recent field visit there, the answer was often a long sigh. So much in Haiti - its infrastructure, its educational system, its job markets - demanded attention before this disaster. Now the need is hyperacute. Where in the world do you start?

Reconstruction starts with the people

One answer seems clear to me. Reconstruction starts with the Haitian people - like the committee of young leaders who emerged at Delmas 62 to help the hundreds of people camped in the yard of a private compound. They needed food and water, shelter and medical care. And they needed to be organised. It was through the efforts of twenty-somethings like Stephan Durogene, Jennifer Banessa Destine and a handful of others that sorely needed assistance began to flow over the tumbled walls and into their makeshift camp.

“Stephan, since the first time I met him, has always shown good potential,” says Ulrich Bien-Aime, a retired school teacher who was living in his sister’s house in the compound when the quake hit and has known Durogene since he was a high school student. “He believes in doing well, doing good, doing what’s right.”

In the month since the quake leveled much of Port-au-Prince, the opinion of Haitian civil society has gone largely unheard. But at the end of February, a coalition of civil groups is planning to hold a conference on reconstruction. Wouldn’t it be a perfect opportunity for new leaders, rising to the myriad challenges in the camps, to have their voices heard? Encouraging their participation in the decision-making that lies ahead can only make for a stronger Haiti.

Enormous personal strength

Already, some of these leaders have shown enormous personal strength. When the buildings at Ruben Leconte University crashed around him, Durogene, an engineering major, helped pull students from the wreckage before heading off to find his parents and siblings. They were safe - and deeply relieved to see him. They had heard the university had collapsed and feared that he had died in the rubble. But when they urged him to move with them to a safer part of the city, Durogene refused. He saw the need at Delmas 62 and decided that’s where he had to stay.

“I didn’t know I had this in me,” he said, sitting still for a rare moment in a patch of hot shade at the camp. It was about ten days after the disaster struck. “It’s during the earthquake I realised I can be a good leader.”

Part 2 will be published tomorrow, Saturday 27 February

When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, Alexandria, VA, small business owner and Oxfam America donor Danielle Romanetti knew that she wanted to help—and that her friends and neighbors did, too. That’s when she realized she could use her yarn store, Fibre Space, as a means to raise funds for the relief effort.

In the aftermath of the quake, Oxfam moved quickly to provide emergency aid for thousands of affected people. Meanwhile, supporters like Romanetti also took action, organizing dozens of large and small community events to raise funds and awareness about the crisis.

Wilco, the mighty alt-rock band with they eponymous album, have sprung into action again, after a brief time away from the spotlight.

Fans can download two full concerts in pristine audio for free fromWilcoworld.net; in return, the band asks that you donate at least $15 dollars to Oxfam’s Haiti relief effort or Doctors Without Borders. The shows are both from the 2009 tour; one from Brooklyn’s Keyspan Park, and the other from the HMV Forum in London.

Photo by Sung Kim, courtesy Pitchfork Media

If you watched the Super Bowl last night, you may have caught a glimpse of the Oxfam America logo at the end of the commercial featuring will.i.am’s remix of the Who’s “My Generation.”  All proceeds from this high-profile new single will go to support Oxfam’s relief and recovery work in Haiti.

And will.i.am isn’t the only musician supporting Oxfam these days. Lots of bands, from chart-toppers to the relatively unknown, are hosting benefit concerts, putting out compilation CDs, recording public service announcements, and encouraging fans to donate via text message. My colleague Bob Ferguson blogged about some of these efforts a couple of weeks ago, and since then he’s been working with many more artists who want to contribute.

As a sometime music blogger, it amazes me to see these two worlds—music and NGO—collide in such unexpected ways. Then again, my fellow music geeks (uh, fans) are really passionate about the bands we love, so it only seems fitting to link that energy and dedication to a worthy cause.

Take Radiohead’s concert a couple of weeks ago in Los Angeles, where the band raised $572,000 to benefit Oxfam’s Haiti relief work. Fans bid in special auctions for tickets, and according to the Huffington Post, they paid an average of $440 each to see Radiohead perform at a smaller venue. Now that’s dedication. (For those of us who missed the Radiohead show, there are some great photos posted on Pitchfork Media, including a shot of Oxfam staffers in action.)

In the meantime, keep an eye on our website for more Oxfam and music news.

Tags: earthquake, Haiti, music, Radiohead
Posted in Disasters & conflicts

ShareThis

The Haitian people have begun tackling the hard work of recovery. Many are eager to contribute, looking for opportunities to earn money, to meet peoples basic needs—opportunities like assembling family kits.

To prepare for future disasters, Mr. Clinton said he planned to suggest that the United Nations consider stockpiling latrines and other sanitation supplies in disaster- or conflict-prone areas around the world, much as it already does with medical supplies, food and water.

He said he believed that the United Nations and the international community needed to devise plans for handling natural disasters and conduct practice exercises to improve coordination and diminish response time.

Mr. Clinton was given the added responsibility on Wednesday of overseeing United Nations aid efforts and reconstruction in Haiti after the magnitude 7 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, the capital, and surrounding areas on Jan. 12.

Dr. Paul Farmer, the deputy special envoy to Haiti who toured the clinic with Mr. Clinton, said: “For sanitation and health, the key is going to be to create community-based solutions, which basically means hire Haitians and lots of them to begin tracking infectious diseases, doing follow-up on treatments, as well as building latrines and water infrastructure. It shouldn’t be seen as some radical notion that we need to inject the money into the Haitian population, because they are the ones who can actually do the follow up.”

United Nations officials echoed the concerns over sanitation and health. “The rainy season is going to make our sanitation problems become our water problems if we don’t find a way to get more latrines built,” said Souleymane Sow, coordinator for Unicef’s water, sanitation and health cluster. “The rain will wash the waste into the area where people are living and may cause people to become very sick.”

More than 900 pit or trench latrines have been dug. But sanitation facilities are still needed for more than 950,000 people, Mr. Sow said. He added that more donations of services and latrines were still needed from sanitation companies in the United States.

At a sweltering encampment on Toussaint Louverture Boulevard, about a mile from the Port-au-Prince airport, Pierre Toutiane nodded in agreement about the need for more latrines. He stood in his shanty, which is crowded on three sides by other shanties and which opens on the fourth side onto a gulley flowing with human waste. Just inches from the gulley, Mr. Toutiane’s 3-year-old son, Christian, lay on the shanty’s dirt floor.

“Every day that trench gets wider and closer to us,” Mr. Toutiane said. “But we have no place else to go.”

Increase da peas ... Will.i.am. Photograph: Patrick Rideaux/Rex Features

Black Eyed Peas founder Will.i.am has remixed one of the Who's classic songs, with proceeds going to the Haiti earthquake relief. The hip-hop star's version of My Generation will air during this Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV, where the Who are playing at half-time. The single will then be available to purchase at the iTunes Music Store.

Big news. The U.S. Treasury Department just announced their intent to work with partners around the world to forgive Haiti’s debt in full. They also voiced their support that aid to Haiti come in the form of grants, not loans.

As you know, ONE has repeatedly pushed for these principles, including a massive campaign that as of now has received over 200,000 signatures. We will continue to push world leaders to cancel Haiti’s debt, including a petition delivery at the G7 finance ministers meeting in Iqaluit, Canada tomorrow.

This morning’s announcement from the U.S. Treasury is a tremendous step forward to giving Haiti a real chance to recover from last month’s devastating earthquake. This momentum would not have been possible without ONE members. Thank you for all your hard work.

Here’s the U.S. Treasury Department’s statement in full:

SECRETARY GEITHNER VOICES SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEBT RELIEF FOR HAITI, FINANCING OF RECOVERY THROUGH GRANTS

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the United States will work with its partners around the world to relieve all debts owed by Haiti to international institutions and to ensure grant financing to support Haiti’s reconstruction and recovery from the devastating earthquake in January.

“The earthquake in Haiti was a catastrophic setback to the Haitian people who are now facing tremendous emergency humanitarian and reconstruction needs, and meeting Haiti’s financing needs will require a massive multilateral effort,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “Today, we are voicing our support for what Haiti needs and deserves – comprehensive multilateral debt relief.”

Secretary Geithner also welcomed International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s call to provide full relief for Haiti’s outstanding IMF debt, including the $102 million emergency loan approved on January 27, 2010.

“We are committed to working quickly and closely with these institutions in a way that provides immediate grant assistance to help the Haitian people recover and rebuild,” Secretary Geithner continued. “I very much welcome the initiative taken on this issue by leaders in Congress, the IMF, and the MDBs and look forward to working with them to provide the critical support Haiti needs for recovery as well as to discussing this issue with my G-7 colleagues this weekend.”

Treasury announced that the U.S. intends to seek a commitment with other donors for the relief of Haiti’s debt to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the International Development Association (IDA) in a manner that provides direct and immediate grant support to Haiti.

In September 2009, the U.S. concluded an agreement with Haiti that eliminated 100 percent of the Haitian Government’s outstanding debt to the U.S. This action was taken following Haiti’s successful completion of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative process in June 2009.