Haiti Quake Updates

Raymond C. Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president, recounts his impressions of the ravaged Haitian capital after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the city leaving 230,000 people dead and more than one million others homeless.

I arrived in Port-au-Prince on the one-month anniversary of the ghastly earthquake that rocked Haiti to its core.  The airport was hectic, full of UN officials, aid workers and military personnel frantically working to move goods and people, struggling to coordinate and manage their own stress in face of the monumental task that confronted them.

Collasped buidlings everywhere

As we left the airport, the scale of the tragedy unfolded: block after block of collapsed buildings and 500,000 people living in ramshackle shelters. Some had tents. Some had the familiar blue sheeting, and others had nothing more than bed sheets. Disposable cups, plastic bags and every other kind of trash formed piles on the perimeter as overtaxed sanitation workers tried to manage the exploding scale of this human refuse.

Much of this story has been told, but I was privileged to witness a new beginning.  An effort by an entire nation to confront and accept an unspeakable level of grief.

Around town, small churches overflowed with men in suits and ties, women in white dresses and their best hats, and preachers exhorting their faithful to sing, chant, grieve and embrace.

Young voices lead the call

At the Oxfam office, I met with colleagues who told me of the many dimensions of the humanitarian response taking place. All the while, a small religious choir two doors down sang, and sang and sang. Their rhythm set the tone for my entire afternoon and evening, never stopping for more than a few seconds. Young voices led the call and a small organ provided a trace of a melody.

It was hauntingly beautiful and seemed to provide the necessary inspiration for our Oxfam team. Not only had they lost two colleagues, but many of them had lost family and friends as well. Still, they did not stop to mourn. They carried on as they had since the minute the quake hit.

At Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish the next morning, Father Fredrick told me that he was preparing to open the front door of his church for a 5 p.m. service when the quake struck. While he was able to flee, another colleague froze in her tracks and did not make it to the door. Like many heroes in Port-au-Prince, he immediately took over an empty lot across from the church and turned it into a gathering place for parishioners to find solace in the company of their neighbors.  In short order, they had organized a community group of 125 families, arranging shelter, water and hygiene services. Families posted their names and new addresses on their makeshift shelters and began to cope with their new reality.

At another small empty lot up the street, another 300 parishioners gathered around a woman who led them in prayer, reflection and singing.  Men, women and children swayed to the music with both hands over their heads. As I surveyed the crowd, I was drawn to the sight of a solitary man, probably in his 70s, who stood alone away from the group, hands over his head, swaying in his own private space.   What was his loss, I wondered. A wife of many years? Children? Grandchildren?

Around the city, I witnessed community-wide efforts to come together to cope. But how can an entire nation that was struggling before the quake recover from such devastating collective trauma?  Is it possible for a country to go through a public and collective process of grief management?

The healing has begun

A Haitian psychologist told me about her efforts to initiate some trauma counseling with students at the university that is now a pile of rubble. She told me that many students, laborers and friends she has worked with share the same experience of falling asleep thinking they are in a nightmare, hoping that when they wake up, things are back to what they were. She confessed that this is happening to her as well. She and her husband were still sleeping in the garden in front of their house.  Yet deep down, each of them knows it will not end. It must be endured.

She believes that the experience of processing this trauma will be different for each person, given where they are in their lives and what resources they have. But all of them will count on hope to keep them going.

On the last day of mourning, people took their grief to the streets in a show of renewal and life. Everywhere you turned, there were processions of hundreds of people marching, singing, and waving leafy green branches. Men in suits and ties, women in their finest, children in fluffy dresses of all colors. Renaissance on the streets of Port-au-Prince. The work goes on, but the healing has begun.

Oxfam has now reached more than 200,000 Haitians with relief, and hopes to reach 500,000 in the first six months of our humanitarian response.

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Oxfam's response to the Haiti earthquake

Map of Oxfam's relief work in Haiti

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Young man from Perth aims for £25,000 target by having a tattoo displayed on his shoulder

Student offers to turn his body into billboard to aid Oxfam charity

By karl mansfield

Published: 24/02/2010

A Glasgow University student has agreed to turn his body into a human billboard in a bid to raise thousands of pounds for charity.

Stefan Pretty hopes to raise £25,000 for Oxfam by having the name of a company or an individual tattooed across his shoulder.

The winner of his competition, which costs £25 to enter, will get their name, or a business logo, inked on his body.

Mr Pretty, who admitted he does not like tattoos, has promised to pick the winning entry at random.

The 20-year-old, who is studying civil engineering at Glasgow, said: %u201COriginally I was going to raise money for the people affected by the Haiti earthquake, but I was told Oxfam had raised enough funds for the next three years.

%u201CI was asked about raising money for the Oxfam 365 emergency fund, to help those affected by disasters and emergencies, and I said %u2018No problem%u2019.%u201D

The student explained: %u201CI thought of the idea while having a shower and launched the fundraising on Saturday.

%u201CI%u2019m not going to have a tattoo across my entire back but on one of my shoulders.

%u201CThere may be an option for the person who is chosen to witness it being put on.%u201D

Mr Pretty, who comes from Perth, said he is aiming to reach the £25,000 target before March next year when he plans to have the tattoo. And he is already on the way.

He said: %u201CSince Saturday night I have raised £40 and if I raise £25,000 for Oxfam 365 before March next year I can always increase the amount they receive.

%u201CI may also bring forward the date of the tattoo.

%u201CI have never considered a tattoo as something I want, but for such a good cause I think it%u2019s definitely worth it.

%u201CI won%u2019t look at it as a tattoo but as a symbol.

%u201CMy friends all think I%u2019m a bit nuts but they think it is for a good cause.%u201D

The £1.25 entry fee includes expenses for the tattoo but Mr Pretty says most of the money will go to the charity.

Oxfam 365 is a partnership between Oxfam and companies to provide support to Oxfam%u2019s emergency work 365 days a year.

More information about Mr Pretty%u2019s fundraising can be found on his website, www.yournameonme.com

Aid agencies have criticized the government for dragging its feet on the thorny land issue as relief agencies work against the clock to find temporary settlements for the homeless before the spring rainy season.

Human Rights Watch said Friday that "there is little evidence that meaningful efforts have been made to negotiate the land acquisition and secure proper land titles. It is essential that this be given priority" and that any appropriations "be done in a non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory manner."

The relief agency Oxfam International warned last week that "The temporary camps where people have congregated are fast becoming over-crowded slums."

"The government ... needs to clarify whether there is government land available or if it needs to confiscate private land instead. These decisions need to be taken quickly."

The Haitian government has seemed to operate on a slower timetable. On Friday, the economist leading a government emergency commission on shelter held a news conference, saying government panels will make decisions in three to four weeks, and that the homes will be built in five or six months.

In the meantime, Charles Clermont said, people in the private sector have offered to build 20,000 to 30,000 temporary homes on private land and, presumably, sell them to the government.

Impromptu camps have sprung up on every bit of available land — school and university grounds, public gardens, a golf course, the central Champ de Mars plaza or simply on sidewalks. But the camps, many made of little more than bed sheets propped up by sticks, have little sanitation, and early sporadic downpours already are adding to the misery of their residents.

Health workers warn the rains can bring disease in the camps — something Haiti's already strained health system can hardly handle.

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.

Late last week, rain doused the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, heightening the dread of hundreds of thousands of people there who have been living in makeshift shelters since a massive earthquake destroyed great swaths of their city in January.

The rains start in earnest in April. And hurricane season arrives June 1. Cardboard and bed sheets--the materials that now serve as roofs and walls for countless people--are no match for Mother Nature. Even a plastic tarp will offer little comfort when the waters rush and rise. And they will.

This is Haiti where unchecked harvesting of wood--for construction, for charcoal--has left 98 percent of the country deforested, adding to the potential for flooding when heavy rain falls. And with many of the drainage channels around the capital now clogged with debris, where will the water go?

I'm remembering the anxious faces of the Haitians I met recently camped at Centre Sportif de Carrefour, a sports complex where several thousand homeless people had taken refuge under a variety of shelters, many of them constructed from sheets of white plastic stamped with "made in China" logos.

When it rains hard here, said Libermann Lexident, one of the camp leaders, the water pools up to three feet deep. That's hip high on an adult. Everything below three feet gets soaked. Even so, he said, people would rather cope with the flooding than move back to their damaged homes, so profound is the fear the quake has left in its wake.

"If it's raining, it's going to be very hard," said Lexident. "So far, we've been praying. It's been answered. If it rains, we don't know where to go."

Last week's downpour, drumming a warning on the plastic tarps strung across the capital, has heightened the urgency for tens of thousands of homeless families.
Oxfam is distributing tents and plastic sheeting to thousands of them, and estimates indicate that there is enough shelter material in the capital, or en route, to meet the needs of about 50 percent of those who have been displaced. And aid groups think that as many as 40 percent of them could return to their homes if their buildings are declared safe. Oxfam has a team of structural engineers in the capital right now assessing that issue.

But as the rain approaches, the concern isn't just for weather worthy shelter. Sanitation services have become a critical issue as well--especially latrines.

The numbers are frightening.

The UN estimates that the devastated region needs 18,000 toilets, but as the first-month anniversary of the quake approached, aid groups and local workers had been able to dig fewer than 1,000 latrines. Oxfam had installed more than 20 percent of them--testament to our commitment in this area of expertise.

But the need remains enormous, especially as the rains approach and threaten to slop human waste into temporary settlements and crowded camps where there is little room to improve the drainage.

"We now need a surge in effort to improve sanitation facilities for people in Haiti," said Marcel Stoessel, head of Oxfam in the country. "Let us not kid ourselves that this is going to be easy. It requires a Herculean humanitarian effort from all quarters. Around 230,000 people lost their lives on Jan. 12. It is our priority to make sure that we don't let that number grow."

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Oxfam's response to the Haiti earthquake

Map of Oxfam's relief work in Haiti

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Alexandros Yiannopoulos, Oxfam's coordinator of food security and livelihood in Haiti, is blogging for Channel 4 News Online .

It is now time to think big. Three weeks in we have a plan, good people in place and now we have to try to achieve one of the largest projects that I have ever managed, if not one of the largest Oxfam projects since the Tsunami.

In some respects it feels like yesterday when I arrived; on the other hand days seem to be eternally long with nothing going according to plan.

Walking around the bustling streets of Port-au-Prince, with endless traffic jams taking you three times longer than on a weekend, life seems to go on. Markets and shops are open, along the busy pavements there are vendors selling various goods, and people are going about their day to day life.

Most of the basic items and foodstuffs are available but at a price – for some people it is too much.

This is a fragile existence. Many people don't have enough money to cover their daily needs, many of the shops are damaged and traders need more customers to turn a profit.

In response to this, our activities are slowly (I say slowly, but in emergencies we are always impatient) taking shape.

I see the situation in Haiti as a livelihood problem: food is available, markets are operational even though they are weaker, but people do not have jobs and have a limited income to be able to purchase food.

Based on this we are paying unemployed families to help with the cleaning up of their neighborhoods, giving them an immediate income; linked to that, families with some skills such as traders, small shop owners, plumbers, will get a grant to help re-start their small businesses; lastly, because we are concerned about the markets and how quickly they can recover, we are studying them to set up a project to address their weaknesses. For the short-term this should provide enough support to get families back on their feet.

Still at the back of the mind, I have a further two questions (every time I get a better understanding of the situation and do something it opens up more issues): will the situation get worse? Who are we missing?

I will be keeping an eye on how the situation changes and keeping the projects running at the speed needed.

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Oxfam's cash-for-work program in Haiti: photo gallery

Helen Hawkings latest blog: Honoring the lost, rebuilding from the rubble

Oxfam's response to the Haiti earthquake

Map of Oxfam's relief work in Haiti

Follow our latest updates

FOREIGN aid workers in Haiti are paying locals $US5 a day to clear rubbish off the streets in a scheme that recalls a great Australian school yard tradition - the emu parade.

One month after Haiti's devastating earthquake, miraculous stories of survival amid the ruins are giving way to more mundane concerns, such as getting locals into jobs and cleaning up a country teeming with scraps and plastic bottles.

The so-called ''cash-for-aid'' program hopes to tackle both challenges together in the early stage of a recovery plan that has an ambitious goal to eventually put more than 200,000 people into temporary work.

''There is a real need for people to get their lives back together,'' Alex Yiannopoulos, an emergency worker with Oxfam International, said from Haiti. ''People want to be occupied, to be doing something useful and this helps keep them motivated.''

Rather than relying solely on typical relief programs, such as handing out tents, blankets and food, the goal of cash-for-aid is to kick-start the local economy.

Mr Yiannopoulos said markets around the ruined capital of Port-au-Prince were now well stocked with fresh fruit and vegetables, along with staples such as rice. But the problem was that locals lacked money to buy the produce.

Oxfam has so far employed about 2000 Haitians to pick up a backlog of light household rubbish at the $US5 wage mandated by the government.

Heavy rubble and sewerage is left alone to be cleared by specialist teams.

The UN Development Program chief, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, told The Age that about 35,000 Haitians were now engaged in similar cash-for-work roles, with plans to expand the scheme to 220,000 workers.

''People have the dignity to get their own money to buy food rather than standing around in queues waiting for a handout,'' Ms Clark said.

Mr Yiannopoulos said the next phase of the Oxfam program was to provide cash grants to small traders and bring local business back to life.

Stone masons and carpenters would be in high demand as the rebuilding started but services such as barber shops would also be needed, he said.

The official death toll for the January earthquake this week topped 230,000, higher than the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Pledges of foreign aid continue to stream into the country. The Australian government has promised $15 million towards Haiti's recovery and Australians have privately donated more than $17 million to the relief effort, according to the Australian Council for International Development.

Mr Yiannopoulos said security in Haiti remained fragile but there had been few repeats of looting of aid convoys seen in the first days after the disaster.

''The Haitian people are resilient. Year after year they have shocks - hurricanes, mud slides. This is a particularly bad one, but people want to work, they want to help,'' he said.

With CHARLOTTE KING