One year after earthquake, CARE supports communities committed to building back better
PORT-AU-PRINCE (January 11, 2011) – When the earth shook in Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, a humanitarian catastrophe without precedent followed. The earthquake hit Haiti in the heart, claiming more than 220,000 lives and destroying over 188,000 buildings. And like any country that suffers such a mega-disaster, Haiti was a place in great need.
CARE and other aid agencies responded in the face of a decimated port, destroyed roads and government ministries that had crumbled to the ground. CARE reached more than 290,000 people in those first three months, with emergency relief such as water, tarps, mattresses, blankets, birth kits, kitchen sets, hygiene kits and food.
A year later, Haiti’s people still have tremendous needs. But an oft-overlooked one is paramount today: meaningful participation in the rebuilding of their country. CARE’s staff, which is more than 95 percent Haitian, remains committed to giving all community members a strong voice in the recovery process, taking special care to assure the perspectives of women and girls are heard.
The first ones to reach out after the earthquake were Haitians themselves: families, neighbors and fellow citizens started digging in the rubble, carrying people to hospitals and offering shelter to the homeless. This commitment, this knowledge and energy are the foundation for a better tomorrow for Haiti. CARE draws from these strengths when working with community volunteers and local partners to support lasting change.
This approach is reflected in all of CARE’s interventions. In hard-hit areas, where CARE built nearly 1,000 transitional shelters, residents have helped identify those who were most in need. Family members have then aided the construction and learned how the structures can be integrated into a more permanent home. In camps, people work together to develop their own action plans against sexual violence and submit them to local authorities. Mothers’ and children’s clubs for hygiene promotion provide a much-needed sense of belonging.
But with 38 percent of the adult population illiterate and an estimated 80 percent unemployed before the earthquake, reconstruction is not just physical. Obstacles to lasting change include land tenure rights, lack of employment and economic opportunities and limited access to education. To overcome those barriers – in a way that gives people of Haiti a real voice in the process – takes patience and perseverance. The earthquake was followed by an active hurricane season and a cholera outbreak that has once again placed the country in emergency mode. Recovery after such a massive disaster is slow, and Haiti’s vulnerability to disasters makes it even harder to move from emergency relief to rehabilitation.
“We need to be realistic about what could be achieved within a year,” said Beat Rohr, Country Director of CARE in Haiti. “Rebuilding Haiti and making it stronger will take years, sustained commitment and a lot of perseverance. But this shouldn’t stop everyone in Haiti -- from aid agencies to the government to civil society – from challenging themselves to seize momentum, move even faster and achieve more today than yesterday.”
In 2011, CARE will continue to support families with transitional shelters and to serve people still living in tented camps with water and sanitary facilities. Those families willing to return to their communities will have assistance securing shelter, water and other social services to make the neighborhoods more livable again. CARE will supply schools with furniture and training, collaborate with local medical facilities to ensure basic reproductive health services and scale up cholera prevention activities, too.
Read more about Haiti one year after the earthquake
Media contacts:
Sabine Wilke (Port-au-Prince, Haiti): [email protected], +509 3677 9478
Melanie Brooks (Geneva): [email protected], +41 79 590 3047
About CARE: Founded in 1945, CARE is one of the world’s largest humanitarian aid agencies. Working side by side with poor people in 72 countries, CARE helps empower communities to address the greatest threats to their survival. Women are at the heart of CARE’s efforts to improve health, education and economic development because experience shows that a woman’s achievements yield dramatic benefits for her entire family. CARE is also committed to providing lifesaving assistance during times of crisis, and helping rebuild safer, stronger communities afterward.