Tearfund reaches remote families before Haiti’s rainy season

 

 

UK Christian relief agency Tearfund has extended its emergency response to the rural and remote areas of Léogâne and Gressier. The areas, which are close to the epicentre of the earthquake, include a coastal mountainous region with areas, which  until a week ago were unreached by relief agencies. A Tearfund team is now working to get temporary shelter materials to more than 1600 families, working against the clock to beat the expected rain.

 

David Bainbridge, Tearfund’s Disaster Management Director who has recently returned from the area said: ‘Our team members were often the first aid workers these communities had received. We found families working incredibly hard to help one another with the few resources they have available, but the needs are enormous. This is a race against time as the impending rainy season will only make the situation worse for so many thousands of people who are already highly vulnerable.’

 

The team found that communities, with their homes made from concrete blocks, had often experienced the complete destruction of their buildings. Shelter is therefore an urgent priority and Tearfund has been able to secure temporary shelter materials, such as tarpaulins, along with jerry cans for collecting water, from the UN for immediate distribution to over 1,600 families.

 

The level of trauma experienced is very high among families grieving the loss of loved ones and children now fearful of buildings. With no schools currently functioning in the region the Tearfund team will help teachers and community volunteers to create safe ‘child friendly spaces’ and open children’s clubs. These will provide trauma counselling support and health and hygiene education communicated through songs, games and drama with the children.

 

Tearfund logistician Nathan Beard described the extraordinary hospitality that the team were met with in the coastal highlands from an order of nuns at Fond d’Oies. They had been running an orphanage and school before the earthquake struck.    

‘It was a moving experience to arrive at night, tumble out of a vehicle and arrive in an emergency situation – with the immediate needs of the nuns (the Sisters of St Antoine) and an entire orphanage before us. There was no shelter, only cold and windy conditions in an exposed location in the hills. 

 

 

‘It was humbling to see right in the middle of all the rubble and ruin that the first inclination of the nuns was to be hospitable and accommodate us as best they could,’ adds Nathan. ‘Truly remarkable given the level of need they were already dealing with, and hard for us to leave given the extent of need remaining. Their faith was integral for survival and existence, counting on God. And pretty huge considering what they had been through.’

 

As well as supporting church partner organisations in the capital – helping them to rebuild their own capacity to respond – Tearfund’s relief response covers both the coastal lowland and more remote communities in Haiti’s mountainous interior. The programme will also distribute water filters and protect natural springs to give access to safe drinking water. Another urgent need is the provision of sanitation facilities, and working with communities to encourage improved hygiene practices.

Other planned activities include cash for work schemes, which will help to clear roads blocked by landslides and rubble. This will provide much needed income for families. Traditional livelihoods will be strengthened through the distribution of seeds for farming families ahead of the next planting season and through capital grants to restart family businesses.

 

Lindsey Reece Smith, in Port au Prince, is at a Tearfund base situated in a church compound that, like many churches, has been acting as a makeshift refugee camp in the city since the earthquake.  

 ‘Trying to organise the distribution is in all sorts of ways an uphill battle,’ says Lindsey. ‘We have a seven day turn around in which the goods have to be delivered. We are delivering to mountain areas and trying to get some of the goods helicoptered in. We need to agree distribution lists with the community committees and give them tickets for collection of goods as well as finding warehousing in Leogane, setting up the base and sourcing the necessary vehicles. Quite a bit to do in 48 hours, but on the upside – if we achieve it – up to 1,700 families will have the wherewithal to protect themselves from the rain.’

 

For more information about Tearfund, visit the website: www.tearfund.org