It’s been a year since a massive earthquake devastated Haiti’s capital city on Jan. 12, 2010, killing more than 200,000 people and causing more than $7 billion in damage to the already-beleaguered country.
In the days and months immediately after the quake, the island nation became the focus of one of the most extensive relief efforts in history. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured in from governments, private corporations and individuals the world over — who didn’t text “Haiti” to 90999?
The optimistic among us imagined an opportunity for the country to build back better than ever, transforming the tragedy into a fresh start for the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.
But here it is a year later and most of the 1.5 million people displaced by the quake remain homeless, most of whom live under tarps in tent cities. Hurricane season brought four severe storms to the area, and a cholera outbreak, which the World Health Organization says has yet to reach its peak, has claimed more than 3,600 lives and infected at least another 170,000. It seems the Haitian people just can’t catch a break.
And yet, there is still cause for hope. After all, it’s been just 12 short months and if Rome can’t be built in a day, then it’s surely going to take more than a year to rebuild Haiti. The truly great news is that there are thousands of government and nonprofit organizations actively working to help the Haitian people get back on their feet every day. So on this first anniversary since the earthquake, we asked our favorite NGOs to name their top priorities for the year ahead. We used their answers to then compile our own list of the top five.
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Priority 1: Clean Water
Without a doubt, the cholera outbreak in Haiti has been the most devastating blow to relief and recovery efforts. It started in October on the heels of hurricane season and continues to creep throughout the country, overwhelming aid workers and derailing progress. The president of Doctors Without Borders‘ International Council recently published an Op-Ed in the UK’s Guardian newspaper marveling at the lack of progress in that area given the presence of 12,000 aid organizations in the region.
Organizations like Partners in Health have been pushing vigorously for the widespread distribution of oral cholera vaccines and antibiotic therapies, standard interventions, which could help slow, if not stop the spread of the disease. But the prevailing belief is that it would be too difficult to inoculate enough of the population, since the vaccine requires two courses. However, the PIH’s chief medical officer says they’ve been able to achieve higher rates of inoculation against HPV in Haiti than in the developed world, a vaccine that requires three courses. He also argues that herd immunity could be achieved by vaccinate several hundred thousand.
Of course, the best long-term solution is to improve access to clean water, something organizations like PIH and Oxfam are working toward every day. Oxfam’s press officer Maura Heart says a top priority for the international confederacy of organizations is to “move from delivering water by tankers to working with the government to provide longer-term solutions to help communities gain sustainable water, sanitation, and waste management services.”
Priority 2: Shelter
According to World Vision, an international Christian humanitarian organization, shelter is one of the most urgent needs in Haiti. More than 208,000 homes were damaged and 105,000 destroyed by the earthquake, leaving 1.5 million people in need of shelter. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians are still living in the 1,300 camps surrounding the capital.
World Vision’s approach so far has included two phases: providing emergency shelter in the form of tarps and tents and longer-term shelters with concrete foundations, which can last several years. Ahead of the rainy season in June, the organization will complete construction of transitional shelters on the island of La Gonave and in the Corail resettlement camp. The organization has committed to a minimum five-year emergency response in Haiti, according to International News Manager Laura Blank, with a ”core goal” of “to help develop safe and sustainable communities.”
The Cooperative Housing Foundation, known simply as CHF International, a nonprofit which works to improve social, economic and environmental conditions in low and moderate income communities in 25 countries around the world, also plans to help rebuild communities.
“Community reconstruction (rather than camps) reduces violence, keeps social cohesion and keeps people in the jobs they have,” writes CHF International director of communications David Humphries.
And, the American Red Cross expects to spend about $100 million on construction of permanent homes and community development projects so that Haitians can have durable, permanent homes located in communities with functioning roads, water and sanitation systems and near an economic base for livelihoods.
Priority 3: Educating Children
One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the earthquake has been the effect it has had on Haiti’s most vulnerable, including the country’s children. All of the aid organizations we spoke with put children at the top of their list of priorities. The top priorities for Save the Children in the coming year include increasing children’s access to quality education and safe construction of schools, ensuring the well-being and safety of children.
According to UNICEF, 46 percent of the population of Haiti are under the age of 18 and 500,000 of those living in camps are kids. Even before the quake, less than half of school-aged children were enrolled in school. But in the past year alone, Save the Children has helped 45,000 kids get back into the classroom in 270 schools and provided 38,000 school kits with essential school supplies. The organization has also created 50 child-friendly spaces for kids to play and start to regain a sense of normalcy.
In the year ahead, Save the Children plans to support the construction of 30 school buildings in Port-au-Prince, Léogâne, Jacmel and outlying areas, designed to be more hurricane and earthquake resistant, but much more needs to be done.
“More than a million children and families continue living in camps, and that is an unacceptable way of life going forward,” says Gary Shaye, Save the Children’s country director in Haiti. “All of us on the ground know that we are years away from securing the brighter future for all Haitian children and families that we need to achieve.”
Priority 4: Invest in Small Business
Oxfam, while active in every conceivable area of relief and recovery work, also put an emphasis on supporting and investing in small business and income generating activities. Just as getting back to school is crucial for children, getting back to work is critical for adults, not just as a means of gaining financial independence and resuming a sense of normalcy, but also as a way to help create a more sustainable economy.
In the second year of recovery, Oxfam plans to “invest in new and recovering small businesses to inject money into the local economy and create employment and encourage links between small-scale agricultural producers, local markets, and consumers to increase access to food and provide better livelihoods for producers,” writes Heart, in an email.
But what’s really needed, says Heart is a national job creation program.
Priority 5: Move From Relief to Recovery
All of the organizations we talked to indicated that they are still working on relief work in Haiti, trying to meet the most basic needs of the people. But obviously, the long-term goal is to work toward a recovery effort to find long-term solutions to the country’s problems. The folks at CARE indicated that this transition is their top priority for 2011.
“This means supporting families willing to leave the camps and returning to their neighborhoods with shelter, water and other services,” wrote press officer Brian Feagans in an email. “Ultimately, we strive to support Haitians to gain autonomy from assistance with the help of knowledge, skills and income opportunities.”
Photo 1 and 3 courtesy of CHF International; photos 2, 4 and 5 courtesy of Oxfam.