I think people are forgetting about Haiti

Haiti still under rubble 18 months after quake

According to an interview with anthropologist, physician, and author Dr Paul Farmer, 600-700,000 people are still living in settlement camps, rubble still needs to be removed, rebuilding is a long way from happening, and cholera is taking an awful toll on the country.

Remembering

Today marks the first anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. Please take a few moments from your busy day to remember those who were killed, those who struggle today, and those who are in country to help.

One year out and things are kind of grim--an not just because of the cholera epidemic. According to Wikipedia:

A few days before the January 12, 2011 anniversary of the quake Oxfam published a report on the status of the recovery. According to the report, relief and recovery are at a standstill due to inaction from the government and indecision on the part of the donor countries. Robert Fox, executive director with Oxfam Canada, said, "The dysfunction has been aided unabated by the way the international community has organized itself, where pledges have been made and they haven't followed through [and] where they come to the table with their own agendas and own priorities." According to a UNICEF report, "Still today more than one million people remain displaced, living in crowded camps where livelihoods, shelter and services are still hardly sufficient for children to stay healthy". The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, set up in April 2010 and led by former US President Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive to facilitate the flow of funds toward reconstruction projects and to help Haitian ministries with implementation, have, so far, started no major reconstruction. Only 2% to 4% of the rubble has been cleared, and then likely just moved to the road in front of the property. Amnesty International reports that armed men prey with impunity on girls and women in displacement camps, worsening the trauma of having lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.

There's still such a long way to go, but it can only be accomplished by us all working together. Check out the American Institute of Philanthropy's ratings for groups with an established presence in Haiti, which includes 'grades'. The two I donated to last year, the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders//Médecins Sans Frontières (USA), were both listed. The Red Cross has an A- and MSF-USA has an A.

The AIP also includes links to how to donate safely, information on scams, etc.

Haitians continue to suffer

More than 2,000 dead of cholera in Haiti, officials say: 90,000 have been sickened as outbreak has spread to every region

Haiti: “If She Does Not Drink, She Will Die”

Looking to give money to for that charitable giving deduction, or just because you want to help?

Check out Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières. They are doing wonderful things in Haiti and elsewhere to keep people alive. It doesn't cost much to help.

They say misfortune comes in threes--pray for Haiti

Earthquake...cholera...tropical storm

Tropical storm Tomas taking torrential rains to Haiti

Apparently there is a saying in Haiti: 'We are bamboo. We bend, but we don’t break.' I see proof of that every day, but as one UN official put it (and I may be paraphrasing--I don't have the quote at hand), 'Can't this country get a break?'

My thoughts and prayers are with them. I think another donation to MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières)/Doctors Without Borders is in order.

Some good news, and a wondeful reunion

'Emotional' reunion: Mom embraces baby she thought died in Haiti quake: Girl burned before temblor gets life-saving surgery in wake of disaster
One of the charities I contributed to in response to the Haitian earthquake was Doctors Without Borders. It was a doctor with this group that realised the little girl had a life-threatening condition and helped hook her up with another charity that sponsored her to Britain for treatment. Then a journalist went to Haiti to try to locate the child's family, and although some imposters claimed her at first, they found the mother, who had the admission card for the hospital her daughter had been in when the quake hit.

I am so glad that this little girl was saved and is now with her family. And I have to admit, even though the donation I made was fairly small, I feel good knowing that Doctors Without Borders helped save her life, so maybe I helped a tiny bit, too.

Good comes from tragedy, but how to sustain it?

Better care in post-quake Haiti, but how long?: Challenge is to make changes last, before attention, aid dollars wane

The 6-month-old baby boy was rushed to the field hospital near death in a donated ambulance, his body trembling in shock.

Before Haiti's earthquake, he wouldn't have stood a chance. His homeless 18-year-old mother could not have afforded even the 60-cent admission fee at Port-au-Prince's rat-infested general hospital.

But four months after the quake that leveled the capital, foreign volunteers, donated medicine and free hospitals are giving Haiti's impoverished people the best health care of their lives. Now the challenge is to make improvements permanent, before the world's attention and aid dollars run out.

More on the uphill battle amputees will face in Haiti--and the people who are trying to help them

Haiti amputees face dire quest for prosthetics: Prosthetics groups promise help in a land where disability can mean death

I'm intrigued by this:

An engineering professor, Gonzalez has created a durable, easy-to-make artificial leg that is fashioned of hard plastic and can be repaired with nuts and bolts from a hardware store. It costs about $15 to make, compared to about $2,000 for the cheapest leg in the U.S., and it can withstand the rugged geography and the dirt, heat and humidity of a place like Haiti.

“You have to have a knee that’s pretty robust,” says Gonzalez, who already operates programs in Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and Senegal.

Prosthetic legs in America can cost upwards to $4,000. For a child, legs must be made over time as he or she grows. I read somewhere that the average wage for a Haitian is about $1 per day. They will need these groups to help the estimated 4,000 amputees who were fortunate not to lose their lives, but face the possibility of being abandoned as pariahs or burdens in their community.

The Haitian chaos continues, but there is hope

A Haitian's Quest to Save His Family


Man Rescued Alive After Haiti Calls Off Searches

More on Haiti:

Just in case you're one of those people that think Twitter is useless

Twitter used to help land plane with aid for Haiti earthquake victims

Doctors without Borders has a Twitter account, and they tweeted their frustration that one of their planes had been turned away (carrying a collapsible field hospital) and had to land in the Dominican Republic to try to make it over land, and another plane was in the air and in danger of being turned away as well (there were problems with planes crowding the available space on the ground).

Their followers picked up and retweeted the info, and a lot of them tweeted to the United State Air Force Twitter account, demanding that the plane be allowed to land. The Air Force replied that it was working on the problem. Eventually the plane, carrying vital medical supplies, was allowed to land. So as far as I'm concerned, go Twitter!

Obviously, I've been thinking of Haiti a lot lately

This political cartoon depicts how the Haitian earthquake reminds us of the things we have that they do not--clean, potable water on demand, health care, loved ones, and let's not forget the money that can help provide the necessities of life to the island nation and its people.

If you haven't given yet to the cause, please consider a small amount to an established charity. Food, water, and medical supplies are desperately needed, and getting the aid to the people who need it is improving. It is one thing to have so many thousands die in the quake. It is another that additional deaths will happen due to infection, dehydration, hunger, or being trapped too long. We need to do everything we can to prevent that which is preventable, to minimise this tragedy as much as humanly possible, and to reach out to our sisters and brothers in this time of need.

For more on the current state of the Haitian crisis, read:
Help steps up, but so does scale of Haiti tragedy: Authorities estimate 200,000 dead, 1.5 million homeless

Going through my Google Reader feeds

Dozens of elderly closer to death than rescue: Nursing home is near airport but also deep inside a maze of angry refugees

Senegal offers land to Haitians

Nine cameraman sorry for missing Haiti girl rescue footage: An Australian television cameraman apologised to his news director for missing images of a baby rescue in Haiti because he had put his camera down to help the infant, it has emerged

Haiti's voodoo priests object to mass burials

Stop using the word “looting!”

What constitutes “looting” in an area that has been reduced to rubble? Not waiting in front of a collapsed grocery store for the cashier to return? I suppose people should not eat until they have the opportunity to pay someone for food? Is that what “civilized” people would do?

Girl killed, 4,000 homeless in Manila slum fire: Blaze guts hundreds of shanties near Philippines capital

Mauritania fatwa bans female genital mutilation

Were mixed Christian-Jewish marriages possible in late medieval Poland?

NASA: Options dwindling for Mars Spirit rover: NASA exploring Mars rover options, including making Spirit a static lab

Is it really doomsday for books? Not while English casts its spell: Economic and technological changes have freed the English language from the shackles of empire and expanded its reach still wider (Thanks, birdie)

Iraq reclaims a Jewish history it once shunned (Thanks, Steven)

Science project prompts SD [San Diego] school evacuation
(On Slashdot: garg0yle writes:

"Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?")

Nor is the danger over

Aftershock Shakes Port-au-Prince

A short while ago a 4.5 magnitude aftershock briefly interrupted rescue efforts as rescuers had to withdraw from shaky buildings and then return to voices they'd heard in the rubble.

Things I'm reading and watching about Haiti this morning

(I found several links through Twitter)

Struggle to Bring Relief Continues in Haiti

Techies unite to brainstorm help for Haiti

Haiti: the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti (The Ushahidi crowdsourcing crisis report mapping system)

Photo: Haitian Red Cross volunteer Jean Zacharie delivers first aid to 1 month old- Deborah Fatima, mother died in quake (from the Red Cross)

A list of reliable charities operating in Haiti

Wikipedia's article on the 2010 Haiti earthquake

World Watch: Haiti Earthquake Updates from CBS News

Haiti online donations blocked over fraud concerns

Social Media and Mobile Texting a Major Source of Info and Aid for Earthquake in Haiti

The Big Picture: Pictures of the Earthquake in Haiti

A report of a girl trapped in the rubble amid dead bodies. Rescuers were giving her food and water but did not have the equipment to move the concrete trapping her. They were considering amputating her leg, but did not have the blood to do so. I'm not sure how this worked out, but it illustrates the desperate straits in Haiti, and I pray they were able to free her and save her life. It's difficult to watch but illustrates what is happening all over Port-au-Prince.


Please donate to a reliable charity in the wake of this crisis. It doesn't have to be much. I donated the equivalent of a loaded pizza--something I can easily do without. For these people, it can mean so much more.

More on the situation in Haiti

Tens of thousands feared dead after Haiti earthquake

U.S. Mobilizes to Help Haiti

150 U.N. staff members remain trapped under rubble in Haiti

U.S. husband pulls wife from Haiti rubble: She was trapped for 10 hours; aid worker drove 100 miles and dug her out

Haiti disaster relief--a worthy cause

Normally when I spotlight a particular disaster, I do what I can to inform people of organisations willing to help, but can't afford to donate myself. But I got paid today and it was a good cheque due to working double time on New Year's Day, so I made contributions to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) (they have a team there normally, but their facilities were damaged and their personnel and patients may be hurt; they're sending reinforcements to help) and the American Red Cross (material aid is on the way from the Panama; an initial $200,000 has been pledged but will surely increase).

Latest reports say that Port-au-Prince is devastated and that as many as 3 million people have been affected by the quake.

Please do what you can to help the victims of this disaster. I didn't donate much, really, but my donation taken with the many others that are made make all the difference.

Such awful devastation in a country already strained by poverty and woe

Fierce Quake Devastates Haitian Capital

Rescue teams struggled in the early-morning darkness Wednesday to make their way through the rubble of collapsed buildings after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti late Tuesday afternoon.

The quake, with a magnitude estimated at 7.0, caused the collapse of the National Palace, leveled countless shantytown dwellings and brought more suffering to a nation that was already the hemisphere’s poorest and most disaster-prone.

The earthquake was the worst in the region in more than 200 years and left the country in a shambles. As night fell in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s densely populated capital, fires burned near the shoreline downtown, but otherwise the city fell into darkness.

Battered by major quake, Haiti braces for huge death toll

Unfortunately one group that could do a lot to help is currently in uncertain status itself:

The world body "is still in the process of gathering information on the extent of the damage and the status of U.N. personnel," said Alain Le Roy, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping operations.

The Brazilian led-mission includes about 2,000 police and nearly 500 civilians. It was first sent to Haiti in 2004, after the ouster of then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. An official at U.N. headquarters in New York said the headquarters collapsed, and engineers were trying to clear the rubble.

Mike Godfrey, an American contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said "a huge plume of dust and smoke rose up over the city" within minutes of the quake. He described it as "a blanket that completely covered the city and obscured it for about 20 minutes until the atmosphere dissipated the dust."

According to the White House Twitter feed, you can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. For more information, check out the White House blog's Thoughts and Prayers for Haiti. The $10 will automatically be charged to your cell phone bill. You can also go to the Red Cross or Mercy Corps to make a donation.