By Mike Smeltzer | Program Fellow
Almost seven years the devastating earthquake that took more than 200,000 lives, the people of Haiti are forced to relive their trauma every day. While much progress has been made, major setbacks have also occurred most notably, the destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew in early October of 2016. And while many of the projects you’ve supported through the GlobalGiving Relief Fund for Haiti Earthquake have been fully funded and have provided immeasurable aid to Haiti, a few projects have adapted to new needs surfacing in their communities and continue to seek support.
‘Grit’ might be the best term to describe the character of the Executive Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, Marie Marthe Saint Cyr, and her determined staff, whose project, Contribute to Long-Term Rebuilding in Haiti, continues raising funds to this day. In light of Hurricane Matthew, Marthe Saint Cyr says, “Long term rebuilding efforts were just redefined. Every small step from the last five years after the earthquake was lost in the south and northwest of the country. As discouraging as it may appear over 9 million persons must build again and with resistance, resilience and courage, face the next harvest and the next season of rain.” The Lambi Fund and its partners have supported local Haitian farmers in getting back to their fields, helping to provide vital food relief for a country in crisis. Such local produce will help relieve the country’s and the people’s financial burden of having to import food.
Since 2010, International Medical Corps has been working to build a more resilient, sustainable Haiti. Improving hygiene, disease prevention, and housing options have all been goals of International Medical Corps. ‘Yuri Chakalall, the organization’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience Advisor, explains, “By focusing on resilience in Haitian communities, we are focusing on what they can do for themselves. We strengthen their ability to respond during the next disaster according to their capacity, rather than concentrate on their vulnerability.” Their project, Provide medical care to Haiti, “employed local workers to build floodwalls that protect the villages when nearby canals and rivers break their banks, using cobblestones and crushed rocks to shore up the river banks and planting trees to help prevent erosion.”
Partners in Health (PIH) has focused its efforts on responding to medical issues caused by the contamination of water sources in Haiti since the earthquake. Funds donated to the PIH project
Partners In Health Haiti Earthquake Recovery have gone towards fighting “cholera, bringing urgent care to Haiti's destitute countryside, vaccinating and educating communities, and building clean water infrastructure to prevent future spread of the disease."
Thank you again for funding this hugely important work! Your support to the GlobalGiving Relief Fund for Haiti Earthquake continues to make a difference in lives of so many in Haiti!
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
When a disaster strikes, recovery efforts led by people who live and work in affected communities are often overlooked and underfunded. GlobalGiving is changing this reality. Since 2004, we've been shifting decision-making power to crises-affected communities through trust-based grantmaking and support.
We make it easy, quick, and safe to support people on the ground who understand needs in their communities better than anyone else.
They were there long before the news cameras arrived, and they’ll be there long after the cameras leave. They know how to make their communities more resilient to future disasters, and they’re already hard at work. GlobalGiving puts donations and grants directly into their hands. Because the status quo—which gives the vast majority of funding to a few large organizations—doesn’t make sense.
Questions about this project? Contact us
