Save the Children Races to Children & Families

Save the Children has worked in Haiti continuously since 1978 and launches immediate relief for children affected by the island’s frequent natural disasters. Local staff members in Port-au-Prince have been joined by our international disaster response experts and are working around the clock and in coordination with the Haitian government, donors, nongovernmental organizations and communities to provide relief.

Save the Children’s Response:

• On January 18, Save the Children opened the first Child Friendly Space in a church serving as a temporary shelter. Child Friendly Spaces allow children to take part in structured, supportive activities and recover from what they’ve experienced. Kits for us to open 70 other spaces arrived in the Dominican Republic on January 18 for immediate transport to Port-au-Prince. Save the Children plans to open hundreds of these essential sites for children.

• Two mobile health clinics will begin serving the basic health needs of children and families right in their neighborhoods on January 19.

• Supplies of water and other materials arrived in the Dominican Republic on January 18 and are being forward to our Port-au-Prince office by truck.

• On January 17, we received as shipment of 16.5 tons of medical supplies from AmeriCares.

• On January 16, Save the Children distributed food and water to the L’Hopital de l’Espoire (Hope Hospital), that focuses on pediatric medicine and helps support two orphanages. The food was enough for 2,000 people; 40 families taking refuge near the hospital also received hygiene kits (containing such items as rubbing alcohol, soap, towels, baby wipes, sanitary napkins, shampoo, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, disinfectant gel, chlorine, diapers and water). were distributed to vulnerable families taking refuge near the local hospital.

• Medical supplies were distributed by Save the Children’s response team and a partner agency on January 15 to 14 hospitals and clinics throughout the Port-au-Prince region.

• Our staff continues to assess the situation in Leogane and Petit Goave, both west of Portau- Prince and Jacmel, all of which have sustained heavy damage.

• In Jacmel, Save the Children staff is participating in coordination meetings, leading the coordination of the health relief effort and has been asked by UNICEF to work in two camps.

• Save the Children has committed to a five-year “build back better” initiative, which will take us from the relief and recovery phase to working with families to rebuild their communities. The strategy is similar to the five-year rebuilding initiative Save the Children launched in Aceh Province, Indonesia following the epic December 2004 tsunami.

WESTPORT, Conn., (Jan.15, 2010) — Save the Children staff in Haiti gave emergency medical attention to a baby girl pulled from the rubble Friday afternoon, nearly three days after an earthquake flattened much of Port-au-Prince.

Winnie, not yet 2 years old, was pulled from the rubble with help from an Australian news crew filming near Save the Children’s offices. Save the Children medical experts determined the girl to be dehydrated, but expect her to recover well. Unfortunately, Winnie’s parents were killed in the collapse of the family’s home. Her uncle, Frantz Tilin, arrived to find her after losing his own wife in the earthquake.

Throughout Haiti’s capital city, earthquake survivors in need of attention are lying on the streets outside of hospitals. Save the Children emergency responders are on the ground, distributing medical supplies to hospitals and clinics that have been left with almost nothing. Several Save the Children teams are also assessing health needs in temporary camps in the most devastated neighborhoods. “We are seeing dazed, dehydrated parents walking the streets with their children, searching for clean water, food, and shelter” said Annie Foster, Save the Children’s emergency team leader.

“Many are starting to congregate in open spaces, setting up makeshift camps. They are particularly fearful of being in or near buildings, as strong aftershocks are continuing.”

“Save the Children will be starting safe space areas for children in these camps, and also beginning child tracing programs to reconnect children who were separated from their families during the emergency,” Foster said.

Additional emergency staff are en route to Port-au-Prince, including a team of logisticians and experts ready to provide support on education, livelihoods, child protection needs.

In the Dominican Republic, Save the Children staff have mounted a staging ground for relief supplies they are sending in overland to Haiti. Household kits and hygiene kits include essentials like blankets, soap, and Jerry cans to hold water.

Save the Children is partnering with AmeriCares, which is shipping 15 metric tons of medical supplies to Haiti and 40,000 liters of water, expected to arrive soon.

Save the Children has accounted for 52 of its 59 local staff members in Port-au-Prince, many of whom are doing whatever they can to aid the emergency effort, even while their own families and lives have been upended. Save the Children has been working in Haiti since 1978 and has provided emergency relief and assistance to Haitian children and families following various recent disasters, including hurricanes and floods.