a letter from Save the Children staff in Haiti.

31/01/2010

"I was behind my house studying when the earthquake happened. My mother and father were inside and they died, so did my three cousins. I do not have any brothers or sisters. My uncle looked after me and then he and my aunt brought me to this camp—Eliassaint, Port-au-Prince, Haiti"

28 January, 2009

Dear Save the Children Colleagues,

Eliassaint’s story is now all too common for many Haitian children after those 40 seconds of a 7+ magnitude earthquake changed Haiti forever. It is estimated that approximately 1 million children are either unaccompanied, orphaned, or have lost one parent - half of these as a direct result of the earthquake just two weeks ago.

The situation in Haiti prior to the quakes was already a precarious one for children. About 80% of the population lived on less than $2 a day and one in four children were malnourished. There were huge problems with trafficking of kids and far too few children attended school. But now, this most recent blow is endangering the future of a whole generation of Haitian children.

As you have heard, Save the Children lost one of our own, Makendy Similien, who was only 23 years old. In fact, every staff member is dealing with their own tragedy, as hundreds of thousands of Haitian families have been affected across the country.  Yet, in the midst of this unprecedented calamity, two things have sustained me and given me strength and hope for Haiti’s future.

First, the spirit of its people has been remarkable. The word resilience does not do it justice. Our national staff has come back to work, often under incredibly difficult circumstances, to help the children of Haiti when they need it the most. On the streets—where tens of thousands still sleep each night—and in hundreds of makeshift camps that have sprung up in clearings amongst the rubble—there is still a sense of community where neighbours and strangers alike are working together to help each other survive.

I wanted to share with you a sense of what it is like for children and their families living in one of these impromptu camps, this one in the secondary city of Léogane, with this 360 panoramic image.

Second, the scale and extent of the support received from Save the Children’s membership around the world has been incredible. We are truly working together as a global organisation, with an amazingly dedicated team, willing to immediately act to help children when they are most vulnerable. The heartfelt messages of support, the highly qualified staff who pour in every day, the extraordinary amount of compelling media communications and fundraising generated—all of this has contributed to my sense of belonging to a family.

On the ground, Save the Children programs are rapidly scaling up, and every day we are reaching more and more children and their families. Already we have reached over 105,000 people with relief, none of this possible without your critical assistance.

This is only the first step on the long road to recovery for Haiti. We’ve been working here for over 25 years and it is vital that we see this as a long term effort to help Haiti back on its feet. Due to your support and our experience, staff, and relationships with government, humanitarian agencies, and local communities, Save the Children has been one of the largest and quickest responders to this current crisis.

In this initial relief stage we will work tirelessly to provide children with enough to eat, access to clean water, shelter and medicine. At the same time we will create safe places for children to start to recover from their trauma and provide their parents time and resources to begin to recover their livelihoods. We will get kids back to school as quickly as possible, to return some semblance of normalcy to their shattered lives. We will work closely with the Haitian government and local communities to improve the quality of the decimated healthcare systems to ensure families can protect and care for their children.

Our goal is to provide emergency assistance to save lives, alleviate suffering and support recovery of 600,000 people, including 386,000 children affected by the earthquake, and transition into longer term rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Many challenges remain and we cannot do this alone. As all of you know, disaster events can sharpen focus on what truly matters and provide unique opportunities to address fundamental problems in new and creative ways. So this is both a message of thanks and a request for your continued support, guidance and vision to enable Save the Children to join in a common effort help build Haiti back better for its children and their families.

With appreciation,
Lee Nelson
Country Director
Save the Children in Haiti