Sarah Gillam's Haiti Blog
ActionAid's International Head of Media Sarah Gillam is in Port au Prince as part of ActionAid's response to the devastating earthquake of January 12th 2010
Wednesday 20th January - "Relief Operation”
Sarah Gillam, ActionAid International
Woke up this morning to hear people screaming outside and my bed shaking. Should I run outside naked or find my clothes? I opted for the clothes but realised those vital seconds could be a matter of life and death. The earth seemed to settle and after hanging around for a while, we went back inside.
In the Mariani neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince where we work, primary needs identified so far are food, shelter, chlorine tablets for water and medical attention.
We piloted our food distribution two days ago and it all went well thanks to a local donation of high protein food for children made by SCMS – an international NGO distributing pharmaceutical products for HIV patients.
We’re confident the local committees have the capacity to distribute large quantities of food and we’re taking measures to guard against any kind of hoarding and prejudice against women and children.
We have bought several tonnes of food from the Dominican Republic for distribution tomorrow but will be exploring local food sources from small farmers’ cooperatives outside Port-au-Prince so that aid efforts don’t damage local prices over the coming months.
In Mariani, water is plentiful but it’s not potable. Instead of giving out water bottles, we will be giving out chlorine tablets to prevent worsening the garbage accumulation problem in the capital.
Although ActionAid doesn’t normally work in the field of medicine, lots of people are dying due to lack of medical care. Many are dying from simple wounds which have become septic or gangrenous and there is a lack of antibiotics, bandages, syringes and plaster for castes.
Red Cross and ActionAid have begun talks on how they can work together through the voluntary committees which have sprung up inside the camps to guarantee medical attention.
Women and children’s safety is also a serious concern. ActionAid has already started working with psychiatric professionals to develop a mid term plan for treating post traumatic stress among women and children in the camps.
Tuesday 19th January - a week since the earthquake
Sarah Gillam, ActionAid International
Yesterday ActionAid started the first of its distribution of emergency goods. High protein meals were delivered to 2,750 children and medical supplies sufficient to help about 250 wounded people.
Marie André, a manager at ActionAid Haiti led the way talking to people about the goods being distributed. She said ActionAid would be returning with more this week. Today she is attending a funeral. Her own home is in ruins and she has been looking after five children who could not find their parents in a friend's house.
Working with local partner KOZPAM, the team took the supplies to four refugee camps, an impromptu field hospital and an ActionAid supported school in the Mariani district of Port-au-Prince.
The largest camp has 7,253 residents – all accounted for by volunteers working with ActionAid. They’re living under makeshift tents made out of bed sheets and sticks but many have no covering at all. In all the camps, voluntary committees have been set up by residents themselves to deal with food and water.
At one camp, a women’s committee has been established to address the issue of rape and a system has been developed for the most vulnerable women to be guarded by volunteers at night. Every afternoon a Haitian police officer visits the camp and residents turn in whoever has been accused of rape. This has significantly lowered the risk and is a positive sign of community self-organisation.
Every settlement camp has an impromptu area where the wounded are lying waiting for medical attention. In this heat, they’re at risk of dying of gangrene without medical supplies to clean wounds. There’s a shortage of plaster for making castes for broken limbs and very few pain killers and antibiotics so many are suffering horribly. ActionAid are trying to locate more medical supplies from the Dominican Republic.
Marie and the team worked throughout the day returning very late to the office, located in a member of staff's house. In a week, tremendous progress has been made with this tiny team of ten people. More food supplies will be picked up tonight for distribution tomorrow, a secure warehouse has been found, orders have been sent out for supplies, and we've located a new office as ActionAid's is now unsafe. Staff are working round the clock on funding applications across the world. Internet connection has been very poor and phone contact with the outside world intermittent.
Just after the team left last night, we were surprised by gunshots around our compound. We moved our laptops inside and locked the doors. Wisely, our hosts remained quiet – leaving the gunmen to ponder firepower. Let's hope they don't return.
Monday 18th January - "It's like a war zone"
Sarah Gillam, ActionAid International
ActionAid staff spent yesterday (Sunday January 17) in the field locating our sponsored children from Italy in one of the poorest areas of Port au Prince.
The district is as badly affected as the rest of the city which has at least one million homeless. The US army believes there are 200,000 dead. You can smell the stench as you pass the cemeteries.
It's like a war zone.
People are still texting from under the rubble but with little organised help to reach them. Rescue teams are inundated with requests for help and are operating on a first come first served basis.
Houses in Mariani have collapsed everywhere and the centre of the community, the school, has been destroyed.
We met ActionAid partners COZPAM, a child right's organization who were meeting in what was left of the school.
They have not been able to locate everyone - many families are in IDP camps in the locality or have left for the countryside …some are still unaccounted for.
I spoke to many families yesterday - all had lost someone and were living out in the open on the streets. All had only the clothes they stood up in and spoke of having had lucky escapes.
Mario Diaz from ActionAid Guatemala, visited 2 large IDP camps in Mariani, finding babies, children and pregnant women in improvised conditions - many with little to protect them from the blazing sun.
Many were injured and there were still a lot of dead bodies rotting in the open air. The water nearby is contaminated with dead animals and there were no toilets. There were 4 other small camps nearby. There are around 9000 survivors in total in camps in Mariani.
Brian Mier from ActionAid Brazil went to a large IDP camp in Carrefour - near Mariani - with 4,000 people - most of whom were women and children - in very improvised conditions - stringing up bedsheets as protection from the sun.
When the hurricane season hits in May, if people are still living like this, the outcome will be catastrophic.
Food is a real problem with very few people able to afford the rising prices and many having no money at all.
Many of the banks are now rubble. People are selling fruit, clothes and shoes on the street.
Today in Mariani we are distributing cases of reinforced protein peanut butter giving a meal to at least 2,550 people together with vital medicines.
We've also just secured flour, oil and corn for distribution in the next 24 hours.
ActionAid has ordered 3,000 tents, 20,000 thin blankets, 1,000 boxes of powdered milk, 2,000 boxes of sanitary towels, 1,000 boxes of diapers, 15,000 units of toothpaste and brushes, 9,000 foam mattresses, 20,000 rehydration packs, 10,000 pairs of pants for women and girls - from the Dominican republic …we've also just secured a warehouse to receive the goods.
Soap, jerry cans, high energy biscuits, rope, tarpaulin and mosquito nets are coming via an Italian emergency ship in about 10 days time.
Our Haitian country director, Jean Claude Fignole is sleeping in a tent with his wife and small children as his house was damaged by the quake.
Finance manager Jude Jean Baptiste spent seven hours getting his wife out of the rubble from her bank and has thrown open his house for ActionAid to use as an office. The programme manager has lost her brother in law.
Staff in Haiti are working round the clock to organise logistics - they've done the first applications for funding and are now busy distributing food…they're all exhausted…there's only one phone working and now the internet is down making it very difficult to communicate to the outside world…
