The Biohaus Foundation (www.biohaus-stiftung.org) has been active in Haiti for over 10 years and is a pioneer there in many areas. It works closely with local partners and has a strong connection including many outreaches on the ground. Its partners include the “Haiti Project Education” and the “Fondation St. Luc”. We gave the Biohaus13 Founda-tion . 000 dollars, which the founder and chairman of the foundation, Willi Ernst, immediately forwarded to the partners in Haiti.  

The work focuses on the following four areas:

•  IMMEDIATE MEDICAL CARE

Among them, in the hospital of Cayes, in the area of Maniche, in the more remote area of Rambo, and in Camp Perrin, more than 3500 patients have already been treated. 

•  HELPING FAMILIES REBUILD

After the 2010 earthquake, the need to avoid tent cities at all costs was recognized. Therefore, families should now help with donations of materials for the construction of shelters made of wood and sheet metal. For example, 25 sheets of metal, 20 wooden stands, nails, etc., and also a donation of food. The cost per shelter is about 1,300 US dollars and 200 US dollars for the food packages. 

•  PROMOTION OF HEALTH AND HYGIENE

Another focus is on hygiene and health care for the population by providing water filtration systems, hand sanitizers, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and sterilization tab-lets for water treatment. 

Medical programs have been strengthened, St. Luc has opened a clinic in St. Louis du Sud and continues efforts to provide medical care in Jeremie Province. 

•  PROVISION OF GENERAL RELIEF SUPPLIES

In the days following the earthquake, St. Luc made several trips to help with rescue efforts, bringing food, clean water, and medical supplies to the areas and distributing them to Haitian leaders on the ground.  

You can find very comprehensive information about the Biohaus partner Fondation St. Luc on their homepage, where Father Richard Frechette CP and the local teams report on the outreaches: www.bit.ly/St-Luc.

Disaster relief after earthquake in Haiti is underway

Biohaus partner in Aquin is in full action and reports: 

After the earthquake that struck the south of the Caribbean state of Haiti on Saturday, August 14, initial relief and reconstruction efforts have begun. The trauma of the population over at least 2200 dead, thousands injured and countless destroyed buildings is great. But it is precisely the smaller aid organizations on the ground that are providing very important and direct help. 

In the city of Aquin, which has about 10,000 inhabitants, the organization “Haiti Project Education”, HPE for short, with which the Paderborn BIOHAUS Foundation for Environment and Justice has been closely associated for 10 years, has been very active since the hour of the quake. It brought injured people to the hospital and provided food for the population in emergency kitchens by cooking on the streets with rice and beans organized by HPE. 

The direct communication with the Haitian friends of HPE works very well by phone and WhatsApp, they sent photos and cell phone films that show the extent of the disaster: “80% of Aquinas’ houses have collapsed, especially those built of stone and concrete. We can’t keep track of the number of injured, the hospital is hopelessly overcrowded,” reports Kebrau Lazarre. “Now, after the floods, there are also other problems: Latrines have to be rebuilt and dry sleeping places have to be built. But the infrastructure of HPE, created with the energetic help of the Biohaus Foundation and donations, helps us a lot,” says Claudette Coulanges, who is also already known through her visits to Paderborn. “And we were able to immediately put the first quickly delivered donations into food aid as well as the construction of shelters.”

 Next, HPE has disbursed some of the donated funds as loans to purchase food and building materials for families who have been hardest hit and plans to build latrines to prevent epidemics. 

The Biohaus Foundation will of course remain in close contact with its friends in Haiti, as the need continues to be enormous. “Experience after the last natural disasters in Haiti shows that large aid organizations and government funds often do not reach the people affected at all, especially in rural areas,” says Willi Ernst. “That’s where organizations like ours and HPE are most effective, and the donations arrive very quickly and one-to-one directly.”