Focus is rational, direct and local
It feels strange to say that it has been a tough week for us volunteers at the foundation. This is because we have invested a lot of time in quickly adding content to our website, providing the donation infrastructure, putting campaigns online, promoting them, giving interviews and responding to our wonderful donors. All of this due to the eefects of theearthquake on our end. And yet, while this is our reality here, nothing compares to the hardships people in Haiti are living now.
Can you imagine, when I said thank you to a family for their sizeable donation, they replied:
“Stefan, something is wrong here. You should not be thanking us but we must thank you. It is easy for us to provide some money and feel better while you invest all the effort and time.” Well, the same is true for me: I am grateful for those in Haiti standing side by side with those affected by the earthquake. And the real heroes are the women and men starting out from scratch, rebuilding what is left and with whom is left.
Overwhelming support – Thank you!
We received over 15,000 Euros – for us an unexpected and wonderful response. All funds are applied 100% to the cause. For the best use of these funds, we selected partners known to us as absolutely reliable and locally competent and offered our collaboration. Here are two great examples, please read what they already do:
Fondation St. Luc happend to be on site with medical teams already when the Earthquake hit:
“Luckily, we had a St Luke medical team doing summer health camps in Port Salut and Camp Perrin already. It was easy to turn them into a trauma team immediately, to help at General Hospital in Les Cayes and also for mildly injured people, which we did the same day. We sent them supplies the same afternoon by truck, a four hour trip.”
Read Father Ricks message (August 15th)
“Our strategy is well underway, in collaboration with local authorities (State or Church or both), and is four-fold:
1. Our medical team is working daily with the people at the various tragic sites, with their base at Port Salut,
2. St Luc Hospital (among other hospitals) is receiving medically evaluated patients,
3. We are sending loads of supplies daily to our emergency medical team, to other St Luc clinics in the affected areas as they restart their function, and to hospitals and clinics in Jeremie and Les Cayes as we receive requests,
4. We are starting to put a solid roof over peoples’ heads.”
Another competent partner is the NGO Locally Haiti represented by Wynn Walent. Wynn and the team of Locally Haiti are already putting up provisional structures for affected families.
Read the Locally Haiti update here.
All our partners are working in the disaster areas. We know them personally. They are Haitian, connected to the locals, knowledgeable in their fields and reliable in their humble and successful approach. They work with the people rather than for them. And yet, it is a difficult task with many obstacles. Like this report shows it: “We don’t stay in the city we went deep in countryside where we have the poor people lost the farms and houses. We used mules to take the water to the families and some food for a week and promise to go back again within a week. We can not carry much because of gangs and people stopping us on the way to steal the materials so we use our strategies for example we pretend we are carrying sand for them not to stop us.”
This is why we try to spread out support to different groups in order to reduce the threat and risk for all involved. And every donation is a real need as the representative of Diyite (dignity) writes: “We are turning over every rock to find some money”. Diyite, since many years, is supporting hundreds of women in the most remote aeras and their small family ventures to produce some income.
Thank you for caring and for your support of our sisters and brothers in Haiti.
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Padre Wasson Foundation
IBAN DE19661900000000797979
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