MIAMI – World Vision, an international Christian humanitarian aid organization, is teaming up with the Haitian American Emergency Relief Committee in Miami to raise emergency funds and provide relief to the hurricane victims in Haiti.
The HAERC includes elected officials, community leaders, non-profit representatives and grassroots activists, and the goal of the committee is to work together to coordinate Miami’s response to the emergency relief efforts in Haiti.
As rain from Hurricane Ike drenched northern Haiti, World Vision continued its relief activities for communities still reeling from the effects of Hurricanes Hanna and Gustav. The agency’s staff also assisted people as they evacuated to higher and safer ground in northern Haiti on Saturday.
“The only good news here is that Hurricane Ike’s path was far enough north that Haiti did not take another direct hit,” said Wesley Charles, World Vision’s national director in Haiti. “But the rains from Ike have made it even more difficult for aid workers to get into some of the worst-flooded areas. People are becoming increasingly desperate.”
Access to many of the hard-hit areas remains a critical challenge, Charles emphasized. In the devastated city of Gonaive, 10,000 people are crammed into 115 shelters. An assessment yesterday found that just 10 of the 115 shelters had food. Flying into the cut off areas will be difficult, as it’s believed that all but one of the runways in the northwest is flooded. Helicopters are needed but few are available in Haiti.
Despite ongoing access challenges, World Vision managed to provide 10-day food rations to about 450 families on the island of La Gonave, 1,100 hygiene kits to displaced people in the Central Plateau, and clothing and shelter materials to 300 families in Jean Denies – which became cut off from the capital when rains from Hurricane Ike washed out the last remaining bridge into the area.
Because cooking is currently a challenge for flood-affected families, plans are underway to provide ready-to-eat food such as high-energy biscuits. World Vision will scale up its relief efforts in the week ahead in close coordination with the United Nations and other humanitarian groups in Haiti. The agency plans to distribute 40 metric tons of food in the city of Mirebalais beginning today, along with 150 hygiene kits and 250 cases of water.
To make a donation to the relief efforts in Haiti, visit www.worldvision.org or call 1-888-511-6400.
