Initial assessments of the aftermath of the storm, which cleared the island’s landmass in the early hours of Saturday morning (25th August), suggest the damage has not been as great as was feared.
There have been media reports of four deaths, but there is no evidence at the moment of major damage to infrastructure or significant casualties.
Camps in the capital Port-au-Prince, such as Jean Marie Vincent, have been flooded, as well as towns in the south of the island, including Les Cayes, Jacmel and Nippes. There are reports of electric pylons collapsing and power outages and some disruption on the roads.
However, with exceptionally heavy rainfall forecast in the wake of the storm and with nearly 400,000 Haitians still living in refugee camps after the massive earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince in 2010, people remain highly vulnerable to the threat of flooding, landslides and water borne diseases, especially cholera.
Oxfam emergency teams are now heading out to the affected areas of the island as soon as possible, allowing workers to carry out more in-depth assessments and to provide aid to those who need it in the form of clean water, hygiene kits and public information about sanitation.
Jane Cocking, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Director, said: “The storm may have passed but living conditions in Haiti remain so challenging for so much of the population that it’s far too early to say the threat is over. People in Haiti have so little that they are incredibly vulnerable to the risks posed by flooding and disease. They remain in desperate need of our help.”
The aid agency is accepting donations to help support its emergency work in Haiti, which is often cited as the poorest country in the western hemisphere with four in five of the population living on less than $2 a day.
]]>Oxfam is working with a Sudanese partner organization to respond to the humanitarian emergency that began unfolding in the summer of 2011, when armed conflict erupted between government and rebel forces in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile; in April of 2012, border clashes between Sudan and South Sudan triggered another wave of displacement in the same states; in all, more than 900,000 people have been displaced or severely affected by the recent conflicts in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Aid providers are unable to reach many of those who are caught in this latest conflict, but an Oxfam partner has reached 45,000 people with a range of interventions, including:
Refugees from the conflict between Sudan and the SPLM-N continue to flow across the borders into Ethiopia and South Sudan. In the camps of Jamam in Upper Nile, South Sudan, many are arriving in a traumatized state, having trekked long distances without enough food or water. But the conditions in the camps where they have sought refuge are dire: residents and aid providers have had to contend with severe shortages of food and water, soft soil conditions that interfere with well drilling, and huge price increases for essentials like fuel and food.
Oxfam is helping more than 32,000 refugees in the Upper Nile region gain access to drinking water and sanitation, as well as hygiene materials like soap, and we are providing cash relief to help people cope with rising food prices.
Read more about the Jamam camps.
]]>Estimable lives in a very small earth-walled home near a drainage channel running along a dirt road. The land around her is almost all mud and the road is under a foot of water in places. Floods plague her village, called Lameau, in the community of Grande-Saline in Haiti’s Artibonite River valley.
This is one of Haiti’s most productive agricultural areas, and over the years, the government and international donors have built a network of canals and channels, to divert water to dry areas, and drain out the wet ones. Small villages line these channels. Just after the harvest, many are drying their rice crop on tarps on the side of the road, near their small homes, some of which are quaint wooden houses that resemble gingerbread cottages. Others are more modest earth-walled dwellings. Children play and swim in the channels, laughing and splashing in the sun.
It looks idyllic but the Artibonite River valley can be a tough place to live, Estimable says. “When there’s too much water in our houses, in our fields, we get upset stomachs. It’s very hard to live here with so much water.” The lack of clean water in 2010 after one particularly rainy period coincided with a cholera outbreak which killed 300 people in this area, according to local officials.
Grande-Saline’s mayor, Erole Romeus, drew up a plan to clear out the mud and vegetation choking six kilometers (3.75 miles) of the secondary channels like the one near Estimable’s house. He’s also hired heavy equipment to widen them to handle more water flow. The project is employing two 132-member work teams in a cash-for-work program that provides much needed wages of about five dollars a day for 12 days. The project prioritizes hiring people living near the channels. About 2,000 people in 400 households live in this area and will benefit from better flood control.
Sansion Morisette is one of the workers; she has just spent the morning raking weeds out of the narrow channel running along the road next to Estimable’s house. “It’s about time we started this work,” she says. “I’m out on the street now because water destroyed my house in Rossignol. Take a look around you, we’re lucky if we can get two bags of rice out of our harvest sometimes, the water just eats everything we grow.”
Mayor Romeus says the project in Grande-Saline should take the community a long way towards reducing flooding, especially during the annual hurricane season. “Every time it rains, we can have 200 to 300 small houses destroyed,” he says standing on a flooded road next to the drainage channel, where scores of workers in white t-shirts are clearing away plants and other debris.
“We started talking about rehabilitating these channels as a means to deliver a durable solution to the people here,” Romeus says. “We came to Oxfam America because it is an organization that is interested in helping vulnerable people reduce the risks of disasters.
“Since we cleared all this out, people will probably have an opportunity to harvest. But if we did not, in another week we would have been in danger: the people, crops, and animals.”
Oxfam is devoting $20,000 for this project, which is covering about half the costs and supports the cash-for-work component, wages for heavy equipment operators, and fuel. It’s part of a larger program to reduce vulnerability to disasters in the countryside, and make it easier for people to make a living in farming, an alternative to the overcrowded conditions in Port-au-Prince.
Sancion Morisette is optimistic that the newly rehabilitated channels will help them. “Now I know that when it rains, the water will flow in the channel and go directly to the sea.”
]]>Concerns about human rights and the environment are constantly swirling around the community and mine.
The Marlin Mine now produces more than 300,000 ounces of gold a year.
Critics of the mine in Guatemala and international experts are calling on the government and Goldcorp to accept the precautionary measures issued by the IACHR and suspend operations at the mine. It's a risky stance for local people to take: Amnesty International has noted cases of beatings and death threats against members of the San Miguel Defense Front(known by its Spanish initials, FREDEMI). Community members also report shootings and attempted shootings against mine critics. Aniceto López, a coordinator who works for FREDEMI was beaten in February 2011, along with Miguel Ángel Bámaca, a farmer and public health promoter.
The insecurity is "the worst thing affecting our community now," says Bámaca, who was also shot at late at night in July 2010, just outside his home. Like many other FREDEMI members, he is not comfortable publicly identifying his attackers. He says those who wish him ill "know what we do, where we live, when people meet...they know everything," Bámaca says."Who will help us?" The government, the courts, the police, they are not helping."
Adding to concerns about the environment and security, the ethnic Maya Mam people living in the area consider industrial mining as a form of disrespect for their religion and culture, which worships nature and Mother Earth. "Our spirituality, our vision is that there is harmony between nature, people, and God, we are together and there is balance in our lives," says Maudilia López, an indigenous woman who works for the Catholic church in San Miguel Ixtahuacán. "This mining activity puts our cultural values in danger."
After the IACHR issued its precautionary measures urging the government to suspend operations at the Marlin Mine, the government initially agreed to do so, then later claimed it did not have enough evidence of environmental damage and human rights violations. Oxfam America has been collecting signatures on an electronic petition urging the government to suspend mining at the Marlin Mine and investigate the human rights violations and environmental problems linked to the mine.
]]>“My friends,” comes the voice from the radio, “take your chairs to sit down and have some discussion about cholera now on your favorite show, ‘Some information about cholera.’”
If it is hard to imagine a show about a deadly disease as your favorite, that may be because you don’t live in rural Haiti. Here, among the beautiful mountains and broad rivers, people live with a frightening reality: it’s easy to catch cholera, and reaching the nearest clinic may take more time than you have.
Without treatment, cholera can be fatal within hours. But in rural Nippes province, what serves as a road may be the bed of a river that after heavy rains becomes a torrent. Or a footpath over steep mountains, where the rocks are sometimes covered in mud so slick that only the most sure-footed can navigate them. Where swift access to medical care is out of the question, cholera prevention takes on special urgency.
“There are some localities where we have to walk three to four hours to reach people. We use horses to go there,” says Jean Bassette, the Oxfam public health officer who hosts the show. “We can’t travel to remote areas every week, but with the radio program we can reach them easily.”
“Ti koze sou kolera,” as the show is called in Creole, invites listeners to call in. The discussions cover whatever cholera issues people want to talk about but usually focus on prevention and emergency treatment.
“If we don’t have oral rehydration salts—or sugar and salt to prepare them—what can we do?” asks one caller.
Stephanie Lormil, an Oxfam public health promoter who sometimes joins the show, explains that coconut water can be a stopgap solution, hydrating the person well enough to make the trip to the hospital.
Sensitive topics like social stigma enter in, as well.
“Treat people who have cholera with respect,” advises Bassette. “Do not humiliate them. People who have the disease need to be able to tell that to the community, and the community needs to support them by preparing oral rehydration salts and helping them get to the hospital. If people with cholera keep the information to themselves, there is risk to the whole community.”
Feedback on the show has been overwhelmingly positive. Local leaders in communities throughout the broadcast area often call in with thanks and congratulations, and people on the street have kind words for the show.
“When we first heard about cholera, we were scared,” says Jose Mira of Petite Rivière de Nippes, who cited the radio show as one of Oxfam’s successful public health efforts. “We didn’t want to live next to people who had cholera. But Oxfam helped us understand the phenomenon of cholera and gave us training. After that, it became easier. We are not scared of cholera anymore, because we know how to protect ourselves.”
Read more about Oxfam's cholera program in rural Nippes.
Donate now to Oxfam's fund for Haiti relief and recovery.
]]>This, she explains, is the result of education.
Every month in the camps near El Fasher town, a team of health workers—elected by their community and trained by Oxfam—fans out to bring messages about health and hygiene to thousands of residents. The workers go house to house, teaching newcomers about disease vectors, hand washing, and the use of latrines, and they organize community-wide campaigns to clean everything from streets to latrines to household water cans.
You might think people would resent unsolicited advice about their personal habits, but the health workers generally get a warm welcome. Women, who have the primary responsibility for the care of children and homes, are happy to receive this information, say the workers. And for the most part they take the advice.
"If they don’t want to accept what we are saying, we don't go harsh on them," says health worker Halima Nasur "We just communicate the information peacefully." But the cost of not heeding hygiene messages could be outbreaks of deadly disease, so the health workers sometimes ask community leaders to intervene. "They nicely teach a woman the importance of our work to her family. Then she listens."
For the health workers, their job is a labor of love. "I believe that all the people in the camp are my sisters and brothers," says Nasur. "We are never going to let our people down."
When it came to guarding the health of her family and community, Gado needed no coaxing. "From the public health women, I learned to cover food to keep away flies because they transmit diseases. I also learned about keeping things clean—our jerry cans, kitchen utensils, latrines, and my children's hands," she says. "Previously, my children didn’t wash their hands before they ate. They were often weak and not healthy. Now, they wash their hands before eating. They don't suffer from diarrhea, and if they happen to get sick, it isn't something serious."
Once learned, it is hard to forget the life-and-death importance of good hygiene practices, and according to Gado, the work of Oxfam and the community health workers is likely to have a lasting impact. "I learned these values, and I'm going to apply them throughout my life," she says. "I would like to thank all of the people who have supported us," says Gado, "and I wish them good health."
]]>In the midst of disasters where so many people have lost so much, why does Oxfam make providing soap such a high priority?
First and foremost, it’s because washing hands with soap is such an effective way to prevent the spread of diarrheal disease–which, under the difficult conditions of camp life, can be debilitating and even fatal.
But in emergencies, people have the right not only to health and safety but also to dignity. Soap enables a family to bathe and to wear clean clothes–simple acts with the power to restore a measure of well-being.
In the Pakistan flood emergency, Oxfam has distributed hygiene materials to more than half a million people. They include towels, water-purification tablets, sanitary pads, water buckets, and–no surprise–soap.
]]>“The destruction across the capital was stunning, and the sight of countless camps crowded with families gave me a powerful sense of how devastating this earthquake has been for people,” says Oxfam writer Coco McCabe, who recently returned to Boston from Haiti.
The camps are spontaneous, makeshift neighborhoods, marked out by plastic tarps, cardboard, and bed sheets strung between whatever’s there. Posts to hang materials on are in short supply, so people are scavenging wood from the wreckage of buildings.
“I saw one man with a flat, wide board, working hard with a small hand saw to cut the board into narrower pieces that could serve as poles for sheets, plastic, scraps of clothing—anything that might offer the semblance of a wall or roof to give families privacy,” says McCabe.
Plastic sheeting strung from poles may seem like a minimal shelter solution, and it is. But at this moment in the emergency, it’s something that works. Colored tarps keep off the sun and rain and, unlike tents, can be made to fit whatever space and terrain is available – or whatever other purpose they’re needed for on a given day.
Over the next two months, Oxfam aims to boost the supply of sturdy plastic sheeting, providing enough for at least 4,000 families (20,000 people) – a project that includes a cash-for-work component: we are employing local people to cut giant rolls of the material down to size. Families will get two pieces, each six meters by four meters, along with two 10-meter lengths of rope.
Meanwhile, we’re making plans to assemble and distribute home-repair kits to help those whose houses need patching up, not rebuilding.
But when it comes to figuring out if what’s left of your house is a danger to your family, no one should have to rely on guesswork. Oxfam will assemble a team of structural engineers to survey the damage to homes in Haiti and share their knowledge and suggestions with local residents, builders, and officials.
How long will it take for survivors of the quake to make their way from camp sites to temporary houses to real, permanent homes? For many, it will be years. But if donors continue to support the aid effort generously, Haitians will get the support they need every step of the way.
“Building back all that was lost in just a few seconds,” says McCabe, “is going to require a sustained commitment from us all.”
Farmers in Cusco are reporting irregular rains and intense heat. This is affecting their potato and corn crops: in recent years, production has fallen by at least half. The Peruvian Ministry of the Environment corroborated this information in its 2009 National Environmental Study, which revealed that 80,000 hectares (about 195,000 acres) of potato and 60,000 hectares (148,000 acres) of white corn have been lost in the last 12 crop years due to climate change. Livestock farmers also report that new diseases are affecting their animals.
Cirilo Quispe Latorre, mayor and resident of the district of Cachimayo. “Eighty percent of the farmland is seasonal. In other words, if there is rain, we plant. If there isn’t enough rain, we can’t keep planting. I’m a native of this region. When I was a child, there was quite a lot of water in this region. There were toads and frogs that you don’t see any more. It’s a big worry. And if I go up to the mountains around Urubamba, I see that they’re almost black now. I worry and tell my children that those mountains used to be white with snow. Now that I’m a bit older, they’re black. What’s happening? A big change is taking place on our planet. I don’t know who’s going to come and sort out this situation. It’s worrying. The rains used to start in October, and we would plant broad beans, wheat, and potatoes. Now the rains begin around mid-December, and we lose more than a month and a half of growing time. Now, by the end of March the rains are over. It used to rain throughout most of April, with the dry season only starting in May. So, the rain has decreased at the beginning and the end.”
Teresa Rocca Mismi, communal farmer in the community of Chacacurqu. “I have potato and corn crops. There isn’t as much rain. The hail that’s fallen (we don’t normally see hail in this region) is what’s affected us. It hailed in mid-February. For example, the potatoes that should be big by now are just seeds. I don’t know why we’ve had hail this year. The rain used to start in October, now it’s December. This has been happening for five years. We want the authorities to help us.”
Local residents in rural Piura report that changing rainfall patterns are damaging their mango and cassava crops. They also have noticed public’s health problems, specifically the emergence of diseases such as dengue fever (spread my mosquitos) and leishmaniasis (spread by sand fleas). A Ministry of Health employee corroborated this information, confirming the appearance of dengue in populations where the transmitting agent (the Aedes aegypti mosquito) never had existed previously.
Marco Sandoval García, president of the Santa Catalina Peasants’ Association. “When I was a lad, I remember that there would be two harvests a year in the lower rice-growing area. Now there’s only one. I also remember that in my community, we had drinking water 24 hours a day. Now it’s just two or three hours, depending on the rain. All the drinking water for Patachaco used to come from a single spring. Now we have to take it from two springs... There’s a shortage of water... The springs aren’t the same any more. Some of them are drying up. The elders say that the cassava never used to rot and could be harvested throughout the year. Last year, no one harvested cassava because it all rotted. My orange tree was full of blossoms, but then we had a sharp frost and all the flowers fell off. There’s instability. The climate is strange. For example, although it’s winter, we’ve just had seven days of strong sun. Some farmers think this is because there’s been a lot of deforestation of the hills. They don’t know that climate change is affecting the whole world. We’ve caused so much damage ourselves, with deforestation and pollution.”
Katerine Rosillo Quispe, Ministry of Health employee in charge of Health Center 1 in La Huaquilla (Morropón, Piura). “We’ve got high numbers of dengue transmitting agents in the region, which hadn’t been seen before. Those dengue mosquitoes are new for us. In La Huaquilla, the whole population is exposed: children, adults, the elderly. Climate change greatly affects health, especially as other types of pathologies appear, such as diarrhea, respiratory infections, but above all, the dengue mosquito.”
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