Around the capital city of Port-au-Prince and in the Region des Palmes, Oxfam has been distributing hygiene and cholera kits to people in need, while continuing to provide information on how to prevent the spread of the disease. In Artibonite, a rural region to the north that was hit hard by cholera when the first outbreak occurred, Oxfam is stepping up its prevention activities. It’s providing equipment to cholera treatment centers, distributing cholera kits to hundreds of families, and collaborating closely with the local authorities.
“Unfortunately, cholera will likely, at a minimum, be endemic in Haiti for years to come,” said Thomas Mahin, a water quality adviser to Oxfam America. “The history of cholera cycles in other countries is that when the outbreak goes from an epidemic to an endemic situation, the number of cases decreases significantly but the percent of cases that are children less than 5 years old goes up. So, while the number of cases will decline eventually, the most vulnerable populations—infants, pregnant women, etc.—will still be at significant risk. So, the total number of cases only tells part of the story.”
The rain Sandy dumped isn’t only affecting the potential for a cholera outbreak. In some areas of the country, rainfall was equivalent to about 50 percent of the yearly precipitation and destroyed houses, bridges, schools, and roads.
In the South-East region, Oxfam is working with local partners to evaluate damage to agricultural areas: Sandy was the third recent weather event to hit the region following, first, a drought and then tropical storm Isaac. The cumulative effects of these crises are devastating to small farmers. Oxfam has launched cash-for-work initiatives for more than 1,000 families. The income from that work can help people meet their basic needs.
]]>Oxfam is gearing up to respond to the flooding and potential for disease outbreaks.
“We are mobilizing all local organizations trained in cholera prevention to prepare a large campaign in the coming days,” said Oxfam’s Amelie Gauthier. “Oxfam is supporting local authorities—the Civil Protection Agency and the National Direction for Water and Sanitation in various localities in the Region des Palmes—providing them with transport, logistics and equipment for now. We are preparing hygiene kits, cholera prevention kits for distribution for some temporary shelters.”
Oxfam is launching an assessment in the department of Nippes—much of it affected by the heavy rain. At least two other departments have also been hit badly by the storm: Grande Anse and South. As of Friday, the country remained under a state of alert across all of its 10 departments.
“In one area in Croix-des-Bouquets (near the capital of Port-au-Prince), we spoke to several families who now live with 160 families—more than 500 people in a fire station,” said Gauthier. “There are pregnant women and young children as part of that one shelter.” She added that many homes have been flooded and families need basic relief items such as plastic sheeting and hygiene kits.
A lack of access to drinkable water and safe sanitation in some urban and rural areas is also cause for worry. Oxfam is monitoring some of those areas closely.
“We’re also concerned at initial reports of destruction of agricultural crops caused by Hurricane Sandy in the south,” Gauthier said. “The south of Haiti is already food insecure because of the drought and impacts of tropical storm Isaac. We’re following the situation closely as this will affect thousands of farmers for the planting season as well as school nutrition programs.”
Donate now to Oxfam's Haiti fund.
]]>A shorter commitment won't get the job done. It takes time to help people build skills and infrastructure, to get policies changed, and to ensure that governments spend their money more effectively.
Smart development demands monitoring and evaluation. Organizations should be accountable to report not only what they do, but also how they measure it. Don't believe stories that guarantee long-term impact after one or two years' investment; that's barely time to lay some groundwork.
We all crave the easy answer, the quick solution, but if eradicating poverty were simple, people living in poverty would have sorted it out long ago. They may lack resources like land, but they certainly don't lack intelligence or insight. Poverty is a global challenge—one that we can overcome together, but listening and learning from people living in poverty, and developing solutions with them, takes time and sustained effort.
This issue of OXFAMExchange includes inspiring stories, but they are just snapshots from a family album: moments in a long journey together. Each story is ultimately about perseverance and the need for long-term commitment.
This report demonstrates what Oxfam has achieved during this past, challenging year. Although this is still in many respects a humanitarian situation we are also working on innovative longer-term programs – involving existing and new partnerships with local organizations – to help in the wider reconstruction effort.
]]>Thomazeau—home to about 52,000 inhabitants—is a rural community in western Haiti, surrounded by mountains and little-touched by the earthquake two years ago. In fact, it was an area that saw a large influx of arrivals from the capital immediately after the quake. But it is also economically deprived.
Most people here are “planteurs”—small-scale farmers living off their land and selling what crops they can. But poor roads are a major problem in getting goods to markets. And, as Dumel pointed out, there are few economic opportunities available in the community.
That’s also true across Haiti, where an estimated 75 percent of the population is not in salaried employment, and jobs are scarce.
Finding work is especially challenging in rural areas, where even the most casual of jobs are hard to come by. This was a major issue in Haiti, as much before the earthquake as now, and it is hampering people’s ability to rebuild their lives.
According to an Oxfam survey last year, finding work is the top priority for most Haitians. And that’s why a project which Oxfam supports in Thomazeau is raising the hopes of many women.
The women have their own section within ODECT known as RAFARE. That stands for Rassemblement des Femmes pour l’Accès aux Ressources Économiques, or Rallying Women to Access Economic Resources. Its goal is to try to improve the economic status of women. The group owned one milling machine and earned money processing grain brought to the center by farmers and merchants. Oxfam hired RAFARE after the earthquake to help provide milled cereals which formed part of food kits that were distributed in the outdoor camps where people had sought shelter.
Oxfam is now helping the women again—with funds and training, including enlisting the help of expatriate Haitian experts with specific skills. The group is modernizing its service center and expanding its operation.
The small building where they’re currently located will double in size, allowing the women to have storage facilities where they can stock processed and unprocessed grains and market milled cereals. Oxfam has helped them to purchase two new grinding machines and is providing training and other equipment. The goal is to enable the women to run their operation as a full-fledged business. They will buy and sell locally produced grain throughout the year, rather than just seasonally; and during lean times, in between the harvests, they can sell surplus stocks in the local market.
“It will bring more economic opportunities here. There will be more jobs and more money coming in,” said Marie-Claude Estenfile, general secretary of RAFARE. “There was always a shortage of grains being sold in the local markets from April to June, but we will be able to provide processed grains during that period.
It means people won’t have to travel an hour or more to some of the markets, like in Croix des Bouquets, 24 kilometers away, to buy what they need. It will be easier to purchase food locally and we will help to strengthen the supply chain. The markets will be busier; the money will benefit the local economy.”
Having proper storage facilities and being able market their own cereals will enable the women to work all year round, and not just stay open for business during the busy harvest period.
“It will guarantee people’s food security here,” said Dumel, adding that it will also create new jobs. “During the lean periods, people would have to buy imported rice and grain from other places. But we will have stocks to sell and supply to the local markets.”
RAFARE’s members are excited about the project.
“It gives me hope for the future,” said Hermircie Alfred, 40. “I hope we can buy and sell the grains locally all year round; and we can make more profits.”
“There are very few job opportunities here,” Alexina Augustin, 45, a mother of eight. “The only jobs we can really find are selling cereals and this project will help us. I lost my home and land a few months ago during flooding and now I can’t send my children to school. This will be a lifeline for me,” she said.
]]>“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.
]]>The Haitian authorities need to show greater strategic leadership and take decisions that reflect the priority needs of the Haitian population. They need to initiate public infrastructure projects that put people to work and build skills; support people to return home or allocate land for new houses; and invest in agriculture. The international community should do much more to support these efforts by increasing the capacity and accountability of Haitian institutions.
]]>Oxfam is deeply concerned that the disease, which has sickened more than 8,000 people and killed more than 540, has found its way into the city where countless families are still crowded into makeshift camps scattered across the hills since the January earthquake destroyed their homes. More than one million people remain homeless. The heavy rain and flooding caused by Hurricane Tomas over the weekend has likely allowed cholera to spread, especially given the poor sanitation conditions in the country.
But since the start of the epidemic in Artibonite—and even since the first days following the devastating quake--Oxfam has been preparing for the possibility of an outbreak in the capital. Providing people with clean water, sanitation and hygiene education is the only way to prevent the spread of diseases like cholera. Oxfam is reaching 315,000 people with these services in the Port-au-Prince area.
The organization is now reinforcing those programs in the camps in which it has been working since the quake. It’s chlorinating water and increasing the cleaning of sanitation facilities as well as organizing training sessions on the preparation of oral rehydration salts and homemade rehydration liquids—essential and effective treatment for patients. In addition, Oxfam has increased its training for staffers and community members on disease surveillance and it’s building latrines at the Petite Goave Hospital for a cholera treatment center.
In the Artibonite province, north of the capital, Oxfam has a team of about 25 staffers working on a water, sanitation, and hygiene program that is reaching about 100,000 people in an area called Petite Riviere. The program includes distribution of water purification tablets and powder, soap, buckets, and oral rehydration salts. Oxfam is also repairing and building wells and then purifying the water pulled from them.
But most importantly, the organization is carrying out a massive hygiene education campaign that includes broadcasting radio messages regularly as well as training community members to share information on how to stem the spread of the disease. Large-scale public education sessions in rural villages and towns are part of the program as well—and are helping to quell fears and provide better information.
“The only way to stop the spread of cholera is when each and every person is practicing good hygiene,” said Oxfam press officer Julie Schindall, who is based in Haiti. “That’s as simple as hand washing and drinking clean water.”
Those messages—along with the network of water and sanitation services aid groups have established in the camps around Port-au-Prince—have made a major difference for people: In the nearly 10 months since the quake there had not been a major outbreak of waterborne disease in the capital.
“We kept very vulnerable people safe for a long time,” said Schindall. “But now, clearly, we must throw even more resources into treating the sick and containing the spread of the disease.”
One of the central challenges in tackling problems like this—and one reason humanitarian relief operations are repeatedly launched--is the lack of basic infrastructure across the country and the government’s lack of capacity, Schindall added.
“Clearly in the long term we need to reinforce the government’s capacity to protect people,” said Schindall.
]]>The storm is expected to hit sometime early Friday morning. In the event of the damage it may cause, Oxfam will ensure that the nearly 500,000 people it is now helping will continue to have clean water and sanitation services. The organization is planning to repair latrines and other structures it has built.
But because of the recent cholera outbreak north of Haiti’s capital, humanitarian groups, including Oxfam, are finding their resources stretched and more supplies will be needed if Tomas turns destructive. Oxfam’s cholera response program is reaching about 100,000 people in the Artibonite province. According to the ministry of health, the outbreak has sent 6,742 people to hospitals and left 442 dead.
Throughout the hurricane season, which started June 1, Oxfam has been preparing for a major storm in Port-au-Prince, the camp-filled capital, and surrounding communities. More than one million people are still living under tarps and in tents since a January earthquake destroyed great swaths of the city. Oxfam has reinforced its water and sanitation facilities, by tying down water bladders, adding extra supports to shower stalls, and taking precautions to ensure that latrines don’t flood. In addition, Oxfam has been clearing canals and digging drains for months.
The organization has also continued its public health campaigns, educating people about good personal hygiene practices that will prevent the spread of waterborne disease, which is crucial if there is flooding. And Oxfam has been distributing extra hygiene supplies, like soap and jerry cans.
If the storm strikes, Oxfam will send out emergency response teams within 24 hours after to assess camps where it works and determine what repairs need to be made and ensure that people have adequate drinking water.
Despite these preparations, Oxfam remains very concerned about the impact heavy rains may have on the spread of cholera, and other diseases. If there is storm flooding and the water does not drain off, waterborne diseases can spread quickly.
In Artibonite, Oxfam’s team of 25 staffers is carrying out a massive hygiene education campaign, through radio messages, training community members to spread information about good hygiene, and large-scale public education sessions in villages and towns. The only way to stop the spread of cholera is when each and every person is practicing good hygiene. In addition to that initiative, Oxfam is also distributing water purification tablets and powder, soap, buckets, and oral rehydration salts in the area of Petite Riviere.
]]>As we approach Row 1A—one of the neat lines of white tents that make up the Corail resettlement camp, two figures wave at us energetically. Marceline Philidor and her daughter Sabine are as welcoming as when I saw them last, over a month ago. Their family was among the first group of people to be moved from the Petionville Golf Club—where they faced an imminent threat of flash floods—to this site about 15 km outside Port-au-Prince.
Marceline is busy cooking some rice on a small stove, but she pulls up some plastic chairs for us under the awning in front of her tent - one of the few small patches of shade in this vast, sun-baked camp. I ask her what life has been like these last two months.
“Well, life is the pretty much the same here now as when we moved in. Not much has changed. We have our tent. We have enough water from Oxfam to drink and cook and wash. We’ve received food, too, and rice, oil, beans and flour from World Vision. We still have the latrines from Oxfam, and there are enough for everyone, although it would be nice to have our own toilet, or a toilet to share with several families, and keep them clean between us.”
Oxfam has been concerned since the Corail site was selected in April that the area is isolated and doesn’t have markets close by. I ask Marceline what they have been living on and whether they’ve been looking for work outside of the camp.
“I’ve done some work - digging the trenches for drainage here in the camp, making them deeper—so we will have a little money soon. I’ve been the one working, because I had my identification with me when they offered the work, so I signed up. My husband goes out almost every day looking for work. Sometimes he takes the tap-tap (Haitian mini-bus) that goes from here to town, and costs 15 gourdes. But we don’t have much money, so often he has to walk.”
Marceline’s husband, David Deronoil, joins us and tells about his search for work.
“I go regularly into Delmas, to all the old places I used to work before the earthquake. I was a metal worker and then a driver. Often I have to walk, so I leave here at 4:30 in the morning, and I usually arrive around 11.” He pauses. “A man shouldn’t stay at home and not work. He should be able to go out and work to support his wife and child. But there are no jobs.”
Marceline once sold goods at a market stall, and she would like to re-open her business. “But I wouldn’t start it here,” she says. “I would go to one of the markets nearby, in Bon Repos. People say they might create a new market there so people here can work. I don’t know if it’s true. We’ve been asking to have a market and a hospital and a school for the people living here in the camp.”
School is an important topic for David.
“Aside from getting work, our main priority is Sabine’s education. Education is very important. I don’t want my daughter to grow up sitting around here, not learning anything. I want her to go to school and learn. To get an education. There’s a good school in Bon Repos; I would like to take her there, but we would need money. Like before the earthquake.”
I ask David and Marceline what their thoughts are about the future. David shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind having a house here. We like it here; we don’t hate it. And we don’t want to go back to Port-au-Prince. It’s too crowded and there are no homes there. I wouldn’t mind having a home here, or even building one myself.”
He smiles, looking around his tent. For now there isn’t much around their little home—just one or two plants sheltered by the side of the tent—but it’s clear he’s picturing what it could be like.
“We would like a little place to plant trees, so that they could give us shade and we could have mangoes to eat. And some space to keep chickens. Then we could have chicken to eat. We need a real home. We need some privacy. We also need to be able to have fun sometimes, have some kind of recreation.” He laughs. “Maybe watch the world cup on TV!”
He becomes serious again. “But we don’t know if there will be homes. There are rumors that they might be moving us again. So we don’t know.”
Although Corail is designated as a temporary relocation site, nobody knows how long people like David and Marceline will live here. These families need—and have the right—to start earning a living again, to send their children to school, and to have a clear idea when they will finally have a home again. The government of Haiti, with the support of international and national organizations, has the responsibility to develop and implement a housing, resettlement, and job-creation strategy that will get people back into homes and communities, and earning incomes. This is the crucial next step to help Haitians rebuild their lives for the long term.
]]>“Things were difficult right after the earthquake, but we’re Haitian, so we have to get up and move forward,” says Marie Carole Boursiquot. “There was the community canteen, and that work really helped me; I was able to set some money to start my business back up. Now I have my own stall again. Every week I had the canteen, I would put aside some of the profits—1,000 gourdes here, 1,000 gourdes there—and I would send the girls out to buy things for my shop. I also borrowed a little money so that I could buy the rest of the stock. Now I am selling all kinds of things: rice, sugar, beans, pasta, coal…”
I ask her to show us her stock and she is happy to oblige. She shows us the beans and grains first, lined up neatly to one side, in canvas sacks. She scoops up little handfuls of each for us to inspect; kidney beans, black beans, little green beans she calls French beans, Miami beans, wheat, corn meal, and corn kernels. (The corn is for chickens, she specifies, not people.) Then she delves into a box on the floor and pulls out blue sachets of coal, little bags of washing powder, and sugar that she has wrapped in little plastic packages—two sizes: one worth 5 gourdes and one worth 10. For such a small stall, there is an impressive variety of stock.
She puts the boxes back in place and sits down. “I went all the way down to Croix Bossales to buy the stock at the market there. My brother came with me and helped me. With the canteen and now this stall, at least we can all eat. There are ten of us still living together since the earthquake, in the same shelter with a metal roof. But now we have some plastic sheeting—some from Oxfam and some that we bought—so when it rains we don’t get wet like we did before.”
We are momentarily interrupted by the arrival of a customer, a little girl of five or six years, sent to Marie Carole to buy some snacks—chips or crackers of some kind. She is a little shy around us and rushes off without waiting for her change. Marie Carole laughs and lines up the coins on the counter—the little girl will be back.
"The problem now is that this shop is not mine. I have an arrangement with the owners; they have let me set up shop outside the bottom floor [of the building behind us] because they can’t use it anymore, since the top floor collapsed in the earthquake. But the ceiling is cracked and leaks so some of my stock got wet.”
"People from Oxfam [the market support team] came to inspect the site of my old shop. They saw that it was destroyed, and they are going to provide me with a shipping container that I can use as a shop and to store my stock securely. That will be much better for my business. I will be able to buy more, and I will be able to manage my stock better then.”
I ask her what her biggest needs are now, but she is reluctant to answer. She shrugs.
“Oxfam is the only organization helping this whole community. Many things would help me, but I don’t want to ask for too many things. You can’t constantly ask for others to give and give. I am satisfied with what God gives me. But with more money or the container from Oxfam, I would be able to get on even better than now, expand my shop, sell more, and make more money to improve our shelter and to improve our life.”
“There are always needs, but as long as we are healthy, and we have two hands and two feet, we can find things to do, and we will continue living. Things will get better.”
]]>Like hundreds of thousands of other survivors, they fled the ruins of Port-au-Prince to seek shelter in the countryside, squeezing in with family and friends and relying on them for support in the weeks—and now months—after the disaster.
It’s early May, and the girls are among the 17 relatives and friends Jean Claude and Rose Marie Perard are hosting in their house in Saint Michel, a four-drive from the capital. The household numbered nine before the quake. Now, 26 people—many of them children—crowd the Perards’ small dark rooms and courtyard.
“Day by day we cope,” says Rose Marie Perard.
It’s a refrain repeated across the rugged provinces as Haitians, living in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, open their doors and share what little they have.
But here, on a sweltering afternoon in the main room of the Perards’ house, the strain for some of the family members is beginning to show and the target is NGOs, the non-governmental organizations that offered a patchwork of basic services—education, health care, agricultural support—before the quake and have now ramped up, with billions of dollars at their disposal, to help meet the needs of some of the three million people affected by the disaster. Some locals charge that the NGOs have long been in Haiti to help themselves more than they are to help the Haitians—and they question whether there are lasting benefits to the projects aid groups launch.
Oxfam’s goal is to make a durable difference, one that leaves people with the skills and knowledge to ensure their own growth and success, and that means a long-term commitment that empowers communities to meet their own needs.
Cereste Perard has been waiting, grim-faced, for his turn to talk. He’s 27 and was in Port-au-Prince when the quake hit, along with some of his siblings who were studying there. About 81 percent of Haiti’s schools are private, and many of those at the upper levels, including universities, are concentrated around the capital. Parents often send their children there for better opportunities, which means covering the added expense of room and board along with school fees—a commitment that can severely strain finances, forcing kids to drop out until their families can marshall the resources to allow them to return.
Sinking into an empty spot on the sofa, Cereste Perard offers his opinion about Haiti’s recovery.
“What we need is for us to be independent,” he says, with bitterness in his voice. “The international community is giving us orders on how to live our lives.”
Cereste is pretty clear about how he wants to live his: his goal is to go to university and study industrial engineering, like an older brother, Jean Rodney Perard, who is now working toward a medical degree.
In the long hot months ahead and it’s up to their mother, Rose Marie, to manage the crowded household on a budget stretched by borrowing and pleading with friends for help. Rose Marie collects a small monthly salary from the ministry of public health for which she works five days a week as a technologist in a lab. Her husband serves as the municipal director for Saint Michel, an appointed post.
Having jobs puts the couple in the minority among Haitians who, by some calculations, face unemployment rates as high as 70 percent. But with 26 mouths to feed and a crowd of children to help educate, the Perards’ salaries don’t stretch far.
“I buy food on credit and whenever money comes in, I pay it all back,” says Rose Marie, adding the household eats just two meals a day. And when night comes, everyone stretches out wherever there is room: some in the beds, some on the floors.
As full as this house is, it’s not the only one in Saint Michel packed tight since January. After the quake, more than 11,000 people reportedly made their way to the town and the smaller communities that surround it, and a survey conducted in a month later found that 5,000 of them were still there.
A sudden downpour hammers the metal roof of a small mill in Verrettes, a few hour’s drive from Saint Michel. The rain drowns the voices of 13 men and women sitting in the hot gloom, but their raised hands tell the story: all but one of them has been supporting people from Port-au-Prince and the rice, and all the other seeds, the farmers had hoped to plant have gone, instead, to feed the newcomers. Rony Charles has four of his wife’s relatives staying him; Pierre Riguens had five, now four—sisters and a cousin; Simadieu Descombes is hosting seven.
With planting season upon them—and no seeds to sow—the farmers are hoping they can get access to some microcredit to tide them over. Raising agricultural production levels is the first thing people in his community need, says Charles. And creating jobs for the newcomers is also near the top of the list.
While some people appear to be returning to the capital, Anouce Myrtil predicts that plenty of others will find it easier living in the countryside.
“Even if Port-au-Prince had golden streets, no one’s going to live easy in Port-au-Prince because of fear,” he says, sitting on the site of a new sugarcane mill Oxfam is helping to build in the community of Lacedras, near Saint Michel. It’s part of a range of small-scale initiatives designed to support economic development and improve agricultural output in the region—objectives that are more important than ever as Haiti struggles to overcome the devastation caused by the earthquake and rebuild itself on a stronger foundation. In a country where agriculture employs two-thirds of the workforce yet produces only 28 percent of its gross domestic product, modernizing farm work and expanding production opportunities will be crucial for Haiti’s reconstruction.
And for farmer Elcida Estinat, the chance to learn new skills and expand her earning power are vital now that she is caring for young relatives displaced by the quake. Recently, she participated in an Oxfam-supported training on beekeeping. Equipped with a modern hive, she could potentially produce six times the amount of honey that she could using traditional methods.
And every gallon of honey that Estinat harvests from her hives could fetch as much as $24 at the market. Converted into school fees, that honey is better than gold: it will help her buy a brighter future for her kids.
“I know the value of a good education,” says Estinat.
]]>With the crack of a sledgehammer on concrete, Oxfam's water and sanitation program in Delmas, Haiti, got underway.
The earth was still shuddering with aftershocks when survivors began to dig, carving out latrine trenches 10 feet long, 10 feet deep, and three feet wide through every kind of soil and pavement. Others did their part by quickly shaping platforms out of rocks and earth to support their new source of drinking water: Oxfam water bladders.
It was a race against time, and against deadly water-related bacteria like typhoid, hepatitis, and cholera that can thrive in crowded, unsanitary conditions. And it is a race that—so far, at least—we are winning. After the quake, hundreds of thousands of people had no access to toilets, and the water available wasn't fit to drink; yet, thanks to an all-out effort on the part of the displaced communities and aid agencies like Oxfam, there have been no outbreaks of waterborne disease.
But there is more to water and sanitation programs than health.
"We build latrines not only because they help prevent the spread of disease, but because they should help protect the dignity and safety of disaster survivors living in camps," says Oxfam engineer Kenny Rae, who led the first phase of Oxfam's water and sanitation effort in Delmas.
There is a special focus on the safety of women and girls, because in the chaotic aftermath of disasters, they are particularly vulnerable to harassment and assault. The structure of a latrine—like the firmness of its latches and whether its doors open toward or away from the general population of a camp—has implications for safety, so Rae and his team listened closely to the concerns of women residents.
Shower construction was another important issue. Haiti's weather is so warm that shower stalls can be open to the sky, but where they were installed within view of multi-story buildings, women in Delmas had understandable concerns about privacy—which Rae and his team quickly addressed by adding roofs.
"When it came to sanitation facilities," says Rae, "women in the camps had the first and last word."
Helping survivors recover after disasters is not as simple as doling out goods and services: it requires attention to the many facets of community well-being.
For example, working for pay can help disaster survivors meet a range of needs, both financial and psychological. Oxfam offered wages to residents to dig latrine trenches, cover them with slabs of molded concrete or plastic, and build structures of wood and plastic sheeting around them for shelter and safety.
"We ended up employing more than 300 people to build latrines in Delmas," says Rae. "Their communities benefited from the project, and their families benefited from the income."
But in some cases, the need for community-building trumped the need for money. When it came to constructing platforms for water bladders, everyone worked for free, says Rae. "They treated the work as a contribution to their communities."
Caring for Haiti's fragile environment was another key consideration for the water and sanitation team, which needed wood for construction.
"From the outset," says Rae, "we determined that we weren’t going to use local timber poles because of the impact on deforestation."
The team found a source of timber imported from the US. It was more expensive than local wood, and at first it was hard to find enough of it. But, says Rae, in a country as deforested and as vulnerable to landslides as Haiti, the environmental cost of harvesting timber is tremendous.
When Rae and his team assessed the local water and sanitation situation, they found settlements where thousands of displaced residents had gathered. But Delmas is also dotted with tiny camps and informal schools, and it took time to understand the full extent of the needs. Oxfam staff kept their eyes—and their office—open, continually updating their plans and assessments.
"We had an open-door policy," says Rae. "Pastors, school directors, and other community leaders would bring their requests and concerns to the Oxfam office on a near-daily basis, and we were almost always able to respond."
After helping create water and sanitation facilities in 21 sites, serving 40,000 people, Rae has returned home for a rest. Sort of.
"Of course, I was pleased to get back to the people I love," says Rae, "but I was torn because the needs on the ground in Haiti are so enormous."
When he goes back to Haiti, it will be to work on another key issue in the recovery: shelter. His focus will be not only the homeless in Port-au-Prince, but also the tens of thousands of rural families that are hosting relatives who fled the capital and are now living in very crowded conditions. Rae will be looking for efficient ways to build temporary housing and house extensions to reduce the stress on families.
"Shelter is—and will remain for a while—a huge, huge need," he says.
As for the water and sanitation program in Delmas, says Rae, "I'm confident that the Haitian engineers I helped to train will be able to carry it forward."
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