Excerpted from a note to CARE staff
by Jonathan Mitchell, CARE International's Emergency Response Director

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Dear Colleagues,

A week ago, I returned from a joint visit to Haiti together with CARE USA regional director, Peter Buijs. Peter and I visited Haiti to understand the situation first-hand and offer support and guidance to CARE's response to the extensive humanitarian suffering caused by the January 12 earthquake. Peter stayed-on in Haiti for an additional week while country director Sophie Perez was traveling.

The latest official figures indicate 112,500 people were killed, 196,500 injured, and up to 1 million people displaced by the earthquake. Unofficially, the Haitian government is now estimating over 200,000 people killed. In-terms of numbers affected, the Haiti earthquake is the largest humanitarian emergency since the Asian tsunami. However, the devastation was multiplied by it coming on-top of the existing poverty in Haiti, and the widespread destruction of a capital city – probably the first capital city to be so badly destroyed since the second world war.

The United Nations estimates nearly 500,000 people have left Port-au-Prince since the earthquake to rural areas. As with many large cities, Port-au-Prince contained large numbers of migrants. Many survivors have returned to their places of origin, although most rural areas are impoverished and will struggle to support such large influxes of people.

The second day we were in country, we drove through the city. We saw hillsides of informal housing that had tumbled down on each other like landslides. We drove past a college building that had collapsed killing 400 students and staff. In addition to destruction of thousands of homes, in downtown Port-au-Prince many government buildings, the Presidential palace, the cathedral, the seaport, the United Nation's head office, many hotels and the commercial downtown centre all suffered enormous damage. It is a shocking sight.

After losing its offices and suffering its largest ever loss of life, the United Nations has set-up a new base next to the airport in a growing and ever more hectic tented city. There are literally thousands of relief workers who have arrived in country working for the United Nations and hundreds of aid agencies. CARE's office is in a different part of town, in the hillside suburb of Petionville, and thankfully our office was undamaged. This location allows us to avoid being overwhelmed with all the activity at the United Nations base and focus on getting our relief out, although it does add time when staff need to attend meetings at the United Nations.

Thankfully, no CARE Haiti staff lost their lives in the earthquake, although several staff lost immediate family members and some were injured. Most people in Haiti have lost friends or family members in this disaster and many staff have damaged or destroyed homes. A continued priority of CARE's response is the provision of support to affected staff, including offering counseling, provision of household items and helping staff find temporary accommodation.

Despite the many losses and suffering experienced by our staff in Haiti, they have done an outstanding job of responding to the humanitarian disaster and providing the strong foundation for a large-scale CARE emergency response. The leadership of country director, Sophie Perez, is tremendous, not only in leading all aspects of starting-up a large humanitarian response, but also in her compassion and focus supporting affected staff, reestablishing the functioning of CARE's office, ensuring integration of the incoming emergency team with the existing country office, handling extensive demands for representation, advocacy and media, and much else besides.

It was impressive to see how effective logistics and distribution teams and systems were set-up and functioning well. CARE's office compound became a daily hive of activity as trucks came in, were loaded, and dispatched, distribution teams briefed, left for the field and returning later for debriefing and preparing for the next day.

CARE focuses its relief on women to use with their families and particularly the most vulnerable. Elderly, disabled and pregnant women are given priority and are helped to carry their supplies.

Communities play significant roles in distributions including assistance with targeting, organizing distributions, and providing security. Managing distributions in this way ensures community ownership and largely avoids security problems.

Peter, Wills Moore, and I attended two CARE relief distributions on January 28 – in Carrefour and in Léogâne. The Carrefour distribution took place in a small open space within a crowded urban setting. It was noisy and crowded, but the local community and CARE distribution staff had things well organized. Announcements were made to beneficiaries over a megaphone explaining the nature and method of distributions. Everything went to plan as each woman received a mattress, blankets and a bucket containing a hygiene kit.

Léogâne is a small town, West of Port-au-Prince, and very near to the earthquake epicenter. The town was devastated with an estimated 90 percent of buildings destroyed or badly damaged. CARE was providing water supply in the town centre and we went to see a distribution of relief supplies in a rural area outside town. The local Scouts worked with CARE staff to arrange the distribution. We were joined in Léogâne by country director Sophie Perez, CARE media officer Rick Pererra, together with a CNN reporter and cameraman. There must have been over a hundred kids who came out to watch the spectacle! Again, all went well as women lined-up and received their relief supplies.

There was a great deal of apprehension about CARE taking on a role in World Food Programme's high-profile mass food distribution starting last week. CARE's distribution, security, and media staff did important very careful preparation for the food distribution with the result that, starting on January 31st, the distributions have taken place smoothly and effectively.

The commitment and outstanding work of our staff in Haiti is truly commendable. At the same time, the solidarity and support provided from so many other parts of CARE has been tremendous and highly valued. Overall, it has been great to see the CARE family working so well together in contributing to the humanitarian relief effort for the people of Haiti.

Best regards,
Jon

The line of women queuing for rice reaches far beyond the end of the street. The distribution takes place in the early morning as to avoid the harsh sunlight (Photo: 2010 Sabine Wilke/CARE)

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