Tropical Storm Issac brings heavy wind and rain to Haiti

Another tropical storm as blown through Haiti. The vulnerable island nation still hasn't fully recovered from the earthquake of two years ago. Because of the that disaster, over 400,000 people are still living in tents. From Reuters Alert Net, Plan International tells us about their plans to bring emergency aid to Haiti. 

"Tents in the camps for displaced people have blown away and roofs have blown off houses," says Maka Barry, Acting Country Director for Plan International in Haiti.
"In Port-au-Prince and the West and South-East of the country, we are dealing with flooding and uprooted trees blocking roads - as well as fallen electricity poles which means long power outages are expected."
"Although the storm is moving away people living in mountainous areas are still exposed to the danger of landslides."
Plan International has emergency provisions at ready, as taskforces assess the extent of the damage.
“Young people are particularly vulnerable during disasters such as these - and we have been working to ensure their safety and welfare as far as possible,” added Mr Barry.

Haitian Poverty, 2 Years after the Earthquake

Having seen the slow recovery and response to the poor in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina (5 years after the disaster, most of the old poorer neighborhoods were still largely unrecovered), it is not a surprise to me the number of people in Haiti who are still without basic living needs after 2 years.  This article details some of the numbers...

Chronic Poverty Stalks Haitian Earthquake Victims Still Living in Camps

More than a third of households affected by the deadly 2010 Haiti earthquake and over half of those living in the camps have not recovered basic household assets nearly two years after the disaster, according to an analysis by Tulane University researchers.

Haiti - Commentary 2 Years After

This particular article is a commentary on an Op/Ed piece in the New York Times.  I appreciate the notations the author makes in this article as they point out some of the critical elements which serve to keep Haiti suppressed in it's current state of poverty (and leftover destruction from the earthquake).

Haiti's Poverty: New York Times Op/ED Misses Crucial Element

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a fact which an op/ed in today's New York Times notes is an inevitable catchphrase in any article about the hapless country occupying the western third of Hispaniola.

Tropical Storm Emily bears down on Haiti's tent dwellers

In a city where a large population still live in tents, a tropical storm can be very threatening. That is the reality now for those that still live in the tent camps in Part-au-Prince, Haiti.

Tropical Storm Emily was near the south coast of the island this morning, and threatened to pass over Haiti this afternoon. The storm so far has caused flooding and damage to homes for Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

From the Associated Press, writer Trenton Daniel explains the treat the storm poses for the Haiti's homeless.

In Haiti, about 600,000 people are still in flimsy tents and shanties because of the January 2010 earthquake, strong winds whipped through palm trees in the capital while heavier rains fell further north, damaging homes as well as a cholera treatment center, said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, the country's civil defense director. But there were no reports of deaths.

In the capital, which has most of those left homeless by the earthquake, the rain was relatively light so far, but the government evacuated a few families from a camp for quake victims to a school that is being used as a storm shelter, said Jean-Joseph Edgard, an administrator in Haiti's Civil Protection Department.
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There was reason for concern. A slow-moving storm in June triggered mudslides and floods in Haiti and killed at least 28 people. Widespread poverty makes it difficult for people to take even the most basic precautions.

Joceline Alcide stashed her two children' birth certificates and school papers in little plastic bags that aid groups handed out. It was her only means to protect herself.

"There really isn't much more we can do. We just got these bags," the 39-year-old Alcide said, standing outside her teepee-like tarp shelter.

A Haitian company returns its expertise to Africa

The Inter Press Service has a great story today about a green energy company that is based in Haiti. ENERSA makes solar powered street lamps using small solar panels to power each light. The company employs people that live in the biggest slum of Port-au-Prince.

IPS writer Peter Costantini tagged along with a couple of ENERSA's founders as they traveled to Senegal to cooperate with another green energy company. Click on the link to the full story to read more about how the Haitian entrepreneurs learned about their ancestry in Africa during the trip.

A Senegalese firm specialising in solar-power installations, KAYER, had invited Noël and technician Frantz Derosier to visit the westernmost nation of West Africa to teach their employees how to fabricate their own photovoltaic (PV) panels, which convert sunlight into electricity.

Noël is co-founder, along with his partner Alex Georges, of ENERSA - Énergies Renouvelables, S.A. (Renewable Energies, Inc.). Derosier is one of their 20-odd employees. ENERSA manufactures solar streetlamps and other solar-energy equipment using PV panels that they build from scratch. They count around a thousand such lights installed in over 50 municipalities all over Haiti.

After the catastrophic earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010, which knocked out electrical power across the Port-au-Prince area, these lamps were the only public light sources for some localities. The temblor also destroyed much of ENERSA's physical plant, but all the employees survived and the firm was able to restart production within a few months.

During the nine days Noël and Derosier were in Senegal, a former French colony like Haiti, they conducted a week of training sessions with KAYER in the headquarters of a peasant farmers' confederation in the town of Mekhe, about 100 kilometres inland from Dakar, the capital.

The sessions resulted in the first solar panels "made in Senegal". The ongoing collaboration, according to ENERSA, will cover the conception and manufacturing in Senegal of solar products, including solar streetlights.
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Derosier and nearly all the other ENERSA employees are young men from Cité Soleil, the biggest bidonville (shantytown) in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, where jobs are prized rarities. ENERSA trained them for several weeks in electronics and metal fabrication skills, and pays them wages well above the going rate in Haiti, where the majority tries to survive on a dollar or two a day.

The donations are running low in Haiti

A year and a half has now passed since the Haiti earthquake. All of money pledged immediately after the quake is starting to run low. But there is still a lot of work to be done on the streets of Port au Prince.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Thalif Deen unpacks a UN report that examines all of the donations and how much is left to spend.

"The amount of debris still littering the streets could fill 8,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools," the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) said in a study released here.

Most of the rubble is still clogging the capital, Port-au-Prince, preventing people from moving back to their homes, resuming their lives and allowing the recovery process to truly take hold in Haiti's capital city.

The estimated cost of rebuilding Haiti is a hefty 11.5 billion dollars "and the organisations working in the country need continuous support," says UNDP.

In March 2010, U.N. member states pledged more than nine billion dollars to rebuild the country, including 5.3 billion for 2010-2011. Just 352 million dollars have been delivered to the Haiti Reconstruction Fund to date, with 237 million of that sum disbursed for 14 reconstruction projects, according to the fund's first annual report released on Jul. 22.

At least 600,000 people still live in tent camps, and more than 5,500 have died from the cholera epidemic that broke out last October.

Reconstruction efforts in Haiti are being led not only by donors from rich and poor nations but also by international organisations, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, the Inter-American Development Bank and IBSA, the coalition of three emerging nations in the developing world: India, Brazil and South Africa.

Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri of India, an active member of IBSA, told IPS his country had made a "modest contribution" of five million dollars in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake followed by 500,000 dollars to the U.N.'s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).

"We have also pledged to reconstruct one of the government ministries to be identified by the government of Haiti," he added.

Additionally, IBSA is planning to expand its joint Trust Fund waste management project to provide other basic amenities, such as shelter, drinking water and sanitation.

Currently, the three countries are spending over two million dollars in this effort, and also in the reconstruction of a community health centre in Haiti. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56628

Haiti refused malaria vaccinations says drug CEO

A news story breaking this morning gives us another reason to question governance in Haiti. The CEO of a Dutch drug company that makes a malaria vaccine says his offers to give free vaccinations were refused by Haiti. The allegations are made by Ronald Brus the CEO of Crucell, a drug company that makes the malaria vaccine Dukarol

From Top News, writer Davel Wilkins unpacks the details.

He further added that the refused donation could have saved the life of 5,500 by limiting the increase of an epidemic that caused more than 363,000 illnesses, triggering the call for $175m to take action.

The debate also highlighted the fact that what are the main reasons behind the cause of Haiti’s cholera outbreak and how the international institutions can help in removing this problem.

Number of current reports argued that the virus was transported by the UN peacekeepers.

"I think it’s time for Aid to leave Haiti."

The mysterious blogger J who runs "Tales for the Hood" says it is time for everyone to get out of Haiti. J who works as a professional aid worker says that the international aid community has proven to be "fully incapable of helping."

I think it’s time for Aid to leave Haiti.

I’ve certainly defended Aid enough on this blog, including different things about the earthquake response in Haiti. In this case, though, I see the earthquake response in Haiti as simply the icing on the cake. Many have said that Haiti was a disaster before the earthquake, and I’d agree. What is said less often, is that Aid also was broken in Haiti before the earthquake. Depending on which numbers you crunch, and how you crunch them, Haiti is only incrementally worse off now than it was on January 9, 2010. I do not say this to in any way compliment the combined, inter-agency relief response, but rather to highlight just how bad things were pre-earthquake, despite decades of foreign assistance. It’s time to call this what it is: a massive debacle.

I honestly think that the very best thing for Haiti would be for us all to leave. I do not (yet) believe that Aid is broken globally. But it is certainly broken in Haiti. I sincerely believe that in the grand scheme of things we are not doing Haiti any real favors by staying on. We need to get out. All of us. All of the foreign governments with their incentives and their politicians who visit and make speeches about “Haiti’s bright future.” All of the UN and INGOs with their massive compounds and their VHF radios and their strategies. All of the hippy architects with their houses made out of recycled trash, the BOGO entrepreneurs with their GIK dumping, the bright-eyed innovators with their “platforms” and their earth-friendly gadgets. For heavens’ sake, all of the church groups with their matching T-shirts and their pet orphanages.
I honestly believe that what Haiti needs more than anything else is simply the opportunity to figure out for itself what Haiti wants and needs, without interference variously disguised as “help” from outside. Haiti has never in its’ entire history had this opportunity. Yet is seems clear to me that this is what is needed most.

The only question we would have for J is what about other countries? The case can certainly be made that aid has flooded into other parts of the world for many years and has done little to improve their state. So if you recommend for everyone to leave Haiti, where else should we pull out of? Using J's logic it could be every single country.

How to slow NGOs overwhelming a post-disaster area

When a large disaster strikes, an outpouring of support comes to aid the victims. That support can sometimes be overwhelming and ineffective.

The greatest example of this is the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Hundreds of non-governmental organizations and charities flooded the tiny country. With the government destroyed, there was no one to coordinate all of the efforts. Often, the aid from NGOs and charities went duplicated or wasted. To this day the NGOs remain, without anything to replace them so the people can begin to support themselves.

From the Guardian, writer Madeleine Bunting attended a recent roundtable discussion on this very topic. The panelists talked about possible solutions to the overflow of aid after a disaster. Many at the discussion conceded that it is a problem that might never be completely solved.

The proposal on the table is a certification system. But would this just be a club for the big NGOs to squeeze out the small, local or most innovative? Who gets to check the certification process – that in the midst of a disaster, "is your paperwork in order"? Who inspects to make sure that the NGO is delivering what it claims it does. The problems are legion, as everyone in the room agreed. Alan Duncan, the minister at the Department for International Development, was pretty clear that it was up to the NGOs to work out how such a certification system should work.

As one speaker pointed out, after every disaster there is a renewed attempt to sort out the chaos of the burgeoning international NGO sector. DIY aid is a huge trend created by the massive media engagement in a disaster; everyone watches the pictures on television and the global good will pours out – incoherent, passionate and convinced it can make a difference. After the 2004 tsunami, the "cluster system" was born in which NGOs worked together, chaired by the UN, on particular problems such as water or education. But another speaker pointed out that the cluster system becomes unwieldy: 200 people in a shack at the airport who can't speak the same language and then it starts raining so they can't even hear each other. Chaos.

The central issue is that it's the state structure of a stricken country that has to regulate NGO activity, and the whole point about a disaster is that it often overwhelms the capacities of states in poor countries. Haiti was a terrible example of a weak state that was itself smashed in the earthquake.

A more positive example, said Stocking, was Bangladesh where a strong network of community organisations has grasped disaster preparedness, and put in place measures that have hugely reduced the loss of life from cyclones since the 1990s. The model has been copied in many other countries prone to flooding, providing a low-cost, community-owned template of what Lord Ashdown's recent report on humanitarian emergency aid called "resilience". Stocking talks of building up local NGOs as the front line in a disaster; in Aceh, Indonesia, Oxfam works entirely through such local groups.

UN report on Haiti cholera outbreak sidesteps taking responsibility

The United Nations completed their study on what caused the cholera outbreak in Haiti. The report does agree that the a U.N. peacekeepers camp did introduce the bacteria in Haiti. However, the report does not place any blame on the peacekeepers or accepts any responsibility for the outbreak that killed 4,800 people.

From Reuters, we find out more about the report's content.

In its report published Wednesday, the U.N.-appointed panel said the outbreak was caused by "bacteria introduced into Haiti as a result of human activity; more specifically by the contamination of the Meye Tributary System of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of the current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae."

Declaring this cholera strain was introduced "as a result of environmental contamination with feces," the report faulted sanitation conditions at the Mirebalais MINUSTAH camp, saying they "were not sufficient to prevent fecal contamination of the Meye Tributary System of the Artibonite River."

'EXPLOSIVE SPREAD'

Explaining the epidemic's "explosive spread" along the Artibonite River and throughout Haiti, the report said "simultaneous water and sanitation and healthcare system deficiencies" contributed to the spread. It noted Haitians used river water for washing, bathing, drinking and recreation.

Despite pointing an apparent finger at the U.N. peacekeepers' camp, the U.N.-appointed panel did not directly blame them for starting the epidemic.

"The Independent Panel concludes that the Haiti cholera outbreak was caused by the confluence of circumstances as described above, and was not the fault of, or deliberate action of, a group or individual," it said.

Repeating a longstanding U.N. position over the cholera in Haiti, a U.N. spokesman in New York said the report "does not present any conclusive scientific evidence linking the outbreak to the MINUSTAH peacekeepers or the Mirebalais camp"

"Anyone carrying the relevant strain of the disease in the area could have introduced the bacteria into the river," Michel Bonnardeaux, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping department, told Reuters.

New Food Security Project map from InterAction

InterAction has a great new tool on their website that helps to show the many food security programs around the world. The Food Security Map is an interactive tool that organizes all of the food and agriculture programs by country, the organization giving the aid, and a description of each project.

For example, you can click on the country Mauritania and see where the food security programs are concentrated at and a brief description of their work. In Mauritania ,World Vision conducts two out of the three programs, one providing support to farmers and another that helps to develop an entire community.

InterAction hopes the map will begin to create more cooperation between their member charities. They also hope that it will give donors more information on how to give to specific projects.

One striking bit of information found from this map is the glut of programs going on in Haiti. The map displays 104 different food security projects in the tiny island nation. The only other nation with that many is Bangladesh. Many say that it is the overwhelming amount of humanitarian aid received that keeps the nation from ever becoming self-sufficient. This map might give more evidence to that point of view.

The Food Security Map can be found at InterAction by hitting this link. Below is a screen-shot of the map.

Guest Voices: Responding to the Urban Challenge – World Water Day

Continuing our series of posts from Concern Worldwide is a story that helps us to commemorate World Water Day. Writer Thomas Fergusson talks about the challenges Concern faced in bringing water and sanitation to victims of the Haiti earthquake.

The observance of World Water Day this year (March 22), with its spotlight on urban emergencies, comes at a time when many humanitarian aid and relief organizations are contemplating—in some cases, studying in-depth—the growing trend of large emergencies shifting from rural to urban settings.

Increasingly erratic weather patterns, which some link to man-made climate change, are causing droughts and floods that are driving millions to leave the countryside for cities.

In Haiti, in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Concern Worldwide had to tackle most of these issues in highly challenging circumstances, with Port-au-Prince qualifying as a highly impoverished urban setting experiencing a major emergency albeit in extraordinary circumstances. The city was one of the most challenging environments for water and sanitation before the earthquake; the massive disaster only made the situation exponentially more complicated.

We had to respond quickly and accurately, which was enormously difficult. Our efforts were hampered by huge logistical challenges, including impossible traffic and, especially toward the latter part of the year, unrest and frequent demonstrations, and the further challenge of the serious cholera outbreak.

The earthquake left countless people without access to basic services such as clean water and toilets. Today, the bulk of our beneficiaries live in camps, where the logistics of supplying water and sanitation are relatively straightforward. But the job is costly and cannot be sustained indefinitely. Families need to return home or be given temporary shelters that all need clean water and toilets.

Here are some numbers to show progress has been made: About six months ago there were locations in the city where a single latrine was serving 2000 people per day! Getting this down number down to below 800—to stave of serious disease outbreaks such as cholera—was a major struggle. Yet, we are now meeting the standard of 50 persons per latrine. For things to work long-term, we are putting a lot of focus on the engagement, training and capacity-building of local communities to take responsibility for the water infrastructure.

We currently supply an estimated 3,000 gallons a day via water truck to each of 28 locations in Port-au-Prince, serving 75,000 people; we are also in the final stages of 50 so-called block latrines—each with 12 doors—in multiple locations; we have responsibility for waste disposal for approx 540 latrines around the city. In the 18 camps where we work, we remove almost 400,000 gallons of waste every month.

The people’s suffering and our responsibility to come to their aid make up the real story. The fate of one family of eight has stuck with me in a powerful way. Parents Janice Simeone and Dieu Puissant and their six children—made homeless by the earthquake—were living in a ramshackle tent in the Place Boyer spontaneous settlement, smack in a downtown Port-au-Prince slum. Utter lack of hygiene and overcrowded, dirty sanitation led to four of the children and Dieu getting violently ill with diarrhea and vomiting—the warning signs of cholera. Luckily, we were able to get them all treatment in a hospital.

Kudos to the UN for putting the spotlight on these urban water facts:

Already half of the world’s population lives in the city. In two decades, their number will grow to 60 percent, or 5 billion people. And 95 percent of the urban population growth in the next decades will take place in the developing world, whose cities grow by an average of 5 million new residents every month! Every second, the world’s urban population grows by two people.

Urban slums pose a particular problem for the humanitarian aid community. The people there already suffer chronic poverty and all its attendant ills, including lack of reliable, consistent and convenient access to water and hygienic facilities, health care, and nutrition. Concern has embarked on a study of the slums in Kenya to develop and empirically test a set of emergency indicators for urban slum environment—to determine when chronic poverty becomes an urban humanitarian crisis.

This exploding urban population growth creates unprecedented challenges—with the supply of and access to safe water and proper sanitation being crucial for the maintenance of good health. Common massive killers of children under five in the city—malaria (once thought to be a strictly rural disease), pneumonia, diarrhea, worm infestation, and cholera—are linked to dirty and stagnant water. Across the board, around the world, 2 million tons of human waste is disposed of in water sources. Lack of wastewater treatment and drainage facilities—especially in the developing world—leads to dangerous pollution of the ground-and-surface water resources.

Crisis or not, the 827.6 slum dwellers in the developing world—62 percent of them living in sub-Saharan Africa—are often lacking adequate drinking water and proper sanitary facilities. Twenty-seven percent of the developing world’s urban population does not have piped water in their houses; and 493 million people in cities share their sanitation facilities—in 1990 that number stood at 259 million. Worldwide, one in four city residents, or 794 million people, lives without access to updated sanitation facilities.

To make matters worse, the poor pay more: someone in the slums in Nairobi pays 5 to 7 times more for a gallon of water than the average North American citizen. Elsewhere in the developing world the urban poor may pay up to 50 times more than their richer neighbors because they are forced to pay private vendors. Plus, an estimated more than 132,000 gallons of usable typically leaks away each year in the world’s mega cities—saving this amount of water would be sufficient for the yearly needs of 10 million to 20 million in such a mega city.

Our numbers in Haiti are but tiny figures against the backdrop of the growing global water crisis, of course. But not all is doom and gloom. The Third UN World Water Development report, published in 2009, insists that the world’s water problems are manageable, and that the required knowledge, experience and technology are already in place to create a durable water infrastructure, sanitation and waste disposal infrastructure, as well as the curbing of pollution and adequate protection against flooding. If only the world’s leaders would put their minds to it. At all levels of government—national, regional, local—water must become a priority.

New study projects 770,000 cholera cases in Haiti this year

A new study to be published tomorrow says there could be 779,000 cases of cholera in Haiti this year. The study will be published in the medical journal The Lancet and contradicts findings made by the United Nations. The authors of the study used data from Haiti's Ministry of Health to base their projections.

From MSN Health, writer Robert Preidt unpacks the study for us.

There could be nearly twice as many cases of the potentially deadly diarrheal disease -- an estimated 779,000 -- between March and November of this year, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and Harvard Medical School.

The discrepancy is important because U.N. projections determine the allocation of resources to fight the disease, said the authors of the study, published March 16 in The Lancet.

"The epidemic is not likely to be short-term," Dr. Sanjay Basu, a UCSF medical resident, said in a university news release. "It is going to be larger than predicted in terms of sheer numbers and will last far longer than the initial projections."

The cholera epidemic erupted in Haiti after last year's devastating earthquake. Cholera -- spread from person-to-person through contaminated food and water -- can be deadly if untreated. In most cases, treatment for the diarrhea caused by the disease involves rehydration with salty liquids.

Late last year, the U.N. projected that a total of 400,000 people in Haiti would eventually become infected with cholera. They reached that total by assuming that cholera would infect 2 to 4 percent of Haiti's population of 10 million. But the U.N. estimate did not take into account existing disease trends, or factors such as where water was contaminated, how the disease is transmitted, or human immunity to cholera, Basu said.

Haiti: Resettlement Continues Despite the Challenges P

Next up in our series of posts from Concern Worldwide is a story on rebuilding efforts in Haiti. Concern US board member Kevin Fortuna reminds us to not forget about the need in Haiti.

We met at JFK airport just after sunrise, the six of us: two staffers from Concern Worldwide (a large international charity), three supporters, and me. We were all a little anxious, having digested both the recommended dosage of anti-malaria drugs as well as the federal security warnings that basically told us not to do what we were about to do.

The flight took less than three hours, about the length of time it takes to get from New York City to Miami. But instead of a first-world American city on the other side of that flight, we stepped off into a place the world has forgotten, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

When we deplaned in Port-au-Prince, we were greeted by an incongruous welcome: a band six-piece band performing a festive tune that sounded like a cross between calypso and salsa music. Though the music was enchanting and, in many ways, a fitting beginning to our trip, reality hit us when we left the airport. We were rushed into a waiting SUV and through the ruins of Haiti’s capital city to the first of many “camps” managed by Concern Worldwide.

This and all but one of the other camps we visited are what development workers call “spontaneous,” meaning they sprang up after the earthquakes in any open space where tents and makeshift structures could be erected on open land—including a private golf course, a soccer field and the grounds of a warehouse and trucking compound. At one camp we saw a medical tent that housed malnourished children and provided a safe space for their mothers to care for them under nurses’ supervision.
At another camp, we spent time in a child-friendly tent where kids were singing songs and learning about hygiene and safe drinking water. At the camp built on a soccer field, all four of the goal posts were incorporated as tent poles by residents of the camp.

This particular camp had seen some unrest and violence and the managing NGO had recruited camp residents to run security patrols near the water station. The threat of violence still hung in the air, and we could see it in the looks the security men exchanged with some adolescents nearby.

What’s remarkable is that there has not been far more violence. Haiti’s population is estimated to be a little more than 10 million people, and almost ten percent of them are jammed into the wreckage of its capital city. The country’s official unemployment rate is 80 percent, but we were told that it’s probably closer to 90 percent.

Haiti’s history has been cursed by unstable and often corrupt governments and an almost total lack of economic progress. Port-au-Prince is not so much a city anymore, but a demolition site. Structures are marked with serial numbers underneath a red, yellow or green dot. Green means that the structure is habitable, yellow means that it’s questionable and red means that it’s marked for demolition. We saw red dots everywhere.

Haiti had precious little hope prior to the earthquake, but now the people of Port-au-Prince face almost unimaginable hardship. No reliable sources of food and water, no permanent places to live, no jobs, and a government that has been slow to respond to a growing crisis. The NGO staffers we met in Haiti are some of the most unselfish and committed people I’ve ever met. The humility and generosity of spirit with which they approach their work is inspiring. But they admit that the main work of their operation is relief, sanitation, healthcare and education. They cannot solve Haiti’s more fundamental problems.

Our trip ended with a tour of Tabare Issa, a camp run by Concern which has quickly become a model for Haiti and the rest of the developing world. The beating heart of the camp is a sophisticated carpentry operation which assembles “transitional shelters” at a breakneck pace under the watchful eye of Concern staffer and civil engineer, Tom Dobbins.

Dobbins and his team recruited and trained a small staff of camp residents who now work efficiently enough to build up to fifteen shelters per day. These attractive wooden structures replace fragile tents, and Dobbins can’t build them fast enough. In stark contrast to the other camps we visited, Tabare Issa is teeming with life and hope. Children played on an adjacent soccer field (instead of using the goal posts as tent poles). Many shelters had private gardens and porches. The camp apparently has a long waiting list of applicants. In Tabare Issa, I saw proof positive of what I’d heard many times from Concern staffers: Haitians want to work, be productive, care for their families and achieve a measure of order and stability.

In America, we don’t hear much about Haiti anymore. Outside of occasional headlines about celebrity involvement from the likes of Sean Penn and Wyclef Jean, America has forgotten our next door neighbor. As we move further along into the New Year it’s a good time to think about our neighbors and reassess our priorities. Why is it that we hear so much about crises in the Middle East and other distant regions, and so little about our neighbor to the south? Children are dying preventable deaths in Haiti every day.

While it’s true that we don’t have an immediate national security interest at stake, surely we have a moral and humanitarian obligation to do more, to make Haiti a bigger part of our national dialog, get involved, to care more, to give more. I’m no exception: I learned about Haiti and traveled there only because I serve as a member of Concern’s U.S. Board of Directors.

Dominic MacSorley, Operations Director of Concern, recently said in a blog post that “Haiti is music.” And music was a hallmark of our trip, whether it was the musical greeting we got at the airport, or church hymns being belted out by an impromptu congregation in front of the ruins of a grand cathedral, or the songs of welcome sung in unison by the children packed into one of our host charity’s child-friendly tents. Music is transcendent; it’s about life and hope and dreams. MacSorley is correct: Haiti is Music. America—and the world—should listen to it.

Risk of cholera still high in rural Haiti

The United Nations has made another appeal for donor countries to contribute to fighting cholera in Haiti. Along with the appeal, the UN gives us an update on the spread of the disease.

The UN says that rural areas of Haiti are still at a high risk of getting cholera. Nationwide, the contamination risk has significantly lowered since its peak of late last year.

From this Associated Press article that we found at Google News, we hear more from the UN on the Haiti's status.

The mixed picture comes from Haitian government figures citing 231,070 reported cases and 4,549 deaths since the epidemic began in October.

National mortality rates from cholera are down to 2 percent, from as high as 9 percent earlier, but in some rural areas, more than one-in-ten people who contract the disease die.

In Haiti's Sud Est region, the mortality rate hit 10.7 percent as of Feb. 9, while in Nippes it was 6.7 percent and in the Grande Anse region, 5.9 percent. The rate should be under 1 percent, according to the World Health Organization.

"It's there (in rural areas) that we absolutely have to strengthen our efforts," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N. humanitarian coordination office. "For that we need money."

The U.N. also is concerned about the possible spread of the disease during Haiti's upcoming Carnival season.

The U.N. has asked for $175 million to deal with Haiti's cholera outbreak, much of which is distributed to local partners and non-governmental organizations to carry out aid work. So far, however, donors have provided only $80 million.

Surveying the many failures in Haiti

A new study from New York's City University spreads around a lot of blame on why Haiti is stuck where it is. The study surveys Haitian sociologists for their opinions on how aid and government failed Haiti. Sociologists say the aid agencies have created an aid dependency cycle. Meanwhile, the government is blamed for policies that helped to bring the collapse of its economy.

From the BBC, writer Mark Doyle unpacks the report for us.

The report says more than a third of people made homeless by the massive earthquake in January 2010, and now living in tents, still do not have access to clean water, and a quarter still do not have a toilet.

This is despite highly-publicised promises of help by aid agencies and foreign governments.
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The report, by New York's City University, is based on a survey by Haitian sociologists. It says aid agencies have failed to address the real causes of the cholera outbreak - including widespread poverty and unemployment that was endemic before last January's earthquake.

"Much more progress needs to be made", says the enquiry; "not only in aid delivery but in coordination".

The new study says the international community and the Haitian government failed to capitalise on the movement of people out of the capital Port au Prince in the immediate aftermath of the quake.
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Aid agencies and the Haitian government should have worked outside Port au Prince, the report says, and "seized the moment to initiate job creation to rebuild rural Haiti's delapidated infrastructure".

"Instead, all the food-for-work and cash-for-work, not to mention aid distribution, was centred in Port au Prince. Predictably… the camps swelled to an estimated 1.7 million people at their peak, making the aid response more difficult".

Preval to remain Haiti's president for another three months

Haiti's president will stay in power for three months while the nation's election mess gets sorted out. The runoff election is scheduled for March 20th. President Rene Preval is very unpopular in Haiti and is blamed for a show of inaction after the earthquake.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Atlanta Journal Constitution, writer David McFadden explains the situation.

Mark Schneider, special adviser on Latin America for the International Crisis Group, said there will likely be "greater stability and more movement on reconstruction with this situation ... than if (Preval) were to name a temporary successor — which would clearly be unconstitutional."

Throughout most of the day, about 50 anti-Preval demonstrators protested outside the quake-destroyed National Palace, blocking traffic with overturned trash bins and burning tires. Hundreds of onlookers watched as protesters hurled rocks and chanted "Preval is a crook!"

"Preval has to go today. Today, Preval is unconstitutional," one man shouted repeatedly along the debris-littered streets.

Haitian police chased after the stone-throwing demonstrators. Patrolmen trained their guns down side streets and dismantled barricades. Heavily armed U.N. peacekeepers massed several blocks away, but the small band of protesters was later dispersed by police.

Elsewhere in Port-au-Prince, markets were bustling with shoppers and the intricately painted group taxis known as "tap-taps" ferried Haitians around. But most schools remained closed, fearing violence.

Preval is deeply unpopular, especially in urban areas, after years of continued poverty and following his perceived inaction in response to the earthquake. Many of those who gawked at the demonstrators agreed they wanted to see the end of Preval's term.

135 Venezuelans being treated for cholera infections from the Dominican Republic

Venezuelans who were in the Dominican Republic for a wedding have brought cholera back home.Venezuelan health officials say they were infected with the Haitian strain of the disease. The Haitian cholera spilled over into the Dominican as the two nations share an island together. 135 Venezuelans are being treated for the disease.

From this AFP article that we found at Google News, we find out more about the spread of cholera from the Haiti.

"At the moment we have not had a single case of someone being contaminated in Venezuela," Health Minister Eugenia Sader told Globovision.

Authorities have said those being treated were part of a group of 452 Venezuelans who traveled to the Dominican Republic for a wedding earlier this month, and Sader said the government has been calling them "one by one."

Besides the cholera patients in Caracas, another 12 Venezuelans infected with the bacteria were still in the Dominican Republic and four others traveled on to Spain, Mexico and the United States.

The government has called on all the guests to report for testing even if they are showing no signs of the diarrheal disease, and has been warning the general public through media advertisements and a hygiene campaign.

Venezuela has had no cholera in a decade, and health officials have emphasized that it is crucial to gain control of the outbreak in the first 24 to 48 hours to prevent the imported bacteria from becoming established here.

Cholera slowing in Haiti, but could surge again this spring

The cholera epidemic in Haiti seems to be slowing. The number of new cases has fallen sharply from the height of the outbreak. Medical professionals warn that there could be another surge in  cholera cases this spring. The rainy season to come could bring flooding of dirty water contaminated with cholera. So far 4,000 people have died of this cholera outbreak.

From this Associated Press article hosted at Google News, we receive an update from Medecins Sans Frontieres doctors working in Haiti.

"The general situation is improving. It's clear," Stefano Zannini, chief of mission for the aid group Doctors Without Borders, said Sunday. "The problem is that the possible development of the epidemic is unpredictable. It is impossible to say whether the situation will continue stabilizing."

Any progress on controlling disease would be rare bit of good news for Haiti, which is passing through a particularly gloomy period. The country is on edge amid a political crisis over a disputed presidential election, and could see more of the violent protests that paralyzed cities and hampered cholera treatment in December. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands are still homeless from last year's earthquake, and a much-reviled former dictator suddenly returned and took up residence in the past week.

Zannini, whose group is contemplating scaling back its more than 40 cholera treatment centers, was unable to muster even cautious optimism regarding the disease. The best he could say was that he was happy new cases and deaths are decreasing to levels not seen since soon after the disease emerged in October.

"I would not be optimistic," he said in an interview with The Associated Press at his Port-au-Prince office.

For the moment, at least, the statistics are moving in the right direction. The number of new cases has dropped to about 4,700 per week, down from more than 12,000 per week in November, and the trend is downward in all 10 of Haiti's departments, or regions, according to the Health Ministry's latest bulletin, released Thursday. The only places it appears to be still rising are in a few isolated spots in the northwest and south.

Some 40 patients a day are still coming to the Doctors Without Borders treatment center in Saint Marc, where the disease first exploded, but that's a third of what it was in December and there hasn't been a death in six weeks, said field coordinator Oscar Sanchez Rey.

"Is this is the end? Nobody really knows, but the situation is better," Sanchez said as he took a break from treating patients, including a family of six that all came down with the disease together. He cautioned that even though fewer people are getting sick, the center's work is still critical: "If no one is treating patients, they are going to die, because it's a lethal disease."

Lilane Estime, 42, tried to sleep on a wooden bench as doctors attended to three of her children. She said all four had piled onto a motorcycle taxi and traveled an hour along a dusty coastal road to reach the clinic. Seemingly healthy, she said she could feel cholera inside her, though she hadn't gotten sick yet.

"If there's a disease going around killing people, you're going to be scared," Estime said.

Video: Former Haitian leader 'Baby Doc' questioned

From Al Jazeera, a video on prosecuting former Haiti dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier on charges of prosecution.