Reposted from Huffington Post.com

$5.3 billion over the next two years. A total of $9.9 billion for three years or more. The amounts pledged to support relief and reconstruction at the March 31 international donors’ conference for Haiti were impressive. So was much of the accompanying rhetoric about recognizing Haitian leadership and empowering the Haitian people. Overall, March 31 was a very good day for Haiti, with one very big caveat: now these pledges and principles have to be translated into concrete, effective, and sustained action.

In the streets and resettlement camps of Port-au-Prince, the promises and rhetoric were greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. Nearly three months after the January 12 quake, the scene remains grim. An impoverished city of three million people–long without adequate building codes, sanitation or waste management–has been reduced to a patchwork of ruins and fetid shanty settlements. As the first torrents of the rainy season pour down and the hurricane season looms, hundreds of thousands of people live in makeshift shelters with little or no access to sanitation, many on slopes where they could be swept away by mudslides, others on patches of low-lying ground that will inevitably become a toxic stew of mud, garbage, and human waste. Children remain out of school and the medical infrastructure of Port-au-Prince lies in ruins.

To understand the skepticism with which Haitians receive even the most generous pledges of support, take a few moments to reflect on the country’s rich history and its people’s hard-earned sense of pride and dignity. Haiti was born of a slave revolt that defeated the three major colonial powers of the day: France, England, and Spain. The idea of a nation of free blacks struck fear not only in the defeated colonial powers but also in the United States, fear that resulted in isolation and political manipulation from the time of Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush. Control of Haiti’s free populace has taken the form of military occupation, externally backed coups and dictatorships, and mountains of debt. Each method assured that the one thing that Haitians fought for–self-determination–would be limited.

What will it take for Haiti to win the struggle for dignity at last?

First, it will take recognition of what it truly means to say that the response to this tragedy must be led by Haitians and must include civil society. Haiti has a democratically elected but impoverished government. If we believe in democracy, if we understand that civil society refers to collective action around shared interests and values, there can be no greater actor in Haitian civil society than the democratic will of the Haitian people. Yet civil society is too commonly construed as anything that is “not government.” The thousands of non-governmental organizations that are active in Haiti, with little or no local participation or presence, should not be equated with civil society. Let Haitian organizations and the Haitian democratic process be the arbiters of aid effectiveness. This could be accomplished by setting up a board to oversee relief that is largely Haitian and representative of the population.

Second, it will take significant, long-term investments. The $9.9 billion pledged on Wednesday was encouraging. But it falls short of the $11.5 billion UN target over the next decade and is dwarfed by the $150 billion that was committed for relief of New Orleans, a city of 200,000 people, after Hurricane Katrina. Moreover, Haitians know from painful experience that money pledged does not mean money delivered. Less than a third of the aid pledged to Haiti after the devastating 2008 hurricanes has ever been disbursed. It is important to develop a long-term relief plan that has, embedded within it, a monitoring and evaluation plan and advocacy strategy to hold the donor community to its promises.

Lastly, steps must be taken to ensure that assistance gets to the most vulnerable. While it is convenient to talk about developing markets as a rebuilding strategy, the trickle-down economics of the last decades have too often resulted in worsening inequality throughout the world, and particularly in Haiti. Former President Bill Clinton recently admitted as much. In an interview, he acknowledged that policies enacted during his administration to open up Haiti’s markets to imports of cheap, subsidized rice from the United States had devastated Haiti’s agricultural economy and domestic food production, contributing to increased hunger and malnutrition. Social protection must be made a top priority as Haiti rebuilds, particularly education and health. These priorities should be driven by the grass roots and supported to increase access to these basic rights.

The challenges are great. The key to surmounting them is the very sense of history and pride that leads the Haitian people to react with skepticism to promises of help and with determination and solidarity to disasters both natural and man-made. This spirit was summed up for me in an exchange with one of my cherished colleagues in Haiti, Dr. Fernet Leandre, during the first days after the earthquake. “This is an apocalypse,” I said as we looked at the death and destruction around us. “Slavery was an apocalypse, too,” he replied. “And we overcame that.”

Dr. Joia Mukherjee is Medical Director of Partners In Health and an Associate Physician in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The following is an article called Time for the Warriors by Wyclef Jean about his work in Haiti, published in Huffingtonpost.com.

In this article, Wyclef touches on the impact of his warriors–people of all backgrounds, doing what they can to help people in need– and his vision for a better future in Haiti through Yele Village:

“I have started developing Yéle Village, which will give hundreds of people jobs, and we’re going to include a school, a substantial food production facility, a medical clinic and an orphanage.”

We would like to spotlight Wyclef’s work as a comprehensive, whole person approach to rebuilding Haiti now with a focus on the future. The nature of his work underscores the effect of friends helping friends as his warriors around the world fight for the lives of people who have no one else to turn to.

His dedication to helping as many people as possible in as many ways as possible resonates with Real Medicine’s own quest to help create a Haiti that is whole again, with every aspect of human life supported and celebrated.

Photo of Claudinette Jean in Port-au-Prince courtisy of Yele.org

Time for the Warriors

Lang Lang is one of my warriors of good. He’s a Chinese pianist who amazes people all over the world. He’s only 27, but he has already been an international goodwill ambassador to the United Nations Children’s Fund (that’s UNICEF) since 2004. I met him when we performed my song “Gunpowder” at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies for my man President Obama.

When the Jan. 12 earthquake devastated Haiti, it reminded him of a similar tragedy that rocked Sichuan Province in China in 2008. We knew we had to raise money for the victims. We’re musicians, but we’re warriors, too. We are fighting for a broken people with our instruments and our voices. Last Sunday night, before a sold-out audience at Carnegie Hall in New York, me and him performed “Gunpowder” again at a benefit concert.

So many innocent people have died in the streets of Port-au-Prince, in the country where I was born. I can’t just sit still. Every day I think of my brothers and sisters who are living in ruins but hoping for brighter days. The concert that night raised $100,000 for UNICEF’s Haiti relief program!

Imagine this: What if an earthquake hit Manhattan and everyone was left homeless in just a few minutes? That only begins to give you an idea of the devastation facing Haiti. The Jan. 12 earthquake left 1.3 million people homeless and took the lives of 230,000 Haitians. Three hundred thousand people were injured.

Port-au-Prince, the capital city, and many nearby villages sit in rubble. The suffering I saw when I got off the plane in Port-au-Prince the day after the quake…well, I can’t think of words to describe it. The bodies of people killed and injured were everywhere, and we were actually pulling people out from the rubble and taking them to makeshift hospitals. More than 50 aftershocks kept pounding Haiti. I can tell you firsthand, some were extremely powerful. It was like the devil couldn’t let go. In a country of 9 million, there isn’t a single person who hasn’t been affected by the quake.

Before that awful event, I already had an organization in place in Haiti. Five years ago I helped start Yéle Haiti, an NGO–nongovernmental organization–that has been dedicated to helping Haitians. I thank God for helping us get that going so long ago, because I literally hit the ground running when I landed in Port-au-Prince.

Haiti is starting to rebuild. So many partners around the world are helping. Since Jan. 12, Yéle Haiti has spent more than $1.3 million in recovery and relief work and has plans to spend nearly $8 million more. We’re shipping containers filled with food, clothes, blankets and medical supplies, and last week my wife, Claudinette, went there with a group of NFL players and took these necessities to thousands of struggling families in places like Gressier and Léogâne, and lots more. In the last two months we’ve prepared and distributed 84,000 hot meals, delivered close to 700,000 gallons of filtered water, built 120 tents for shelter and given out hundreds of food ration kits. Man!!! We also supported Airline Ambassadors in their work to airlift medical and relief supplies to victims.

Yéle is small in terms of paid employees, but we’re so blessed with an army of thousands of volunteers we call the Yéle Corps. They’re my warriors of good, too.

Haiti was already one of the poorest countries in the world before this terrible disaster. Eighty percent of people lived in poverty and most Haitians lived on less than $2 a day. Less than $2! There were shortages of food, fuel and clean water, and many lived in shocking housing conditions before the quake. The rebuilding must come first, but that’s just the beginning. I really want to invest in Haiti’s future so the children can realize a better life.

Here are some words of wisdom. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tse said something very smart: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” That’s what I am going to do in Haiti. I have started developing Yéle Village, which will give hundreds of people jobs, and we’re going to include a school, a substantial food production facility, a medical clinic and an orphanage. We’re airlifting cans of food and ration kits right now to feed the starving, but we’re also building a massive kitchen that will provide jobs and teach people skills. It makes me feel a little better knowing that tens of thousands of poor and hungry Haitians are going to be fed for many years to come.

I believe in my heart that there’s always light after there is darkness. I recently recorded a song dedicated to another one of my good warriors, Jimmy O, who was a talented rapper and was killed during the quake when a building collapsed on his car. Some of the lyrics said, “Hold on be strong, no matter what you’re going through, you know it’s going to be okay, even when the earth quakes.”

I ask my brothers and sisters in Haiti to hold on. Together with a world of other good warriors, we will build a better Haiti.

Project Timeline: Major Events in Weeks Following Earthquake:

➢    Week Two (Jan 18th): Real Medicine arrives on the scene in the Dominican Republic’s Haitian border and performs needs assessments at the following border hospitals in Jimaní:
o    Good Samaritan Hospital
o    Melenciano Hospital

Both facilities began receiving patients immediately after the earthquake and grew to become hubs for Advanced Surgery and Intensive Care procedures.
➢    Week Two (Jan 18th): RMF procures and delivers a shipment of over 3,500lbs in medical supplies and equipment, flown into Barahona, Dominican Republic, in support of efforts at:
o    Trauma Units at both Jimaní hospitals
o    An ICU for critically-injured children at the Barahona Medical Clinic.

➢    Week Three (Jan 26th): Tapping into its network of physicians, Real Medicine:
o    Provided the first pediatrician in the Barahona area.
o    Helped staff and coordinate a mobile outreach field clinic for several hundred patients at remote villages on the Haiti/ Dominican Republic border.

RMF remains positioned to continue to support volunteer deployments for these border hospitals and clinics.

➢    Week Three (Jan 27th): In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, RMF teams visit the main community hospitals still in operation after the initial destruction (including L’Hôpital de la Communauté Haïtienne in Pétion-Ville, and General Hospital, located at the earthquake’s epicenter) to determine their staffing and supply needs and gather information on the initial relief effort, comprised mostly of ongoing search & rescue, recovery of bodies, debris clearing and food distribution.
o    RMF identifies over 20,000 refugees in 11 camps throughout Port-au-Prince who had yet to receive food and water since the earthquake.
o    RMF is able to place all 11 communities on the WFP/UNICEF master food and water distribution lists to ensure that these displaced communities receive support.
o    RMF meets with the director of the WHO Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) to assist with staffing deployment at the highest in country organizational level.

➢   Week Four (Feb 3rd): In addition to establishing collaborations with the UN aid organizations, RMF works in conjunction with the Provision Foundation (out of Knoxville, TN) to identify multiple permanent clinic sites in both rural and urban locations in Port-au-Prince.
o    In less than 2 days and with the support of over 40 community members, including carpenters, welders, electricians, plumbers and medical teams from Real Medicine and Provision, RMF establishes the first fully functioning, free Primary Healthcare Clinic in this region. Located in Pernier, Port-au-Prince, this clinic brings primary health access to more than 15,000 local Haitians.
o    Clinic is comprised of:
•     4 examination rooms, including: pediatrics, internal medicine, minor surgery, & obstetrics/gynecology (including deliveries and day beds)
•    Triage Room
•    Laboratory for basic testing & diagnosis services
•    Pharmacy
•    1 dedicated room for rehabilitation, physical therapy and prosthesis outreach service
o    Currently, 150-200 patients are seen per day.

➢    Week Four (Feb 4th): One day later, we opened a second clinic in downtown Port-au-Prince, in close proximity to the epicenter. The clinic building is the only house standing in the area.

➢    Week Five (Feb 8th): The Pernier Clinic transforms into a food distribution center for food supplies donated through an Arabian Philanthropist.  News spreads, and over 1,000 people line up in the early morning to receive rations. Although emotions were high, 5 Jordanian UN Peacekeepers and church leaders from the local community ensure that the day runs smoothly.  Food is provided to over 2,500 people.

➢    Week Five (Feb 15th): RMF officially forms a partnership with CDTI Sacred Heart Hospital (Hôpital Sacré Coeur) near the epicenter in Port-au-Prince. Through another partner, Direct Relief International, Real Medicine establishes a monthly procurement of medications and supplies for Sacred Heart & Pernier Clinic.
o    The initial DRI contribution comprises more than $230K in pharmaceuticals & medical supplies, including antibiotics and hypertension medications, Pedialyte children’s rehydration drinks, adult electrolyte supplements, IV stands, sterile water and other materials that have proven vital to ongoing services at the Pernier Clinic and Sacred Heart Hospital.
o    Real Medicine signs an agreement to continue to support Sacred Heart Hospital & the Pernier Clinic with medical supplies, pharmaceuticals & medical personnel over the long-term.

➢    Week Five (Feb 18th): RMF establishes a relationship with Quisqueya Christian School’s Coordination Center in Delmas, Port-au-Prince to coordinate the ongoing procurement of medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and international medical personnel for Pernier Clinic and Sacred Heart Hospital.  The result is the regular fulfillment of all support needs each week on a proactive basis.
o    RMF deploys a licensed and highly-trained physical therapist to Sacred Heart Hospital to manage the physical therapy needs of SH’s population of 72 in-house patients (including about 30 amputees) and ongoing daily flow of walk-in patients (about 150 per day).  Therapist goes on to train local Haitian volunteers to perform therapy sessions, while providing physical rehabilitation, prosthetic-fitting & basic counseling services.
o    RMF secures a local Haitian OB/Gyn once a week for the Pernier Clinic’s maternal health program.
o    RMF deploys a team of 5 ER nurses and 1 nurse practitioner to Sacred Heart to assist ongoing Intensive Care & Treatment Services.
o    RMF deploys a team of 3 Stanford physicians to the Pernier Clinic and Sacred Heart over a one-week placement, including 1 pediatrician, 1 surgeon and 1 general practice physician.

➢    Week Six (Feb 25th): Patient data management advisory & support:
o    RMF assists in the creation n of a patient file-management system for Pernier Clinic, to enable patient tracking & referral for ongoing follow-up treatment.
o    Real Medicine identifies a Stanford University-based public health program offering patient tracking modules and inclusion within a global health data network.  Continuing to work on implementation for improved patient referral capacity, oversight and hospital advocacy.

Long-Term Strategy:

➢   Primary Health Clinics: RMF has identified 15 site placements for future primary health clinics, and is working through local partners, including Medishare, PIH and others, to identify supplies & materials sourcing providers, local Haitian staffing and local referral facility networks.

o    RMF has completed a comprehensive assessment of primary healthcare clinic placements throughout the country, with stress being placed on over-strained regions of high IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) populations.
o    Real Medicine has identified local medical officers to oversee the establishment of clinics throughout Haiti.
o    RMF is working through the local partner, Acra, and other suppliers to facilitate supplies procurement for new clinics.
o    RMF has formed a standard set of supplies and pharmaceuticals needs per clinic, customized for Haitian primary health needs.

➢    Mobile Clinics: As part of Real Medicine Foundation’s longer term strategy, RMF has submitted proposals for a fleet of 6 mobile clinics to be deployed throughout Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas based upon our own successful model implemented in Mozambique and lessons learned on the ground in Haiti.

o    RMF has completed an assessment of public health needs for major departments in Haiti, concluding with a comprehensive plan for Mobile Clinic deployments throughout the country to support resettlement of Internally-Displaced Populations.
o    US Contractor has been identified & is awaiting order placements.
o    Shipping contractor has been identified & priced.
o    Real Medicine has identified potential staffing through local medical schools, Medishare and Sacred Heart’s network of local medical professionals.

➢    Rehabilitation Program: Real Medicine has completed plans to setup at least 4 rehabilitation programs to be based initially out of the Port-au-Prince primary health clinics.  These programs will initially be run by US-trained therapists with the intention of training & employing Haitians over the longer-term.  It will offer two main components:

o    Physical Therapy provision – the establishment of intensive 2-week programs tailored by a US specialist to fit the specific needs of the individual patient.
o    Training and Internship Program – the Rehabilitation programs will each offer two-part classroom training and work-intensive internships to 2 Haitians per every 3 months to support long-term job creation for locally-sourced staffing at the clinics.

➢    Referral Hospital Support: Real Medicine has formulated plans to support equipment replacement and upgrades, local staffing and longer-term hospital expansion efforts for Sacred Heart Hospital, with the potential to expand these services to other referral hospitals in the region.  Specific components of support:

o    Imaging equipment replacement & upgrades.
o    Laboratory equipment upgrade.
o    Operational support for local Haitian staffing.
o    30-Bed Public Wing construction and staffing (longer-term).

Today in New York the UN meet to discuss their plan to not just rebuild Haiti, but to make it better than it was before–to lift Haiti out of poverty once and for all:

“It is a plan to create a new Haiti. A Haiti where the majority of people no longer live in deep poverty, where they can go to school and enjoy better health, where they have better options than going without jobs or leaving the country all together.”

But on the ground the people of Haiti have little reason to trust international follow through. After years of failed policy with little long term effect, Haitians fear these new pledges might be more of the same.

Below are articles addressing Haiti recovery and local fears of being forgotten again.

Certainly, there will always be room for doubt when it comes to matters of this magnitude. This is an incredible challenge and we will have to work together to meet it.

Help us keep our promise. Learn more: RMF Haiti.

BBC.com

The international community has pledged $5.3bn (£3.5bn) in aid to earthquake-hit Haiti at a UN donor conference.

The amount – to be spread out over the next two years – exceeds the $4bn requested by the Haitian government to rebuild infrastructure.

In total, donors pledged $9.9bn for the next three years and beyond, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said in New York.

“This is the down-payment Haiti needs for wholesale national renewal,” Mr Ban said.

The aim of the conference was to help the country “build back better” after the 12 January earthquake killed 200,000 people and left one million more homeless.

Accountability

The biggest contributions came from the United States and the European Union, but more than 130 countries, as well as key international financial institutions, took part in the conference.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, co-hosting the conference with Mr Ban, offered $1.15bn.

The EU meanwhile pledged an additional $1.7bn for food and to support the rebuilding of Haitian President Rene Preval’s government.

International aid will be used to build hospitals, schools and government buildings, create jobs, and reform Haiti’s key farming sector.

Mr Ban said a “robust” internet-based tracking system run by the UN would be used to “ensure accountability and transparency” of the aid distribution.

A commission co-chaired by President Preval and former US President Bill Clinton is supposed to ensure that the aid is well coordinated and well spent.

It is an attempt to let Haiti’s government set the priorities for reconstruction while responding to donor concerns about its reputation for corruption, says the BBC’s Barbara Plett at the United Nations.

Delegates repeatedly stressed that the only way to product real and lasting results for Haitians was to strengthen and work with the government, not around it, as has been the case in the past, our correspondent adds.

Three-stage plan

The Haitian government and international officials have spent weeks putting together a plan for the country.

The first part of the plan is an 18-month project focusing on rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, government buildings, hospitals and schools – which is expected to cost almost $4bn.

Officials estimate that a total of $11.5bn in aid will be needed for long-term reconstruction, which will involve strengthening institutions and refocusing the economy.

Earlier in the conference, Mr Ban urged donor nations not to forget a separate appeal for $1.44bn for food aid and shelter launched by the UN last month. He said just half had so far been pledged.

Aid agencies have warned that thousands are vulnerable to April rains and the hurricane season in June.

The country was already the poorest country in the Western hemisphere before the 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck.

Unemployment and illiteracy were high among its nine million population, with about 80% living on less than $2 a day.

Both Haiti’s government and donors are insisting that a strategy of decentralisation is at the heart of the reconstruction plan. They aim to increase development in parts of the country that are less vulnerable to natural disasters than the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The capital’s population more than tripled to 2.5 million in the three decades before the quake.

Officials also hope to develop a rural agricultural strategy that would enable Haiti to become more self-sufficient. Haiti is dependent on food imports, yet about 80% of the population works in agriculture.

Haitians skeptical of foreign aid (video)

International donors have pledged $9.9bn to rebuild earthquake-devastated Haiti, going “far beyond expectations”, the UN secretary general said.

Bank Ki-moon said at the end of a day-long donor conference at UN headquarters in New York City on Wednesday, that the international community had come together “dramatically and in solidarity with the Haitian people” to help them recover from the January 12 earthquake.

His co-chair at the conference, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, called the pledges “an impressive sum by any standard”.

But Ban also cautioned that “we need now to deliver”.

Caution

International aid agency Oxfam said although the amount pledged was impressive, countries must ensure the funds were new, “not recycled money taken from other humanitarian crises”.

“The poor and vulnerable of other disasters should not be paying for this,” Philippe Mathieu, a spokesman for Oxfam, said.

It was not immediately clear if all the pledges involved new money, as some delegates appeared to be describing existing aid projects.

Ban had previously called for quick donations in response to a UN request for $1.4bn in immediate humanitarian assistance for Haiti, which even before the January 12 earthquake was the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

So far, that request has only been half funded, fuelling fears that the rainy season will compound the disaster for some the 1.2 million Haitians left homeless by the disaster.

But on Wednesday Ban was optimistic, saying the pledges at the conference were “the down payment Haiti needs for wholesale national renewal. It is the way to build back better”.

The EU, promising $1.6bn, and the US with $1.15bn, led 50 countries in pledging $5.3bn for the first two years of reconstruction.

That was substantially more than the $3.8bn the Haitian government had sought for that period.

But the remaining $4.6bn pledged for beyond the two-year mark – bringing the total amount to $9.9bn - fell short of the $11.5bn total package that Haiti’s government had wanted to rebuild what was destroyed by the quake but also to decentralise the economy to create jobs and wealth outside Port-au-Prince.

Still, Rene Preval, Haiti’s president, thanked donors for the “heartfelt effort that demonstrates that Haiti is not on its own” and said his country “must take advantage of this opportunity that we now have”.

“I appeal to my fellow Haitians to understand the effort that has now been made by the international community and the responsibility that we now have in the interests of our country to respond rapidly and appropriately,” he said.

Preval had asked donors to focus on education and help the country’s nine million people provide for their own future.

And Clinton echoed that call, saying: “Aid is important but aid has never saved a country. Our goal must be the empowerment of the Haitian people – they’re the ones who will carry on the work of rebuilding Haiti long after our involvement has ended.”

Call for transparency

Clinton also stressed that Haiti’s leaders must guide “a transparent recovery”, adding that the international community must change its past practice of working around the government and ensure that it is working with the government.

Haiti’s government has detailed its plans for the money in a 55-page rebuilding plan, at the core of which is the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, which will be co-chaired by Clinton’s husband, Bill, the former US president, and Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti’s prime minister.

The commission’s two-dozen members will be tasked with co-ordinating and paying out the aid money expected to flow in, a key mechanism to allay donor concerns over Haiti’s history of official corruption and political unrest, and assure them that the money will go where it is intended.

The magnitude-7 earthquake destroyed the government and commercial centre of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince and killed between 217,000 and 300,000 people, according to government estimates.

An estimated 1.2 million people were also made homeless, many of whom continue to live in tents and under makeshift shelter.

The following article re-posted from liveshot.blogs.foxnews.com illustrates how non-profits faced with dwindling funds and daunting emotional needs are forced to find creative ways of keeping their promises to the people depending on them.

Haiti out of Sight, Not out of Mind

by: Jonathan Serrie

While the earthquake in Haiti may have faded from the headlines, international relief organizations continue their work — often finding creative ways to overcome shrinking funds and difficult logistics.

“So many people have forgotten about Haiti, and we’re still going,” said Christina Porter, program director for Childspring International.

The small, faith-based medical charity continues to rely on a scrappy network of small aircraft pilots to deliver relief supplies to remote areas of Haiti (see my related blog). But for areas with accessible ports, Childspring has turned to an unusual method of delivering supplies in bulk: a two-masted sailing ship.

As I write this blog, the schooner Halie & Matthew is en route to Haiti with nearly 45 thousand pounds of food and medical equipment on board.

Capt. Jared Talarski, who has already delivered 10 thousand pounds of relief supplies to Haiti for other non-profits aboard the schooner Liberty, said he decided to charter the larger vessel after its owners agreed to rent out the Halie & Matthew at a nominal cost to cover dock fees, food and other basic expenses.

The delivery of supplies is far from the only challenge for relief workers in Haiti. There is also the human element and raw emotions.

Atlanta plastic surgeon Alan Larsen, who volunteered in Haiti last month, choked up as he described treating Roovens Monchil, an 11-year-old earthquake victim whose crushed leg had become seriously infected.

“Even though he had a big problem — and his problem was huge — when I brought him crayons and paper, he just had this incredible big smile,” Larsen said.

Holly Frew, communications manager for MedShare, an Atlanta-based non-profit, shot the video that appears at the bottom of this blog as the young boy was loaded into the back of an SUV and eventually transferred to the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship.

Frew and Larsen lost contact with the boy. They say US privacy rules and military protocols made it difficult to get information on his status.

But shortly after Frew and Larsen returned home, they discovered Roovens had been transfered to a nearby hospital, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite. Local station WAGA (FOX5) covered their happy reunion (click here to watch).

“It was really wonderful,” Larsen said. “I walked in the room and almost didn’t even believe it was him. His leg was completely closed and he was sitting up in bed. There was a walker on the side of the bed. So, obviously he was learning to walk again and his dad was at his side. I never saw his dad leave his side.”

By Adam Clark Estes Editor of citizen journalism at the Huffington Post.

Haiti is still there. Shattered, starving and suffering, the Haitian people endure despite the media’s most recent retreat in coverage. And slowly, a rebuilt nation is rising from the rubble.

During the next ten weeks, members of the Huffington Post Citizen Reporting unit will chronicle these efforts on this blog. The team includes relief workers both on the ground in Haiti, members of international support teams like UNICEF and Oxfam as well as supporters dispatching help from their hometowns across the country.

It was ten weeks ago to the day that a 7.0 magnitude earthquake claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 people in the Caribbean nation. In the days following the initial quake — aftershocks continued for weeks — over a million people were left homeless and hundreds of thousands needed medical treatment. During those days, stories of tragedy and heroism in Haiti blanketed cable news coverage and newspaper front pages. Celebrity anchors like Sanjay Gupta and Anderson Cooper rushed to Port-au-Prince to dive into recovery efforts. At one point, the latter even stole the stage by pulling a blood-covered child out of harm’s way while filming on location.

But as Cooper himself feared, the cameras retreated and the reporters returned home. Many journalists moved on to fresher topics.

President Barack Obama meant it when he warned of challenges to come in Haiti. During a visit with Haitian President René Préval on March 10, Obama said:

The situation in Haiti is dire. People should be under no illusions that the crisis is over. Many Haitians are still in need — desperate need in some cases — of shelter and food and medicine. And with the spring rains approaching those needs will only grow. The challenge now is to prevent a second disaster.

Late last week, one of those spring rains hit and flash floods swept away screaming residents of at least one tent city. More than 1.3 million Haitians remain displaced and in the path of nature’s fury in the immediate future.

Meanwhile there are reports of widespread rape and abuse, especially amongst children, in camps for the displaced victims. According to a March 16 AP article:

Sex-for-food is not uncommon in the camps, said a report issued Tuesday by the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development in Haiti. “In particular, young girls have to negotiate sexually in order to get shelter from the rains and access to food aid.”

Based on reports by Huffington Post citizen reporters, horrifying stories like this are too ubiquitous to ignore. Though the media has left the island, these relief workers will be sending back daily dispatches from the ground. Those who have been to Haiti since the quake will also blog about the general recovery effort and offer reflections on how the process could be improved and how the rest of the world can help.

It’s now been two months since the Haitian government called off the official search for survivors. But those who did survive will remain in danger for weeks and months to come.

If you’re in Haiti, have been, or will go, send us tips and ground reports. If you’re a blogger and would like to join the team, sign up below.

Learn about RMF Haiti

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