Haiti’s hardship helped by local charities

As news of Haiti’s earthquake slips from the headlines, area relief organizations are continuing to help the country in its lengthy recovery process. Although Port-au-Prince was hit hardest by the earthquake, one area charity with longstanding ties is busy helping the western part of the country with a flood of refugees fleeing the capitol city.

Haiti Mission Inc., a small charity organization founded by members of St. Bridget’s Church in Schriever, has been working in the western Haitian town of Jeremie for nearly 10 years to improve infrastructure and education.

Those efforts proved prescient as the town’s population more than doubled in the wake of the earthquake. While aid workers are still focused on getting food and water to people in Port-au-Prince’s outlying mountain regions, those who have made it to family and friends in Jeremie will benefit from the mission’s work.

What started as a project to bring potable water to a remote village six miles outside of Jeremie has transformed into an organization that drills wells, breeds and distributes livestock and funds three different schools.

“Our goal is to help economic development, to do whatever it takes to help these people get on their feet. That’s been our focus since the very beginning,” said Lloyd Duplantis, the mission’s director and the owner of Lloyd’s Remedies, a pharmacy in Gray.

“We’re trying to help do what we can to bring in more agricultural products, and continue our home building and school building projects to support those efforts,” said Duplantis.

After a spate of recent successes, Haiti Mission Inc. is hoping to take on an even more ambitious project: dredging the silted-in port of Jeremie. At its current level, only small boats can navigate the shallow port.

Ongoing relief efforts in Haiti have been hobbled by a lack of port infrastructure. Port-au-Prince, the country’s only major port, was heavily damaged during the earthquake, forcing aid organizations to use ports in the Dominican Republic. The Colombian Red Cross has even transported aid items from larger vessels to smaller boats and then unloaded them on a beach.

“Its is a centralized system, and that’s kind of an Achilles’ heel at this time since Port-au-Prince was what was destroyed. And so the availability of another port would be very helpful, and we’re trying to discern whether we can practically achieve that,” said Duplantis.

Although the dredging could not be achieved in time to have an impact on current relief efforts, it could be critical in future crises and revitalize the economy of Haiti’s western reaches.

“I think any sort of improvement that can be made to the port system would definitely be a help, as people are trying to find different ways to get the supplies that have been collected into Haiti and the people that need it,” said Kay Watkins, CEO of the Southeast Louisiana Chapter of the American Red Cross.

The Red Cross is eventually looking toward reconstruction efforts and helping distant towns cope with population increases, but the current situation is so dire they’re just trying to make sure people have basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter.

“Right now, what we’re doing is trying to put some sort of order and organization to shelter so when we put those shelters in the different clusters or camps, they can sustain families for one or two years. We’re looking at sheltering people for about that long,” said Watkins. “You have to rebuild from the bottom. There’s nothing to build on.”

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux is also continuing their efforts to fundraise for their partner in Haiti, Catholic Relief Services. The dioceses collected about $175,000 during a special collection the weekend after the earthquake, and donations have continued to trickle into their relief fund.

“CRS has been in Haiti for 50 years, and they’re definitely there for the long haul. At this point, they are starting to look at moving forward and rebuilding, but I think it’s going to take years to rebuild,” said the diocese’s Associate Director for Social Ministry, Katherine Anderson.

Haiti has long been renowned as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, and as such, already had several relief organizations on the ground when the earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince. Although relief work and evacuees have been held back by a lack of infrastructure, without previous efforts from aid organizations, an already desperate situation could have been even worse

Despite seeming small and far removed from Port-au-Prince, efforts like Duplantis’ mission can prove to be serendipitous in times of need.

“There’s been a general exodus of people to the west and south to get away from Port-au-Prince, and all the water wells we’ve drilled and buildings we’ve built have really served as help and support for all of the tremendous evacuees and refugees that are going out there.”

A young Haitian girl receives drinking water from a Red Cross delivery truck. Humanitarian efforts continue across the earthquake-stricken region. * Photo courtesy of AMERICAN RED CROSS / Talia Frenkel

Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross