In a few days, on January 12th 2012 it will be exactly 2 years since the devastating earthquake hit the island of Haiti. Since then a lot has happened both in Haiti and with our work there. Haiti has seen a huge influx of aid organisations both large and small. Amazing work been done dealing with the direct casualties of the quake, clearing the rubble and rebuilding not only the buildings themselves but also Haiti’s future. We’ve seen excellent medical programmes such as CAMEJO, MediShare the fantastic school building programme by the Foundation Digicel, training & schooling programmes such as Luke Renner and his Caribean Institute of Media Technologies, the ladies from WeAdvance and many, many others.
Grass-roots activism and technology played a larger part in the aid effort in Haiti than anywhere before. One only has to look at the role that social media has played in organising private aid & rebuilding efforts as well as the huge amount of online fundraising. In addition technologies such as Ushahidi and Humanity Roads‘ online network of volunteers have had a significant impact. In addition technology is now being used in education & training programs to allow Haitians to improve their economical & social situation.
However there is still a lot to do; there are still an estimated 500,000 displaced people, the country is being ravaged by cholera (7000+ deaths so far), medical services are still hopelessly under-resourced and that isn’t even considering the abject poverty that already existed before the earthquake. The list is endless…
Our work in Haiti in Haiti has changed also, where we initially went there to support the aid effort we have now moved into the areas of long term rebuilding and improvement. While we first tried to lead we are now following. We listen to the needs of the Haitians and support their efforts rather than vice versa. Our current and future projects are in areas such as training (technology & business skills), public Internet access and similar projects.
However everything costs money and while we at Haiti Connect work hard to keep our overheads to an absolute minimum we still incur costs. In addition to this we need funds to secure the continuity of the programs that we are involved in. So with the 2 year anniversary in sight we have decided to run a new fundraising campaign. For this we have chosen a two-fold approach; as well as encouraging people, organisations and companies to make cash donations via our website or by contacting us directly we are also encouraging the donation of goods or services that we can auction online.
So again we turn to the public for support, we can’t do our work without you support and every donation has a significant impact. So please think about what you’ve just read, browse through our other blog-posts to get a brief impression in the work that we are involved in and make a donation. It’s really *that* make a real change is someone’s life.
Thank you.
