January 19, 2010
Dear Friends of the Community Foundation:
Many of you have contacted us to voice your concerns about the devastation following last week's major earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti, and to inquire what we know about how best to direct relief donations. If you have already given, thank you. If you are interested in more information, please read on.
We have organized these suggestions into two categories: first and second responders. First responders are the groups that mobilize immediately to provide food, water, shelter, rescue efforts and medical care to those injured or displaced by the disaster. A second responder is a more long-term partner, one who might work on long-term food sources, safe water projects, school or hospital rebuilding and housing needs.
If you are motivated to give, please consider doing so in one of the following ways:
Feel free, of course, to make a direct donation. Websites have been included with links so that you may look and give directly. If you'd like to give through The Community Foundation, please send a donation (check or credit card). We will redirect your requests without taking any fees.
FIRST RESPONDER SUGGESTIONS:
Partners in Health (www.pih.org): PIH has been working on the ground in Haiti for over 20 years. They urgently need support to help those affected by the recent earthquake. Partners In Health (PIH) works to bring modern medical care to poor communities in nine countries around the world. The work of PIH has three goals: to care for patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease in their communities, and to share lessons learned around the world. Based in Boston, PIH employs more than 11,000 people worldwide, including doctors, nurses and community health workers. The vast majority of PIH staff are local nationals based in the communities served.
Doctors Without Borders (www.doctorswithoutborders.org): Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization working in more than 60 countries to assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe. Teams in Port-au-Prince are still under great pressure. While providing emergency care to as many people as possible, they are also searching for additional facilities that can serve as operating theaters and trying to get in more supplies. At the same time, MSF has been travelling to areas outside of the city and is about to extend the medical care to the people there. MSF has given primary care to an estimated 3,000 people in the capital and performed more than 400 surgeries. The most common and most serious injuries are open fractures, head injuries and infected wounds that need amputation.
CARE (www.care.org): CARE has nearly 140 staff on the ground distributing water packets, food and more aid in Haiti right now. Based on preliminary estimates, CARE has established the Haiti Emergency Response Fund, with a goal of raising $10 million to support our multi-year response to provide immediate relief and longer-term rehabilitation. Your gift will help them address the needs of the survivors of this unprecedented disaster.
American Red Cross (www.redcross.org): Red Cross teams from around the world spent the weekend coordinating and delivering clean drinking water to survivors gathering in six different communities as well as hospitals and makeshift medical facilities. In the days ahead, the Red Cross will begin to provide supplies for temporary shelters in Haiti. Kits, containing tarps, rope and tools, as well as tents and blankets, will be made available for an initial 20,000 families.
UNICEF (www.unicef.org): UNICEF efforts to assist with life-saving and recovery operations in Haiti will focus on providing clean water and sanitation, therapeutic food for infants and small children, medical supplies and temporary shelter and protection. Children make up some 50 per cent of the Haitian population.
World Vision (www.worldvision.org): World Vision began distributions of clothes, hygiene kits, dried biscuits, and bottled water to 750 homeless families in Canape Vert and Petionville in Port-au-Prince over the weekend. The distributions were made at a car-wreckers yard in Petionville and in a disused lot in Canape Vert where the homeless had camped out. Some slept under roughly erected tarpaulins, others under the stars.
SECOND RESPONDERS:
Colorado Haiti Project (www.coloradohaitiproject.org): This Louisville-based group was founded in 1989 to extend aid to the poorest of the poor in a rural area called Petit Trou de Nippes, about 80 miles west of Port-au-Prince. CHP is supported entirely by donations from private individuals, foundations, and over 40 Episcopal churches in Colorado. The primary mission is to help provide education, vocational training, health care, nutrition and clean water within the mission setting.
Executive Director Paul Casey asked The Community Foundation to share this appeal: "We have had an accelerated workload due to the response from people who want to get involved. Yet, we cannot adequately respond with only the director and one half-time admin person."
While the Colorado Haiti Project 's principal mission is not to do relief work (they were established to do community building) they do have 53 people on the ground now in Haitii who are trusted and able to act quickly as immediate responders. Paul's request for administrative support is to handle the volunteers and donations they have received but need administrative support to coordinate. Paul told us, "Although we have seen a wonderful out flowing of generosity from the community, this is support that is intended for relief and we honor the donors' intentions by sending the entire amount of these gifts in material aid to Haiti. The result of the increased need for administrative attention to these gifts and the many other queries have placed a serious strain on our own resources.
If you choose to make a donation, and would like to support the additional infrastructure requested, please be sure to earmark your gift for "ADMIN."
The Lambi Fund of Haiti (www.lambifund.org): is similar to a community foundation and is located in Haiti. It is doing second responder work to help communities rebuild, including plans to address the following:
- A tremendous outmigration from Port au Prince back to the rural villages has already begun. Lambi Fund is gearing up to help members of peasant groups get food and essentials for their families to re-establish their lives.
- Provide seeds, tools and equipment for peasant groups to plant more crops to feed local communities.
- Rebuild grain mills, sugar cane mills, and other economic development community enterprises lost in the earthquake. These buildings are the centers of communities' economic livelihoods.
- Recapitalize micro-credit funds run by peasant organizations so that people can replenish and continue their small businesses.
- Repair rainwater cisterns so people will have a supply of safe drinking water.
- Plant trees critically needed to stabilize topsoil and prevent mudslides.
OTHER LOCAL EVENTS AND PROJECTS:
Lament for Haiti Benefit Concert
Saturday, January 23 at 4 p.m.
St. Aiden's Episcopal Church, 2425 Colorado Ave., Boulder
All donations will be put toward a $75,000 matching grant from the Anschutz Foundation through the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti.
Whether or not you choose to respond, we want to thank you for all of your care and concern about our global community. It is a privilege to count as our supporters such generous and informed global citizens. If you have any additional questions, please be in touch with any of the following staff at The Community Foundation: 303-442-0436 or by email:
Josie Heath
Margaret Katz
Chris Barge
Colleen Conant
Sincerely,
Josie Heath, President
