Earthquake

CBS's "60 Minutes" presented a touching and accurate segment on the Lost Children of Haiti on Sunday evening. Prior to the quake it was estimated there were 300,000 'street kids' in Haiti; that number is a lot larger now. The restavek problem is not new, but it's growing. Click HERE to see the segment.

We have collected 981 pounds of tents, that's 69 tents, to date. That's a LOT of tents! They should be able to house over 400 Haitians. Now Jan is spending her time working on the best method of getting them all down there ASAP. American Airlines is the only carrier currently flying into PAP so we will probably depend on Bahamas Habitat to fly them from Nassau directly in to Les Cayes. Flying directly into Cayes is very efficient. It's a beautiful little airport about 15 minutes from Amoce's house.

We continue to learn that food distribution is problematic with most of the aid going directly to Port au Prince and less to outlying areas that were directly affected, some even closer to the epicenter than PAP.  The same is true of tents and tarps.  While tents will not be a good long-term solution, they are necessary for the interim.  We've purchased 58 tents from various vendors on eBay.  Two vendors have been particularly generous with donating extra tents, combining shipping, and reducing prices.

Medical needs in Haiti continue to be a challenge and will continue to be so for a long while. In the near term we were hoping to connect with needs closer to Port Au Prince at the end of this month, but making connections there has proven difficult. In reading other blogs we continue to read about there being a mismatch between where medical personnel are and where they are needed. The coordination efforts are very challenging.