Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Update on Port au Prince - more mixed news

April 20, 2010

by Joan DeFrances

Though the hard work of our school director in Port au Prince, Abner Romelus, we have been able to secure several grants of 300 large (80lb) sacks of rice and gallons of cooking oil on 5 separate occasions. Each sack has been reported to be enough to feed a family for a month. We have used your donations each time to rent a large truck with armed guard to discretely pick up the food and safely deliver it to families in great need. Thank you for your generosity. You can see how your money goes right towards saving lives!

Unfortunately, as expected, the situation in Port au Prince is getting worse as the rainy season begins.

Please see the following excerpt from an email by Sherman Malone to the Haiti Marycare team.


"Abner called today with a report on the fear and confusion in Port au Prince as the government begins to move homeless people out of the makeshift camps which are already flooding. The rain falling now makes it clear that the rainy season has already arrived and will get worse. One of the sad things Abner said is that there seems to be almost no gas in PAP. It's expensive and hard to find.

Some people who have family in the north/northeast do not have money for a ticket or cannot get a place on a bus going to Cap Haitien. Many other families are being evicted from the camps and told that their only option is to go to Cap Haitien and they are put on a bus to go there. They are frightened because they know no one in the north/northeast, have no idea how they will survive in a strange locality, and have heard of no government or international efforts to receive big refugee populations in the north/northeast.

Our work, over our history and especially now in the aftermath of the earthquake, has been extraordinarily quickly responsive, effective and efficient. I believe that has been possible because all along, with Father Dorcin, we have been building the collaborations and grassroots community connections that are necessary to our mission."

No comments:

Post a Comment