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I'm headed down to the Santo Domingo border tomorrow, then into Haiti on Monday, so my blog updates may be more Reposts, and critical updates than original reporting thru the weekend.
I'll be tracking three main topics while in Haiti, and working to help orphanages and orphan care providers by assessing needs and networking and I supposed, screaming with them, to get help to the vulnerable children.
Photo credit: CNN
Topics are:
Overall Plan for Resettlement: Who, What, Where, etc.. Logistics update, with a focus on medical urgencies/delivery.
Orphans and Missing Children: The shifting plan to process, put into safety, and help orphanages to put children into appropriate transitional care. Within this, the vulnerability of girls is on my mind - I'll be talking to officials, see what can be done.
Women's Health Needs: There's a growing critical need to set up focused prenatal and maternal care for pregnant women and for women's health needs.
One idea I shared earlier today with the Corbett listserve today was for women's health advocates to set up a base of operations at the about-to-open (on Monday) Feminist Solidarity Camp on DR Border side.
This could be a centralized way to allows vol. individuals and professionals to gather, quickly organize, create medic and trauma and other support service teams of secondary providers, and set up temporary women's clinics and care where it's most needed.
They can also link there with the women's media teams there to advocate for needs and voices of women as this relief effort grows. A day time broadcast / update would also be great. (any of you indie media people reading this out there, take note.) Internews is on the ground, along with Reporters without Borders -- setting up a media center for Haitian journalists. Let's keep the women's voices central to the important conversations about responding, rebuilding, revisioning Haiti.
Re How to Build NOW: The main idea that keeps coming to my mind is Twinning: Creating mini-structures with existing local NGOs in communities, using a survey process to establish key contacts and outside groups with skills to help them rebuild. A nationwide twinning system, with global linkage to the myriad providers, donors, resources, ideas that are arriving. We need to get this organized, avoid duplication, support transparency..
It's not a pie-in-the-sky idea. It works and it especially works to channel resources by allowing groups to choose who they want to work with, to allow an organic process of help to take place -- within an overall schema that is organized and transparent.
A large-scale civil society and even governmental twinning effort, across sectors and at all levels,could really go far. It would help training and resources to arrive in tandem, and would keep the effort rooted in local solutions, create jobs locally, and allow for some accountability, so that Haitians in communities would remain in charge of the agenda, rebuilding with an acute awareness of the most immediate needs of their local clients.
Yes it would take central organization. But it could be done with the existing Internet software for large-scale social networking, and decentralized planning. Any high-level planners in charge of GOH, Clinton, State who want to explore more, please contact me. Plus all of you plebeian first responders and folks with great ideas and experience, of course....
I'm going to pitch this at the Women's Solidarity Camp for Women's NGOs and Leaders, and similarly to the Orphan First Responders. It in no way competes with the larger military and government efforts to create a camp, etc..
but it does allow for immediate, medium and longer-term support to be given in a way that outsiders don't impose the agenda, or fly in-fly out, but that it's a critical exchange that allows Haiti to restore leadership, support leaders, and for a massively decentralized, but organized with a centralized focus, model of rebuilding. It will take sector coordination, but it keeps an important share of control, resources and overall vision in the hands of local Haitians at local levels, while allowing government to do what it must.
Just a (okay, big) thought I wanted to share with Haiti watchers....Let me know what YOU think. Comments welcome. Share it.
I also believe, more strongly than ever, that a Craigs-list type bulletin board, with multi language translation and SMS text access would be ideal for the massive exchange of HELP that is already coming, but is all over the place, as is normal.
By grouping this huge problem and possible sharing of solutions into Service Sectors and Categories, a la Craigslist, we again rely on the global community to speak, and Haitians to have direct access to resoruces, vs. having higher-level gatekeepers. Plus it allows for great transparency to allow donors and possible RFPs to be visible and have many people bid for contracts that are already being offered - -but to those in the know.
Calling Craig Newmark (which I'll do today).. or any of you other High End Tekkies.. Some asked why not Ushahidi? My friends there are amazing, and I've been engaged in the Haiti platform, feeding and sharing ideas to make it as effective as it can be for crisis monitoring. But the folks there are tapped out, and can't add Services or a Global bulletin board now.
The www.haitivolunteers.com list is great, but it's a downward scroll and hard to see what came a few days before -- just a different organizing system -- and not set up to track if the need was met or service offered. I feel strongly that the platform of a Craigslist is the way to go - mobile, interactive, citizen-drive, public, with the usual protections against scammers.
Que pensez vous tous? Eske ou kap we sa?
NEWS Jan 22: Top Headlines --
Now for the CNN's recent headlines. I'm only posting those that are most relevant to the topics I'm focused on. - with comments added.
The big news, meantime, is the Plan in the Works: creation of a huge camp along the DR Border to house up to 100,000 people, and the parallel search for shelter within D Rep for 10,000 patients.
The camp news I'll update you on, but do want to note there is already much active grumbling within some Dom Rep groups. They have 'concerns' -- okay, they're frankly opposed - to such a large migration of Haitians into their country.
My thoughts: some legitimate concerns (impact of migration, etc.. but also a historic tension, and underlying racism within the responses of those opposed: they have zero interest in destitute, homeless immigrants), and a rather unfortunate expression -- one that is at odds with the actual ACTION of a great majority of Dominicans who have poured their hearts and pockets out to help in this quake. So many have lined up to give blood, every other day, for Haitians: what more symbolic image of how much they care ie. giving of their own bodies and energy?
Headlines then:
(CNN) -- Friday, January 22
1:39 p.m. -- The international aid organization Partners in Health reports it has 24 operating rooms established and working 24 hours a day in Haiti. More than 140 surgeons, nurses, anesthetists and other specialists were involved in the organization's quake relief effort, it said.
1:20 p.m. -- CNN's Ivan Watson speaks to a fisherman in Petit Paradis, Haiti, who describes a tsunami from the 7.0-magnitude earthquake more than 12 feet high. The water swept away his father and at least three other people in the fishing village, the fisherman tells Watson.
12:24 p.m. -- As of Thursday evening more than $355 million in donations had been raised for relief efforts, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations. The estimate is based on a survey of 35 charities contributing the largest amounts of money to Haiti.
11:57 a.m. -- Corporate donations to Haiti earthquake relief have surpassed $100 million, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Business Civic Leadership Center. The center reports the $106 million donated so far is the fifth-largest corporate response to a natural disaster ever, trailing only hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and earthquakes in Kashmir (2005) and China (2008).
10:18 a.m. -- The International Organization for Migration reports that as of Friday 508 makeshift settlements have been identified in the area of Port-au Prince. Surveys by the organization and the Haitian government of 314 of those settlements put their population at 472,000.
7:54 a.m. -- The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 4.4-magnitude aftershock strikes about 15 miles north-northwest of Port-au-Prince. Depth was about 6 miles.
6:40 a.m. -- Authorities pushing to clear earthquake-relief bottlenecks in Haiti continue to work Friday to improve the flow of relief supplies at the south pier in Port-au-Prince. The January 12 quake damaged the capital's north and south piers. Haitian authorities and the U.S. military had restored one-way traffic to the south pier, which is the smaller of the two, by Thursday. Port-au-Prince's north pier remains unusable.
And in case you missed this YESTERDAY: ORPHAN PROVIDERS TAKE NOTE! What action is needed: ARMED SECURITY FOR THE ORPHANAGES - MAINTENANT! NOW! GET THOSE TROOPS WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PROVIDING SECURITY TO DO SO THERE. ESSENTIAL!!
Thursday, January 21
8:30 p.m. -- Haiti's orphanages have become targets for people desperate for food, water and medical supplies, aid workers said. On Wednesday night, Maison de Lumiere, an orphanage caring for 50 orphans, came under attack from a group of 20 armed men, aid workers told the Joint Council on International Children's Services. A neighboring orphanage sheltering about 135 children has been robbed several times over the past few days, they said.
6:20 p.m. -- U.S. medical assistance teams have treated 7,000 patients in Haiti, the White House said in a statement. A total of 160 U.S. missions have been flown carrying 2,600 tons of relief supplies and more than 2,500 military and relief personnel into Haiti, and will be delivering 50,000 hand held radios to Haitians, the statement said.
The U.S. has also evacuated approximately 10,500 people from Haiti so far, including 8,300 American citizens, the White House said.
5:59 p.m. -- The Senate unanimously passed legislation Thursday that will allow taxpayers to deduct cash donations to Haiti earthquake relief on their 2009 tax returns instead of having to wait to file the claims next year.
4:37 p.m. -- Haitians are lining up in the streets for hours to try to receive wire transfers at the banks and wire services open in Haiti. Some Haitians said they haven't been able to eat because they don't have cash to buy any food available at street markets.
3:34 p.m. -- The U.S. Southern Command conducted an air drop of food and water over Haiti on Thursday. A C-17 delivered water and 17,200 meals ready to eat , the military said in a statement. Thursday's air drop was the second since the quake; the first was Monday.
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I'll call your attention to the last item -- which is great, but FAR TOO LATE. As many critics and despairing aid workers have pointed out all week, the US military plan for relief was guided from Robert Gates on to focus on security - and driven by fears of mass looting and panic. Some pundits - well, a lot -- have been quick to denounced this strategy as reflecting tacit racism toward poor, homelss, black people. The arguement made for security vs. air drops was fear of causing riots, say defensive military spokespeople. Their fear has not been borne out, as Haitians have primarily remained calm. NOW people are starving and the clashes have started.
It was an unfortunate, certainly preventable poor choice -- to focus on security vs. food aid. But it was understandable if you look at standard operating procedure for the military -- this is unfortunately the typical military focus: Order, Security. Add in the fact that Haitians guiding US and UN officials are/were often members of the elite business class who worried about their own assets and property -- since these were the only buildings or assets standing or not damaged in the quake.
(Trust me, I know this. I have family in Haiti and they are members. They've done great in this crisis, I have to publicly say. But I've been hearing my share about others. OY!)
My point is: Yes, The focus on security over hunger is inexcusable in hindsight. Yes, many died or may die as a result, needlessly. The Obama administration's choice was not one that reflected on the most important need: for food. It focused on order first. Wrong.
Now, they're trying to make it right. Or more right. That's good. Do it - faster.
I feel it's easy to criticize, harder to do right. So there will be critics who are right and actors who did wrong. But it's always important to look at the decisions from the perspective of the other person, being in the other person's shoes, and recognizing that these large scale bureaucracies are not fast-moving, even if troop movements can be. I'm not excusing, just understanding. I'm mourning too, and I will say: there's no justification for it that will stand in the already short hindsight of a week - the critical first days - when the US military plan failed too many Haitians.
Many have said Bravo to Israel, China, Dominican Republic, Cuba. They all got in super fast, and did save lives. Let's credit the US for responding and doing all it has, but let's also acknowledge what didn't happen. And let's LEARN now, and INCREASE the AIR DROPS MASSIVELY, FAST. Even while the plan to set up camps moves forward. C'mon 82nd airborne. We do know you can do it. Let's see you unleashed to save lives, even more than you are.
That's it for moi -- as I personally deploy :).
Do start commenting. I know there are over a thousand of you reading since I started this blog last Wed but people keep sending to my private email. Share your thoughts. A blog is meant to be a public conversation, after all. Don't be shy...
And finally, a personal note. I haven't dared ask family members if my grandmere's house is collapsed, just down from the Sacre Coeur church in Bois Verna, on ruelle Duncombe, which was her maiden name. I have so many memories of Haiti when I was young and visited, during the terrible Duvalier years. That Haiti, as many people have said this week, is gone. The Duvalier Haiti was already gone. But the Haiti we have loved in all its kaleidoscopic richness and poorness - the fabulous city of Port-au-Prince included -- it's changed forever. I know everyone who loves Haiti carries the cities that were and now are no longer in their hearts and eyes, and look to the cities that are being reborn as I write.
Nou la. Nou kanpe.
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