Haiti ORPHANAGE Status Report - Contacts 1.23

Dear all,


Here is some quick information about orphanages and what's been happening this weekend.

Later today I'll be posting an EXCEL FILE with updated information and contact numbers about Haitian orphanages that includes notes their situation -- children killed, injured, or okay; food and shelter needs; etc. The information will be posted on this blog..

Thanks to my colleague Julie Sutherland for working with me and some other orphan's advocates to pull this information together.


OVERALL PICTURE:

Many children have been orphaned by the earthquake -- the number is just a guess. We can't really know yet. Let's say tens of thousands and leave it at that. It will be more than we think since so many can't be found yet and the situation is in total flux as people have fled for the provinces and diaspora.

Bottom line: many children without parents, in trauma, injured, homeless, without any food. They have huge needs.

Many children have been taken to field hospitals, and many to existing orphanages IF THEY ARE STILL STANDING. Many facilities and homes and missionary centers were damaged, some altogether. But others survived with far less damage and are operational and taking in a lot of kids.

Orphanages in Port-au-Prince are getting help - some of them. The small ones in the popular neighborhoods further away from the center remain with acute needs.

Death/ Injury toll:

I won't try for numbers -- no point. So many children killed, and many are injured. I won't repeat any media stories here - google 'Children or Orphans and Haiti Quake' and you'll read plenty. Not hundreds, not thousands. Many more.

The national picture is moving quickly and the focus of the large agencies and State Department has been to help orphanages and missions and individuals with large numbers of vulnerable or orphaned children in their care to access: FOOD, MEDICAL HELP, and SAFETY -- with PROVISIONAL SHELTER close behind.

SHELTER, SAFETY:

Right now, many simply have children camped out, outside, in the backyards of their damaged facilities, but some are getting help and medical aid has arrived to some in the capital, especially.

The emerging PLAN is for Haitian orphaned/homeless/vulnerable/injured children to be evacuated as a large group and taken to safety within Haiti's borders.

UN and Haitian officials, working with the US military, are currently setting up a large BORDER CAMP for 100,000 people on the Dominican Border. Many Red Cross groups have or are arriving to help set up base camps in other cities too, to help with this move.

According to my sources, there will be a section of this camp for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC). It will be well-guarded, where the children can get medical care, food, and recover in SECURITY. Their individual cases will be processed via expedited mechanisms by the Haitian and UN authorities responsible for this population.

NOTE: I have NOT gotten this information confirmed by the State Dept or Cluster group officials in charge of the Haiti portfolio -- yet. So consider it the 'word on the street' for now until I post otherwise. If it's wrong or the details have since changed, I'll let you know as soon as I know.

I'll also share details about the Border Camp plan as soon as I can confirm them.

FOOD: Food is needed, but some is arriving, depending on the groups. If you're with a big agency, you're lucky. If you're not, you're scrambling and your kids have little or nothing.

SECURITY: Some of you have undoubtedly read recent media reports on the ARMED ATTACKS on orphanages. This is true - and in response, the orphanages CANNOT TAKE more than 1-2 days worth of food or supplies - to avoid being targeted by people. For the most part, community people around the orphanages have RALLED TO PROTECT, HELP the orphanages. But there are armed young men, some of whom MAY BE escapees of the National Penitentiary which collapsed in the quake, who may be behind these robberies and hold ups.

SECURITY personnel and UN troops HAVE BEEN ALERTED to the needs for greater security for the Orphanages. I'll report on this too.

IN THE COUNTRYSIDE:

Outside the capital, needs remain URGENT and TREMENDOUS. Many many orphanage, NGO And missionary groups are sending in their people with supplies and wrangling to get incoming aid to these orphanages but the situation is one of flux. Haitians have rushed to leave the destroyed capital, Port-au-Prince and cities like Jacmel and Petit Goave, especially after the most recent big 6.1 aftershock, and children are on the move too. They're searching for any FOOD, shelter or help they can get, hoping to find relatives in the provinces -- if they have them.

Many groups are worried about the vulnerability of these children traveling solo or in small groups -- especially GIRLS.There is are serious risks of violence, and the risk of sexual violence trafficking is always high in countries in situations of disaster.

There are urban and suburban gangs of young men armed with machetes who have looted or are desperately searching for food as hunger rises - let's call it near-starvation, sets in. UN troops have picked some up. Communities have also acted to attack potential looters, even killing them.

UN and other troops have been picking up unaccompanied children and bringing them to hospitals and then contacting Haitian, UNICEF, church, and private orphanage officials in their local areas to assure these children will be place in safe locations and given help.

MEDICAL CARE:

Many children have been tended to, and many have had limbs amputated, while others are recovering from major wounds and broken limbs.

There's still a great need for surgical, orthopedic care and medicine for children.

ADOPTION:

Some orphanages with children who had pending adoptions have been able to fly children out of Haiti when the paperwork was ready or well enough advanced.Initially, there was a RUSH to get children out of Haiti, but this has been STOPPED.

Why?

In one unfortunate case, widely republished in the media, some journalists just took a child that was scheduled for a US adoption and put that child on a plane for Miami when the paperwork was not ready. Homeland Security stopped them, which has led to heightened scrutiny about other groups who were reportedly just coming into Haiti hoping to rescue children -- and take them home. Some apparently may have succeeded. Details on that to come.

Again: good intentions abound, and so do urgent needs of children. So does love of children, and the desire by many US and other country couples to adopt these children.

But there are Haitian and international laws concerning adoption, and also against kidnapping and trafficking children.

As one Red Cross official put it to me, while asking to be off the record:

"There are a lot of church groups and missionary groups in particularly who want to have these kids. But sorry people, it doesn't matter who you are. We know how urgent the need is. But there are still rules and there has to be a process followed for applying to adopt. It has to be legal and you're going to have to get in line. It shouldn't matter how long you've worked in Haiti or who you know -- though that apparently has helped some groups get kids out. Now the UN is cracking down on that...."

As he explained, since late last week, the UN and Haitian authorities in charge stepped in to say: WAIT. We must to do this right. Put the immediate needs of the children first, and follow an expedited process for evaluation. Find out if any relatives here in HAITI can take them in, search for relatives in other countries, THEN consider foster or adoption placements.

Haitian-Americans have been particularly vocal on the radio about their fear of white evangelical groups "stealing: vulnerable Haitian children -- and have expressed fear that vulnerable Haitian children will be treated differently than any other children orphaned by catastrophe. Charges of racism are bandied about, which is the last thing the US wants attached to its plan to help Haiti.

As it stands, UN and other agency officials are ACUTELY AWARE of all concerns.

The number one focus remains on getting KIDS TO SAFETY, and MEDICAL EVALUATIONS, and FOOD. Any large-scale adoptions or provisional foster placements being discussed or implemented must be done LEGALLY, ETHICALLY, TRANSPARENTLY and there needs to be harmonization of different regulations, nationally and internationally, related to Haitians and Unaccompanied Refugee Minors.

Issues include: TRAUMA, CULTURAL DISPLACEMENT and the fact that some children MAY have relatives that are alive but missing and may take some time to locate - if they can be located. There are also relatives in the diaspora ready to take the children in...etc.

So instead of a large airlift of children which was planned recently under a plan similar to the past Cuban airlift (Peter Pan), the Haitian 'Plan Pierre' is advancing, but with more care given to the complex issues involved.

I'll be talking to UN, orphan and Red Cross officials in Haiti tomorrow when I get there.. I'm in Dom Rep now, headed for the border... and update you further.

ON THE GROUND: CONFUSION, HUGE NEEDS...

I've continued to get many emails/calls from adoptive parents in the US and relatives of people whose kids survived in Haiti who are asking: WHO CAN WE CALL? WHAT DO WE DO?

The answer is: if you have kids that you are connected to, or any paperwork, contact the State Department hotline set up for this. I listed the contact information in a recent BLOG POST.

Other questions:

HOW CAN WE HELP? CAN WE SEND THE ORPHANAGES FOOD? WHO NEEDS AID?

Answer: There are US, European and many other agencies/church groups who are sponsors of orphanages in Haiti. Their websites list the ways to send them money and in-kind donations.

You can target donations to orphanages listed in the Excel sheet, but for now, the best way is to find the outside sponsors and get them the money or medicines, and they will get it to their people in Haiti.

More on this soon, though. I'll be visiting several orphanages in the next days and will give you concrete updates about HOW to Help, Where to Send, and which groups need the medical aid the most.

COMING SOON:

We have prepared a BLANK FORM - to be posted here online - for anyone to fill out and help us update information on orphanages. It's in multiple languages and we'll post the links shortly.

If you have information, please help us, and we'll send this on to authorities. It's a way of helping to centralize info and expedite to agencies who are totally overwhelmed and don't know what's what in the current picture.


I'll be posting when I can get to email in the coming days. Planning a visit to the border today to see the logistics, camp set up for arriving orphans, Feminist Solidarity Camp, and hospital in Jimani. Then to the capital.

Nou la. That's the word from Haitians I speak to. We are here.