The storms may have passed, but life is very far from normal since a series of hurricanes devastated Haiti in summer 2008. Kristie van de Wetering explains how Oxfam is helping.

 

For most of the world, Hanna and Ike are perhaps familiar names yet without much significance any more. New headlines have drawn attention elsewhere.

But not for Emmanuel André and his family. For him and thousands more like him, they will forever be remembered as two of the three catastrophic storms that crashed through Haiti in quick succession during late August and early September of 2008.

‘I was living in Gonaïves when Tropical Storm Jeanne passed through [in September 2004]. The water took everything I owned and severely damaged my house,” recounts Emmanuel solemnly.

“There was just too much damage in town, so my wife and I moved out here to Savanne Désolée to rebuild, start over, and to start a family. Now, Hanna came through and wiped out all that I had managed to rebuild. This time it is worse, much worse. The only thing I was able to save was my one-year old son.”

 

The 31-year-old primary school teacher, his wife, Rosemène and their 1-year-old son are homeless; members of Haiti’s new internally displaced people housed in tents pitched up in several makeshift camps in across Gonaïves.

“It is impossible to go back to my house - it is completely under water, the only way to get there is by boat. And the water is not going anywhere. We have no idea when we will be able to leave here and go home - only God knows that. Everyday I wonder how we will get out of this.”

Betty Fredéric is one of Oxfam’s public health engineers working in Gonaïves: “Many people have returned to their homes, but many have no homes to return to,” she explains. “So they have no choice but to stay in these temporary settlements. We say temporary, but we really do not know how long they will be here. Our goal as Oxfam in this immediate phase, is to ensure that people have access to basic hygiene and sanitation facilities.”

 

Oxfam has been here in Gonaïves since the beginning of the emergency. We’re providing water to several communities in and around the town and doing important public health promotion in the camps - teaching important hygiene practices and distributing essential items. This work is done with camp coordination committees established by the residents themselves.

To date, we’ve installed 197 temporary latrines and 84 portable shower stalls throughout Gonaïves, including in Camp Ebenezer, where Emmanuel has a tent he now calls home. And he appreciates the benefits this brings: “Since Oxfam’s arrival things have improved significantly for us. The latrines enable us to go to the bathroom in private, away from the camp, which is much more clean than just going anywhere among the tents, where the children play.”

We are planning a full six-month response in the area, including work on the following: helping families clean their homes, installing water points, cleaning and repairing wells, micro-credit, seed production, seed banks, and repairing of irrigation systems.

Hurricanes in Haiti: Oxfam’s response
Current emergencies

Tags: Haiti, Hurricane Ike, kristievanwetering, Tropical Storm Hanna, Tropical Storm Jeanne

This entry was posted by Kristie van de Wetering on November 28th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Humanitarian, News Blog, You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.