{"id":193208,"date":"2021-08-30T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T11:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=193208"},"modified":"2021-08-27T04:40:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T03:40:17","slug":"haiti-needs-help-but-not-from-aid-workers-who-never-leave-their-suvs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/08\/haiti-needs-help-but-not-from-aid-workers-who-never-leave-their-suvs\/","title":{"rendered":"Haiti Needs Help, but \u2018Not from Aid Workers Who Never Leave Their SUVs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Beset by earthquakes, poverty and gang violence, the country is desperate for aid. However it must be the right kind, say locals.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

httpv:\/\/youtu.be\/RJ9PSfh-Yuc<\/p>\n

24 Aug 2021 – <\/em>The death toll is still rising 10 days after a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Haiti<\/a> on the morning of 14 August, levelling much of Les Cayes and the surrounding region.<\/p>\n

More than 2,200 deaths have been recorded so far, while at least 30,000 families have had to abandon their homes. Many were sleeping on the streets when Tropical Storm Grace struck<\/a> two days later, bringing high winds and pelting rain.<\/p>\n

But despite the hardship, many Haitians are wary of the massive international aid response which is still under way. \u201cWe don\u2019t like international aid but it\u2019s not like we have a choice,\u201d says Marjorie Modesty, a community leader in Les Cayes, whose home was flooded and damaged in the dual disasters.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternational organisations spend money on the wrong things, like expensive hotels and cars. Our relationship with them is, at best, so-so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haiti\u2019s relationship with aid is long and often toxic. The Caribbean<\/a> country, which shares the island of Hispaniola with its wealthier neighbour, the Dominican Republic, is the western hemisphere\u2019s poorest. Nearly half of its population of 11.4 million is food insecure. Sitting on top of a fault line, Haiti is often battered by earthquakes and extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

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The injured lie in beds outside the Immacul\u00e9e Conception hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti, two days after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck the south-western part of the country. Photograph: Fernando Llano\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

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Political violence and urban gang warfare have racked Haiti for more than two years, with roadblocks, fuel shortages and power cuts a daily reality. The brazen assassination of President Jovenel Mo\u00efse <\/a>on 7 July, allegedly carried out by Colombian mercenaries<\/a>, only added to the turmoil. Gangs have also complicated the aid response<\/a>, sporadically blocking key roads and holding up deliveries of food and supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe population is traumatised by repeated disasters,\u201d says Jean Raymond Delinois, who works for Acape, an education non-profit<\/a> in Jeremie, which suffered heavy damage. Delinois\u2019s home still stands but needs repairs. He has not yet seen any major rollout of international aid in his province. \u201cWithout coordination and participation of local actors, it won\u2019t change much,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In 2010, much of Port-au-Prince was flattened<\/a> by a magnitude 7 earthquake, taking 220,000 lives with it. The latest quake was two decimal points bigger in magnitude but struck a less densely populated region.<\/p>\n

The relief effort 11 years ago was riddled with controversy. Aid workers at Oxfam were found to be trading food and supplies for sex<\/a>, while a cholera outbreak<\/a> that took more than 9,000 lives is likely to have begun with the arrival of the United Nation\u2019s peacekeeping mission in October 2010.<\/p>\n

Since then, international charities and humanitarian organisations have been viewed with suspicion. White pickup trucks, emblazoned with NGO logos, move foreign employees around the cities, using Haitians as drivers and private security. With more than 3,000 NGOs operating within its borders, Haiti is often described as an \u201caid state<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Distributing food and water at the \u20184 Chemins\u2019 crossroads in Les Cayes, Haiti, last week. Photograph: Reginald Louissaint Jr\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cThe [international NGOs] do what they want, not what we need,\u201d says Modesty, from her damaged home. \u201cThey ignore the communities, the leaders, and the needs of the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haiti\u2019s prime minister, Ariel Henry, who has been leading the country since Mo\u00efse\u2019s murder, acknowledged Haiti\u2019s rocky relationship with aid after the 2010 earthquake. \u201cMy government does not intend to repeat history on the mismanagement and coordination of aid,\u201d he tweeted last week in French<\/a>, a language spoken by few outside the ruling classes. \u201cI will personally ensure that this help reaches the real victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the southern, quake-hit provinces of Grand Anse, Sud and Nippes, local rescuers and villagers were initially working on the recovery alone, having been cut off from the rest of the country by the storm. They are now bolstered by international brigades as they search through rubble for survivors and corpses. Analysts see little reason to think that previous mistakes won\u2019t be repeated.<\/p>\n

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People recover their belongings from homes destroyed in the earthquake in Camp-Perrin, Les Cayes. Photograph: Joseph Odelyn\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u201cPart of the problem is that international folks don\u2019t talk to people on the ground, and that is going to be worse this time because everyone is afraid of the security situation,\u201d says Emily Troutman, a freelance writer<\/a> who has been covering Haiti\u2019s relationship with aid for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you get a lot of white people driving around in their white SUVs, not getting out of their cars, and they\u2019re the ones making the decisions about what Haitians need and where they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troutman says that organisations that have been operating in Haiti for years, building relationships with communities, are best positioned to contribute positively to the relief effort \u2013 \u201corganisations that already have the human capital, the physical capital, the knowhow, and the social capital to do something\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Haiti doesn\u2019t need is a bunch of fly-by-night people who are gonna pop in for the disaster and pop out.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Joe Parkin Daniels is a British journalist based in Bogot\u00e1, Colombia, where he covers human rights, the country’s internal conflict, and health.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 Aug 2021 – Beset by earthquakes, poverty and gang violence, the country is desperate for aid. \u201cPart of the problem is that international folks don\u2019t talk to people on the ground, and that is going to be worse this time because everyone is afraid of the security situation. So you get a lot of white people driving around in their white SUVs, not getting out of their cars, and they\u2019re the ones making the decisions about what Haitians need and where they need it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":193211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2093,975,2456,610,541,1806,996,124,1614],"class_list":["post-193208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-central-america","tag-haiti","tag-humanitarian-intervention","tag-inequality","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-ngo","tag-poverty","tag-united-nations","tag-usaid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}