I just got back from a quick day trip to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I went to accompany Sarita, who is an awesome young lady as well as being the Educational Director of AMURT’s Child Friendly Spaces, emergency schools set up to serve 4000 children in different camps in Port-au-Prince. Anyway, she had to go for a meeting so the two of us made use of the flights that the UN provides for humanitarian workers to go to Santo Domingo for a day, and the stark difference after a flight of barely 50 minutes is mind-blowing. I’d gone to Santo Domingo a couple of weeks back, and was again impressed by the great difference in wealth and living standards there on the other side of the island of Hispaniola. Although next door neighbors, the two countries’ cultures seem so different, having been the … of different colonial powers, and it is fascinating how their histories of suppression and exploitation have diverged and at times converged, only to diverge again and create completely different outcomes. I’d have to say I prefer Haiti though, despite it’s lack of clean and paved roads, landscaping, fine restaurants and swimming pools. I can’t quite put my finger on why that is, other than that Haiti has Haitians.

Back in Port-au-Prince, the work continues. I am at the UN base now on my way to a meeting with the food cluster to get more info about Cash for Work programs and how we can get some supplementary feeding programs for the children in our camps, because it has been 4 months now since the earthquake and we are beginning to see the signs of under and malnourishment..
Also, we are trying to find a way of helping the people improve their shelters, with the rains falling more heavily every night and the hurricane season rapidly approaching. It is tricky though, because issues of land ownership and the high risk status of most of the camps we work with mean that few of them will be eligible for getting other organizations to build strong transitional shelters for people. But I’m working on it, just made some good contacts, and we’re also looking into how we can get materials such as wood, metal sheeting and additional tarps donated to allow the communities to improve their living structures themselves where transitional shelters are not an option. Now, this is another example of how, since we’re a small organization with limited funds, our role throughout this relief effort has been to act as the middle-women between the communities we serve and bigger agencies, and sometimes these agencies are just looking for people to take things off their hands and distribute, and other times you have to look and push harder.. We of course also have funds from private donations from AMURT chapters around the world, some of which will be earmarked for specific purposes, or not, and then not necessarily of a big enough volume for the task at hand.. so it’s an interesting puzzle to work out.
Other than that, I want to tell you about the most inspiring work that we are doing in the camps, which is actually programs to support and empower the women to work together and find solutions for themselves and their communities….

..so more on that next time :)