Six months later: has the world forgotten about Haiti?

[theprestige]

Where DID all the aid go????? Millions if not Billions. Where is it? What happened to it?? Papa Doc? Wait, isn't this what happens every time down there??????? When will WE learn?

According to NPR, the aid donations have mostly stayed with the aid agencies, which are already spending more money on Haiti than Haiti can actually handle. The main bottleneck seems to be the Haitian government, which is unable to process the all of the funding and manpower available for aid work. The Hatian government is chastising the major aid agencies for proceeding with aid projects on their own without government approval, oversight, or coordination.

It seems to me that, far from forgetting about Haiti, the real problem is caring about Haiti too much.

The Red Cross would probably have been better off with a general-purpose marketing campaign, citing Haiti as only one of many places where aid donations would be spent. They probably would've still gotten more money than Haiti could handle, and that way they'd be free to spend the surplus somewhere else it's needed while they wait for the Haitian government bottleneck to clear.

At least the Red Cross gets to hold the funds in the interim.

 

[Darth Rotor]

No, but I'm not the world.

Haiti is no longer front page news, that is all.

 

[Skeptical Samurai]

Nope,

Not everyone one has. My co-worker/friend recently went down their to provide some aid/relief (we are both healthcare workers).

We (along with some other co-workers) are planning to go down their over the next few months to help out some more.

Sadly though, many people do forget. After the inital shock wears off, and the TV coverage dies off...
Most people forget what has happened or assume that everything must be back to normal...

Hell i know people that think they have already re-build the world trade centres (or some new version of it) because right after the 911 attacks there was talk of rebuilding right away. Media coverage died off, and these people forgot about it...assumed that everything went back to normal and everything turned out fine...
Which as most of us know is far from the truth

 

[Thunder]

i think the population should just leave. spread themselves among the nations of the western hemisphere.

 

[DC]

i think the population should just leave. spread themselves among the nations of the western hemisphere.

what? why on earth give up that beautiful island?

 

[geni]

what? why on earth give up that beautiful island?

The beautiful bit is the other half.

 

[ponderingturtle]

What's really sad is the teenaged orphans. SO many kids have been orphaned (and Haiti had a huge number of orphans in their population even before the disaster) that the orphanages just don't have the resources for all the kids, so many are only taking younger ones. NPR had a story that brought me to tears about these groups of orphan teenagers who are basically just forming little groups of tramps, wandering around the cities.

They interviewed a bunch of them, and asked them what they dreamed of, and just about every last kid had the same answer, "I want to be adopted by an American family and go to school." The kids just talked about how scared and lonely they were, and about how they're still kids, and they need families to take care of them.

That is just silly of course, there is no market for teenage adoptions from the third world. Everyone wants babies.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

That is just silly of course, there is no market for teenage adoptions from the third world. Everyone wants babies.

It does happen, but it's true, it's very rare. Even if they are put in an orphanage, their chances of being adopted would still be slim to none because there are just so many of them compared with the demand for older children from prospective families. In the adoption world, 5 years old is the tipping point. Before 5 you have a decent shot at adoption, over 5 you're most likely unadoptable, and every year older your chances of adoption decrease. .

But at least in an orphanage they have a chance, receive some manner of protection, food, shelter, etc, and some orphanages do provide schooling as well...and of course homeless teenagers are at high risk for sex trafficing and other forms of abuse, so having somewhere to be while they are young and especially vulnerable would be preferable to outright homelessness.

 

[Fnord]

I heard on NPR that of the millions of dollars collected, less than 2% has been spent on actual relief efforts.

Huge Sums Raised, Much Unspent, After Haiti Quake

NPR surveyed dozens of groups working in Haiti — including organizations like The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund and Doctors Without Borders. The NPR questionnaire asked about their finances and projects and found that many charities still have substantial amounts of donations in the bank.

Haitians Press On Amid Slow Pace Of Quake Recovery

The Haitian government asked aid groups at the end of April to stop food distribution, saying the free handouts were undercutting local markets.