Six months later: has the world forgotten about Haiti?

[Travis]

It's been six months since everyone turned their attention to the poor nation of Haiti, which seems to be some wrathful God's whipping boy, in the aftermath of that horrific earthquake. But now six months later the country is down to one acute care hospital and it is now short of antibiotics and kids are dying from treatable infections.

I fear much might not be done. People feel all the US Federal attention should be focused on the Gulf Oil Spill and that "Hooveristic" austerity should be in place for everything else.......I'm guessing because they think that The Great Depression is something we should repeat just for the hell of it.

In which case one might ask what might be done?

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Yes, I think people have.

If you want to help, please see Paul Farmer's Partners in Health program. They have been working in Haiti long before the earthquake, and are the largest non governmental providers of medical care in the country. Though their focus is overwhelmingly providing health care, they also work on educational and infrastructure development in the country.

http://www.pih.org/

 

[varwoche]

According to a piece on NPR this morning, there are things that are generally going well...

there have been no major disease outbreaks ... More than 1 million displaced Haitians have some sort of emergency shelter and access to clean water ... "I think the first six months' response has been quite effective," says Julie Schindall, Oxfam's spokeswoman in Haiti, "because we are not seeing these mass [post-quake] deaths."

 

[TraneWreck]

Who?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Haiti? Is that one of the places affected by the BP oil spill?

 

[Blackadder]

I have. My country had general elections a few months ago which took my attention and after that it has been World Cup Football for 5 weeks, hot weather and right now the Tour de France.

Apart from rare moments like this I never think of old tragedies that affected millions of people. I am like 99,99% of the people on earth, small tragedies of neighbours, friends or family members are more important than tsunami's in Indonesia or earthquakes in Haiti. I don't know any of those people, they are just numbers. Yet, would one Haitian family become my neighbours tomorrow, their story would become important for me and I would see if I could help them.

 

[DC]

I haven't, just yesterday evening i saw a reportage about the government blocking aid goods from NGO's

 

[ponderingturtle]

Of course the world always forgets about Haiti until the next disaster.

 

[Soapy Sam]

A couple of personal disasters had dropped it off my radar, I admit.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

We've got more important things to worry about. Mel Gibson used racial slurs.

 

[Travis]

there have been no major disease outbreaks ... More than 1 million displaced Haitians have some sort of emergency shelter and access to clean water .

Unfortunately those emergency shelters are little more than camping tents. They just showed one of the camps on CNN today. I fear what might happen to such communities if a hurricane hits them later this summer.

 

[Pardalis]

Apparently only 10% of the money promised by the UN has reached its destination.

But at least according to doctors diseases (like cholera) have spared the Haïtians for now.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

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.

It's so sad to me that you have so many kids in industrialized countries with public education systems who just take their schooling for granted, don't even put in an effort...when there are so many kids in third world countries where they can't afford to go to school, and that's all they want in the world, the opportunity to get an education.

 

[The Painter]

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?

 

[Virus]

The world would rather make sure the Palestinians get everything their little hearts desire while they wage a terrorist war.

 

[geni]

Where DID all the aid go????? Millions if not Billions. Where is it?

Most of it never existed in the first place. When you see all those countires pleding aid after a big disaster you need to remeber that only a handful will pay up. The rest is providing food shelter various cleanup operations.

 

[fuelair]

Unfortunately those emergency shelters are little more than camping tents. They just showed one of the camps on CNN today. I fear what might happen to such communities if a hurricane hits them later this summer.

Just so you are aware - for many Haitians those shelters are not much less than what they had before - and, the tents can't break apart and kill them falling if further earthquakes come...

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Most of it never existed in the first place. When you see all those countires pleding aid after a big disaster you need to remeber that only a handful will pay up. The rest is providing food shelter various cleanup operations.

That, and I also think people just don't understand how much clean up, food aid, medical aid, and infrastructure rebuilding cost.

 

[DC]

The world would rather make sure the Palestinians get everything their little hearts desire while they wage a terrorist war.

BS

 

[Travis]

Just so you are aware - for many Haitians those shelters are not much less than what they had before - and, the tents can't break apart and kill them falling if further earthquakes come...

Oh good, it's nice to know they are used to such horror already.


It would be nice if we can use this to give that country some infrastructure that isn't a deathtrap.