Haiti 6 Months Later: ShelterBox Tents Key to Survival
(This is a press release from Shelterbox.)
Six months after the world was rocked by one of the worst disasters it has ever witnessed, the huge financial commitment to rebuilding permanent shelter has had little impact for the hundreds of thousands of families displaced by the earthquake.
As land ownership issues and logistics delay the massive rebuilding efforts needed, the basic tarpaulin shelters received by the majority of those made homeless is proving little match for heavy rains and the impending hurricane season. Additional strain is put on the capital, Port-au-Prince, as host families are unable to support those who lost everything and people are migrating back to the struggling city.
ShelterBox Response Team volunteer, Per Dahlstrom from Canada, described the situation as ‘real misery’. During his recent trip to Haiti, distributing ShelterBox disaster relief tents, he witnessed the football-pitch sized camps where, in five-by-five areas, families had just a tarpaulin held up with branches to call home. Per said: ‘The conditions were squalid and every time it rains the ground just turns to muck.'
These heavy rains are now a daily occurrence, washing the streets with litter and posing further risk through the spread of diseases.
Per worked to provide shelter for orphans who were returning to the city as their host families struggled to cope – returning to the only stability they know, the school they attended before the earthquake, but that is just a distant memory.
Tom Henderson, ShelterBox Founder and CEO said: ‘The resilience of the Haitian people is phenomenal, but they’re still in desperate need of our help. The shelter provided by tarps isn’t safe, isn’t secure and will not stand up to the heavy winds and rains that we can expect in the hurricane season.’
The ShelterBox disaster relief tent undergoes extensive testing. The tent, and its poles, is tested in wind and rain tunnels, with winds reaching up to 120mph. In Haiti, tens of thousands of families are now rebuilding their lives in these tents. The first of these tents were erected in January and they remain to be a secure, safe shelter for thousands of families whose only alternative is a tarp or a transitional shelter that has not been built.
The response to the Haiti earthquake has been the biggest, longest and most complex in the ten-year history of the international disaster relief charity. The first ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) was mobilized 12 minutes after the earthquake struck. Now, six months later, 22,192 ShelterBoxes have been delivered in Haiti, enough aid for more than 220,000 people.
‘This has been the most challenging disaster we’ve ever had to face. The scale of the destruction was beyond belief,’ said Tom Henderson.
>Each ShelterBox contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, blankets, mosquito nets, water purification and storage equipment, a stove, cooking utensils, a children’s activity pack, a tool kit and other vital items.
More than 50 highly-trained SRT members, from all walks of life, have now worked in Haiti for ShelterBox. One of the SRT members who have spent time in Haiti is David Hatcher, a retired police Chief Superintendent with 37 years experience.
He said: ‘I thought I had seen tragedy at its worst – the sadness of cot death, the suffering of those in road accidents, the grief spawned by the delivery of death messages, involvement in the strife of the 1984 miners dispute, the consequences of the enormous loss of life in the Zeebrugge Ferry Disaster, to the repeated involvement in rail crashes at Paddington and Potters Bar.
‘However, after 37 years of policing at the sharp end, and in the senior ranks, nothing prepared me for the experience of the dilemmas that Haiti is still going through.
‘During my time in Haiti it seemed that whatever I did made only a tiny difference to the whole situation, yet I also knew that everyone we helped was just one more step in making an enormous difference to the future wellbeing of that family for the rest of their lives.’
ShelterBox is committed to doing the most for the most and delivering aid to families who are most in need. To this effect, ShelterBox has formed close, working relationships with partners such as the International Office for Migration, the French Red Cross, Handicap International, the Jenkins/Penn Haitian Relief Organization and ACTED in order to distribute to the most vulnerable demographics.
Tom Henderson added: ‘Our staff, volunteers and supporters the world over have worked tirelessly, with dedication, passion and commitment, to deliver emergency shelter and life saving supplies to thousands of Haitian families. Wherever you look in Port au Prince you can see a ShelterBox tent.
‘This wouldn’t have been possible without the overwhelming generosity of our donors. The earthquake moved people to act, and act they have, in a way we have never witnessed before. ‘During the coming months we’ll be sending another 5,000 ShelterBoxes into Haiti which will give families the safe, secure shelter they need to start rebuilding their lives.’
Public donations are vital to ShelterBox’s continuing work. To make a donation please ring +44 (0)300 0300 500 or go to www.shelterbox.org to donate online and get the latest updates on our response to disasters around the world.
About ShelterBox
Shelterbox is an international disaster relief charity specializing in emergency shelter provision. Humanitarian aid is delivered in iconic green ShelterBoxes. Each one contains a disaster relief tent for an extended family, a stove, blankets and other items essential for survival. ShelterBox responds to disaster as quickly as possible with the aim of helping the people who are most in need.
Every box is individually numbered and can be tracked by donors. Each box costs £490 – including the cost of all materials, packing, storage, transport worldwide and distribution to the needy. Assuming six months’ use, this equates to shelter and warmth for less than 30 pence per person per day.
All aid delivery is undertaken by international volunteer ShelterBox Response Team members who have carried out extensive training with ShelterBox. We are often able to get aid where it is needed faster than any other organization.
An initiative of Rotarian Tom Henderson OBE, a former Royal Navy search and rescue diver, ShelterBox started in 2000 as a project of the Rotary Club of Helston-Lizard, Cornwall. ShelterBox, now the largest Rotary Club project in the world, has responded to disasters including the Haiti Earthquake, Indian Ocean Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma).
