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Our Habitat for Humanity team has been
providing active assistance to Haiti and Chile,
following the recent earthquakes. We will
provide periodic updates on this web site as the
Habitat teams continue this important,
humanitarian aid.
Update from Chile
While details
from the areas closest to the magnitude-8.8
quake in Chile remain incomplete, preliminary
estimates put the number of homes destroyed or
severely damaged at 500,000. Habitat Chile is a
strong presence in the country and has been
invited to be a part of the government’s
assessment of housing needs created by the
quake. The national organization (N.O.) will be
doing its own preliminary assessment this week,
to be followed next week with a broader
assessment by a team that will include
representatives of the N.O., the Latin
America-Caribbean Area Office and the Disaster
Response department from HFHI headquarters.
At our last
update, N.O. office personnel in Santiago,
Chile’s capital city, had been accounted for.
But with telephone communications difficult in
the country, contact with Habitat’s four project
offices in the areas most affected by the
earthquake was taking longer. Each of those
offices is staffed by four people. Kip Scheidler,
senior director of Disaster Response for HFHI,
reported mid-afternoon that two of the offices
had been contacted, and staff accounted for.
Efforts continued to reach the other two project
offices, checking not only on the safety of
staff members, but on the condition of Habitat
houses and families.
Habitat for
Humanity Chile has provided more than 3,500
families with housing since 1998 and works in
each of the five regions of the country. Because
Chile’s location makes it so prone to
earthquakes, the staff has received training in
disaster mitigation and response techniques and
recently began a project to respond to damage
from an earthquake that occurred last year in
the north of Chile. A large part of Habitat
Chile’s work is helping families access
government subsidies in order to construct their
homes. It is through that program that the N.O.
has developed such a close working relationship
with government housing authorities and why
Habitat is likely to be a turn-to organization
for the current response.
Even before
formal assessments of the latest quake damage
began, Habitat committed to responding to the
disaster, based on the strength of the quake—one
of the largest on record—and our existing strong
program presence in the country. Those wishing
to support the response effort in Chile may
donate online at
www.habitat.org
or text “Chile” to 25383 via cell phone to make
a $10 donation.
Details of a
response plan will be developed based on
assessment findings and in cooperation with
Chile’s government and other nongovernmental
organizations. Our ability to expand work in
Chile to effectively meet the housing needs
created by the quake will require support from
individuals, churches, corporate partners and
other organizations—particularly in light of
resources already committed to Haiti. Habitat
also has response programs still under way from
disasters last fall in the Philippines, India,
Samoa and Indonesia.
A Habitat Global
Village team from Canada was scheduled to be in
Chile this week, and four team members had
arrived early. Three of the volunteers were
staying at a hotel in Santiago when the quake
hit early Saturday morning. They were evacuated
from the hotel and had to spend the night
outdoors, but all were safe, as was another GV
volunteer who had stayed on in the country to
vacation after an earlier GV trip ended. The
fourth volunteer from the current team already
in Chile had gone to visit Easter Island, and
also was able to move to safety following the
quake. Those team members will return home once
the damaged Santiago airport reopens. Because of
the air travel issues, the chaos caused by the
quake and the possibility of continued
aftershocks, the rest of the team scheduled to
fly to Chile this week will not be going. They
will be scheduled on other GV trips.
Update from
Haiti
Rains last week
in Haiti heightened the misery for thousands
upon thousands of people forced to live in the
open, in tents or under tarps by the Jan. 12
earthquake near the capital of Port-au-Prince,
reports Sara Coppler, a veteran of HFHI’s
Disaster Response projects and HFHI’s director
of operations for the Haiti work. Last week’s
showers were an early reminder of the rainy
season, and then the hurricane season, to come,
making response plans ever more urgent.
Habitat has a
goal of serving 50,000 families with shelter
needs—about 20 percent of the 258,541 households
left homeless or with damaged homes following
the quake.
Distribution of
Habitat’s emergency shelter kits is under way.
Kits assembled in the Dominican Republic,
Haiti’s island neighbor, already have been
distributed and kits assembled in Atlanta are
due to arrive this week. Distribution will begin
immediately, utilizing partnerships with
organizations that have processes in place to
safely and smoothly deliver assistance supplies.
Because the need for tools remains so high,
Habitat may be asked to assemble an additional
10,000 emergency kits. That request—coming from
other organizations in the United Nations
Shelter Cluster—likely would be made this week.
Meantime, Habitat
continues to be a part of providing technical
assistance to assess the safety of homes. While
many homes are still standing—some with perhaps
little damage, many with more extensive but
repairable damages—people remain afraid to sleep
in them, not knowing how stable the houses are,
or whether even a minor aftershock might cause
collapse. Damage assessment teams are using a
simple classification system: green indicating
that it’s OK to move back into a house, yellow
meaning a house can be repaired, red meaning it
will have to be torn down.
THabitat,
working with CHF International, has pilot-tested
a transitional shelter model that we expect to
begin building in Leogane and
Cabaret—communities outside
Port-au-Prince—within the next month. We expect
to launch construction of the first 50 permanent
core homes in about six weeks. The core house,
with extensive disaster-resistance features
built in, is designed to be expanded by the home
partner over time as finances allow.
Construction of the initial 50 core homes is
planned as a demonstration project to show the
government, other NGOs and funders that a quick
response providing permanent shelter solutions
is possible—if funds are available. With the
rains already starting, disease concerns
growing, and hurricane season fast approaching,
permanence is a goal thousands of families
desperately await.
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Sunday
November 15, 2009