Rebuilding Haiti

Belonise Edouard helps to hand out food rations at a temporary camp. Before the earthquake she was a nurse but the hospital where she worked has been destroyed.

The disaster has left many Haitians without homes, jobs or any way to make a living. Much of the country’s infrastructure – schools, hospitals, roads and supplies of electricity and running water – has been destroyed.

Through Caritas – a global network of aid agencies – SCIAF is helping to roll out cash-for-work programmes employing local people to repair the damage, improve living conditions at temporary camps and distribute supplies of aid.

“I need money! My family needs money,” Belonise explains, “but paradoxical as it may seem in a country where so many people need medical care, it’s impossible for me to find a job. Cash-for-work is my only option right now. I have children to feed.”

For 19-year-old Duncan, who spent two weeks digging latrines at the camp where he now lives, the cash for work programme is not just about money.

“I’m glad I joined the project. I am happy people now have these services and I’m proud to have contributed to the improvement of the camp’s living conditions.”

Your donations are helping to fund cash-for-work programmes that include:

• Repairing and rebuilding hospital wards and operating theatres
• Loading and unloading trucks of supplies at Caritas warehouses
• Distributing food and other essentials at temporary camps
• Repairing water pipes and drainage, and digging latrines at temporary settlements
• Clearing rubble to create new sites where people who have lost their homes can resettle

Through cash-for-work, we hope to employ 400,000 people in the worst affected parts of Haiti and improve the lives of over 2 million people in the months to come.