Yonel's Neighbourhood

The video below shows what it is like in Yonel's neigbourhood - Delmas 19 - Cite 4 during a heavy rainstorm. Yonel's house is higher than the canal and he doesn't have the same problems with flooding as his neighbours. Valentin's school books got destroyed during last year's storm. For a real eye opener on what it is like here in Haiti, especially in the poor neighbourhoods' take a look at the following video:



We were able to rebuild Yonel's home at the same time the British Red Cross was working on their canal projects. They decided to knock down part of Yonel's house but rebuilt it for him again a couple of months ago. We are greatful for that. Below is a report from the British Red Cross website on their work project in the Delmas 19 area:

The long road to recovery in Haiti

© Adrian Thomas/BRC

Repairing or replacing hundreds of homes damaged by the Haiti earthquake is a major part of the British Red Cross’ £23 million response to the disaster. But more than three years after the earthquake, this rebuilding work is far from finished. What does it take to get a community back on its feet – and why can the process take years?

The 2010 disaster killed thousands of people and threw Haiti into chaos. It left some homes badly damaged, some barely standing and some nothing more than piles of rubble. Many have been partly repaired by the community since the disaster, but some are still far from safe.

The Red Cross is working in the Delmas 19 area of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, a neighbourhood that suffered huge damage. The organisation has already completed big, life-changing projects including a new market and canal, but there’s lots more to do.

Taking time to get it right
Why is there a wait for new homes? A key reason is that they must be a long-term solution, not a quick fix. Poorly built homes, created with weak materials, made the impact of the earthquake even worse. If a similar disaster happens again, it’s vital the area is more able to withstand and recover from the crisis.

Of course, a community needs more than just houses – so the Red Cross has already provided new latrines keep people healthy, and street lights that keep them safe. Aid worker Amelia Rule has recently spent almost three years working in Delmas 19 for the Red Cross. She says: “A lot of houses fell down in the earthquake. But just replacing them isn’t going to solve problems in the long term.”

The Red Cross is involving the local community in the process as much as possible, giving them the power to decide how their own neighbourhood is rebuilt. This can make things more complicated, but it’s vital if the results are going to meet the needs of local people.

© Amanda George/BRC

Planning and preparing
So how does the Red Cross make sure it’s rebuilding the right way? By painstakingly gathering information that reveals which homes should be fixed or replaced. Staff have built up a complex portrait of the Delmas 19 community – its buildings, streets and most importantly the people that live there.

This includes working out the state of the area’s homes. The condition of every one has now been recorded on maps tracing the devastation caused by the earthquake. The plots they sit on have been examined too – some are on boggy ground that is difficult to build safely on, while others are overshadowed by buildings at risk of collapse. This information will help decide which can be fixed or rebuilt.

Red Cross staff must also work out who owns and lives in each house – not always easy, particularly as about half of the area’s residents are tenants rather than homeowners. Some residents moved away after the disaster. They might have abandoned their home, or they might hope to return. Are the homes occupied by single adults, families or older people? Are the residents working, and do they have another home they might be able to go to?

All this information helps the Red Cross meet its goal of rebuilding in a way that benefits the community’s most vulnerable members. Deciding exactly who meets this criteria is a really tough call, that could create anger and division.

But, encouragingly, even people who won’t get as much help as some of their neighbours have given Amelia warm thanks for the work the Red Cross has done. She’s confident the community backs the idea of taking time to get things right.

© Adrian Thomas/BRC

The value of trust
In fact, Amelia says the most remarkable thing about her time in Haiti was the close relationships that grew between Red Cross staff and local people. The Red Cross is doing everything it can to encourage these bonds – from hiring local labourers as a way of boosting the area’s economy to letting a Red Cross office double up as a buzzing community centre, giving Delmas 19 a new heart.

Creating good relationships, trust and understanding takes time and hard work. But these ingredients are the foundations for the bricks and mortar building work that is helping local people look forward to a brighter future.

Haiti: Red Cross canal prevents flood of sewage during Sandy

A guest post by Adrian Thomas, our head of media and external relations, who recently visited Haiti. There, he discovered how a project helping people recover from the 2010 earthquake also made a huge difference during Hurricane Sandy.

Throughout Port-au-Prince there are ‘canals’ for drainage. These are often no more than open sewers that run through the narrow streets and close-crowded houses. Sanitation is a challenge – these canals flood on a regular basis and people get raw sewage flowing into their homes.

During previous storms and hurricanes – weaker ones than Hurricane Sandy – up to 1.5 metres of ‘water’ from these open canals would gush through the streets of Delmas 19. But thanks to our work to improve the local canal system, it hardly flooded at all during Sandy.

This video, taken on a mobile phone by our communications officer Jethro Sereme, shows the flooding in Delmas 19 during heavy rains in August 2012.

Safer, cleaner and more hygienic
During my trip, I visited the Delmas 19 area of Port-au-Prince. After the 2010 earthquake, the British Red Cross began working there to make the canal safer, cleaner and more hygienic.

We provided technical supervision, training and materials to the community, enabling them to drastically improve the canal. With our support, they built a floor and walls in the original channel, then partially covered it with a concrete cap.

The newly created space over this contained canal will be used to build areas for children to play and for people to socialise. In the last phase of the project, the top of the canal will be covered with coloured paving made of recycled rubble from the earthquake. This path will double as an evacuation route in case of emergency.

In another neighbourhood we drove through, I saw what one of these canals would have looked like previously. It was full of rubbish, with three pigs rooting around in it.

A community effort
Our urban reconstruction and regeneration manager, Gabriel Constantine, has been co-ordinating the canal-building project in Delmas 19. He works with a committee made up of local residents to lead the project. They made sure that Gabriel’s plans took into account the local situation and that the canal meets residents’ needs.

An important part of the project is negotiating with landlords. Because a large number of people living in Delmas 19 rent their homes, it is vital to try and ensure they can carry on living there after the building work is finished. Otherwise there is a risk that – once the improved canal has made the area more desirable – rents will go up, and they will have to move out.

Gabriel and his team have taught local men the masonry and construction skills needed to build the canal. As well as helping their community, the men gained highly prized skills that may help them get a job in the future. It was really a community effort though – and everyone mucked in to help.

Hurricane Sandy caused severe flooding across much of Haiti, damaging homes, schools, public infrastructure. This has also increased the likelihood of cholera outbreaks in coming weeks. However – in Delmas 19 at least – the new British Red Cross canal has helped to prevent sewage from running in the streets.