© 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 rightWhy 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
preparingSo 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
trustIn 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
SandyA 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
hygienicDuring 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
effortOur 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.
