Shelter Centre

Date: 26 Aug 2010
Source: UN Children's Fund

Date: 13 Aug 2010
Source: International Organization for Migration

Date: 09 Aug 2010
Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

By Juliana Rincn Parra

In the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake, women and girls are still facing gender violence, as some of them not only experience rape, but then have to face an absent judicial system and less than adequate medical care.

Tent-City by Edyta Materka under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Date: 27 Jul 2010
Source: UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti

Date: 20 Jul 2010
Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Source: UNHCR UNHCR has had a small team in Haiti over the past six months but we have nonetheless played an important support role, working closely with OHCHR and with the Government and other partners. Since the ...

Source: IRIN The rain and winds signalling the start of Haiti's storm season are already taking a toll on the makeshift shelters housing people displaced by the January earthquake, and aid agencies warn that there could be worse to come.

Date: 24 May 2010
Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Date: 21 May 2010
Source: AlertNet

Of the more than 1.5 million Haitians left homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake, about 7,500 have been moved from the most dangerous areas of crowded tent cities to new resettlement sites. The conditions in those tent cities are grim. Thunderstorms are fierce, and the plastic sheets and tarps distributed after the disaster are fraying, along with the people’s patience.

Meanwhile, the demand for secure housing keeps growing as people who fled the capital, Port-au-Prince, move back, because that’s where most of the aid is.

Why is it so bad? The reasons are partly understandable and partly maddening.

When the United Nations, donor countries and aid organizations rushed to Haiti’s aid, the first priority was water, food and medical care. With the rains coming, they raced to distribute emergency shelter materials to more than a million people, and, almost miraculously, they succeeded. They also sent engineers out to mark structurally sound homes with green paint. Many people still aren’t going home. They are afraid of more quakes, or can’t afford rent, or have no jobs to return to.

The biggest problem — the worst frustration to relief organizations ready and eager to build homes — is the lack of land to build on. Haiti’s government has been far too sluggish in finding and acquiring sites to build new housing.

Property ownership and land titles were a messy business in Haiti in the best of times, and now, with records destroyed and many landowners reluctant to cooperate, the problem is excruciating. Some communities take a not-in-my-backyard stance toward indigent newcomers because it seems obvious to them that new “transitional” settlements will likely be permanent.

Central to the ambitious plans for rebuilding Haiti is the goal of creating new population centers outside the cripplingly congested capital, with new jobs, schools and clinics to go along with new housing. Aid organizations can help in this by moving their rebuilding and redevelopment efforts out to the provinces to give displaced people the reasons and opportunity to relocate.

They can’t get started until President René Préval and his team make up their minds about where new communities will go. They need to acquire property, by eminent domain if necessary, to meet the urgent need to safely shelter the displaced and to ease the pressure on Port-au-Prince.

Original Article

Date: 19 May 2010
Source: AlertNet

Date: 18 May 2010
Source: International Organization for Migration

Date: 11 May 2010
Source: IFRC

The US military will end its disaster relief mission in Haiti at the beginning of June, nearly six months after the massive earthquake struck.

Original article

Source: UNHCR UNHCR needs US$12.5 million to help needy Haitian survivors of January's earthquake sheltering outside camps or in neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Date: 13 Apr 2010
Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Source: UNHCR UNHCR is appealing for US$12,500,000 to help people living outside of formal camps in Haiti and those who have fled to neighbouring Dominican Republic. To date, UNHCR has been actively supporting ...

Source: Reuters * Operation begins at golf club turned survivors' camp * Thousands seen at risk from mudslides, floods * Actor Sean Penn runs charity helping quake victims By Joseph Guyler Delva PORT-AU- ...

A UN donor conference on Wednesday received pledges of $9.9bn (£6.5bn) in immediate and long-term aid for Haiti. The money is badly needed to help the country after the devastation of January's earthquake. But what is happening on the ground now as Haitians and aid groups try to rebuild lives and buidlings?

 

Original source