Rising from the Dust

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

14 March 2010

It has been over a month since Haiti was upturned by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. LDS Charities continues to assist Haitians in the relief effort.

Brett Bass, Director of Humanitarian Services, states, “The Haitians are doing everything. They are amazing. There is a Haitian pediatrician who is helping coordinate what our doctors do. She runs it. The man running the warehouse is from Haiti. The guys driving the trucks are from Haiti. The people distributing the food are from Haiti. There are just a couple of us [representatives of LDS Charities] there to keep things going.”

Making Decisions

The Haitian members of the Church have played a key role in making decisions that are best for their unique situation. Within a short time after the disaster, a special Haitian-lead emergency-response committee was formed in addition to the already established Church committees. Men and women alike are active participants on the committee.

Every decision made by the committee has a similar objective: to help the Haitian members become self-sufficient. For each part of the relief effort, the committee has given assignments to the local Haitians so they can act on their own as much as possible.

The committee meets several times a week. Patrick Reese, manager of administration and planning for LDS Charities, attended one of the meetings. He reported, “It was one of the best experiences of my life. All matters of business were handled and decisions were made.”

The system the committee has established is very efficient. Reese said, “The [Church] welfare program in the United States developed over several years. The circumstances these leaders face has required them to implement the full program in one month—zero to sixty in seconds! They are doing it.”

To date the committee has organized medical treatment services, started a vast employment program, provided trauma counseling training for bishops, and established emergency shelters and an operating storehouse.

Coping

Bishops in Haiti are helping members in their wards cope with what has happened. With the help of basic pamphlets provided by LDS Family Services, bishops are helping people deal with the emotional aftereffects of the disaster. These simple pamphlets inform the bishops of what is happening to the people psychologically, which allows bishops to confidently say, “These are natural feelings to have after something like this happens.”

Using these materials, bishops are counseling the members of their congregations to deal with their feelings by praying, reading their scriptures, going to Church so that they can be surrounded by other people, and talking about what has happened with their families. “It is a very basic thing,” Bass explains, “but it gives them the confidence to know how to help themselves and others.”

Helping Others Survive

The local Haitians knew where the Church could get a warehouse to store food and supplies, which enabled LDS Charities to lease and begin using the warehouse just one week after the earthquake.

It wasn’t difficult to find people to work at the warehouse. Bass said, “We already had people there who are used to being leaders and who their fellow Haitians look to as leaders. So instead of having to go out to find people to work the warehouse, we just ask the bishops. We say, ‘We need 20 people here to unload trucks,’ and they get them there.”

Relief supplies include foods familiar to Haitians—beans, rice, oil, sardines, and spaghetti—as well as hygiene kits, newborn kits, tents, and other supplies. Leaders continue to reassess the needs of their fellow Haitians to modify supply requests.

LDS Charities trained volunteers in the basic skills needed to run a warehouse. They taught them how to organize the warehouse, keep an inventory, place an order, and drive the delivery trucks.

Now Haitian members are running the warehouse entirely on their own. Food and supply shipments arrive at the warehouse two or three days after an order is placed. The warehouse workers unload and stock the supplies. When they receive an order from a bishop, the supplies are pulled and loaded into three large trucks provided by LDS Charities. To avoid danger, the men deliver the food to the meetinghouses during the night.

Run by 25-30 people, the food distribution project is supplying thousands of Haitans with food.

Though it will take years to rebuild Haiti, the progress that the Haitian members of the Church have made is remarkable.