The Issue

Two years after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, progress has been made in areas such as clearing rubble, reunification of separated children, and providing transitional shelter. However, there is no doubt that major challenges remain.

Rebuilding Haiti isn’t simply a matter of fixing houses, roads and buildings. It is about working with Haitians towards long-term change in the way that their essential needs are met. Services like health care, education, water and sanitation must be accessible to all Haitians. The responsibility for providing these services sits with the Haitian government. But other countries and aid organizations have an important role to play in supporting the development of a strong, well-functioning Haitian government and active citizens who work together to build a Haiti fit for children.

Two years on, greater efforts are still needed to lay the foundation for this long-term change.

What has World Vision been doing, since the earthquake?

We are working to respond to the impact of the earthquake and to support long-term development in Haiti:

We have been providing assistance through things like emergency shelter, food assistance, water, basic health services and activities to keep children safe. Some achievements to date:

• More than 2,700 transitional shelters have provided more secure housing for almost 14,000 people
• More than 610 million litres of clean water have been provided to hundreds of thousands of people
• Some 720 latrines (fixed and mobile) and 600 showers have been installed
• The family tracing and reunification program has monitored the well-being of more than 2,000 children and reunited 1,042 with their families
• Early childhood development learning spaces have served nearly 1,200 children in 17 camps. Read more

We have also maintained our work with Haitian communities where we have been supporting the long-term needs of children and their families for over 30 years—through, for example, access to education, health care and clean water supplies, as well as agriculture and livelihoods assistance.

In addition, we have supported the Haitian government in its efforts to make Haiti a better place for children and communities, in the long term. We have been promoting the rights, protection and well-being of children, and pushing for long-term solutions and the effective use of aid in the response to the earthquake. Some of our key activities over the past two years:

We have met with the Haitian Prime Minister and various government ministries, asking them to make children’s needs and rights a priority, and to provide children with special protection during the reconstruction process;

At a critical first gathering of world leaders in Montreal, two weeks after the earthquake, World Vision Canada's president Dave Toycen outlined key steps for keeping children a number one focus in the earthquake response. At that meeting, we also asked Haitian and world leaders to work with the people of Haiti to create an overall reconstruction and development blueprint. This would be the blueprint for a completely new Haiti, where education, health care, water, safe communities, good roads, and livelihoods are available to all people. This blueprint was launched in March 2010 and is called the National Action Plan for Reconstruction and Development;

Due to the billions of aid dollars committed to Haiti, and the huge number of government and aid organizations trying to help, we called for a coordinating body to be created, where all these partners could support the Haitian government and citizens in carrying out the National Action Plan for Reconstruction and Development. Others recognized this need and the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was created;

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission’s purpose has been to help Haiti re-build and put in place permanent systems to provide services to all Haitians – services like health care and education. However, the Commission has needed reforms to make it more efficient, inclusive and effective. This is why we have worked over the past two years to strengthen the Commission to achieve greater impact. Now that the Commission’s mandate has ended, the Haitian government is considering whether to extend its mandate, or to put in place a new coordinating body. World Vision continues to provide advice into this process on how to best coordinate national and international efforts for Haiti’s children and communities;

We have helped Haitian children, youth and their communities to speak with government officials to add their ideas to the reconstruction efforts;

We are working with the UN and other partners to help Haiti’s government develop a common return and resettlement strategy that will work for everyone.

What you can do

READ MORE

-Op-ed from World Vision Canada President Dave Toycen
-View our photo gallery and see the impacts of World Vision donors in Haiti
-HELP other children and families affected by disasters around the world