Nikenson Fabre, Copyright: Noora Kero / Finnish Red Cross

Nikenson Fabre (29) has an important role at the Finnish Red Cross mobile clinic in Port-au-Prince. This Haitian National Society Red Cross volunteer translates for the clinic staff what the patients are saying in Creole or French, directs patients to a nurse or doctor, and comforts crying children. While carrying on with his work, he spoke of 12 January.

“At quarter past four in the afternoon I left the office of the Haitian Red Cross. I hopped on a TapTap, a local bus, and got off at the stop where I change buses. That’s when the earth started to tremble. I shouted at people in the streets: ‘Get out, get out! Get away from the buildings!’

“I could see houses collapsing, entire floors coming down all at once. In less than a minute, there was insane destruction. Almost instantly, I was surrounded by an incredible number of dead and seriously injured people.

“I opened my backpack, in which I always carry first aid supplies, and started treating injuries. I tried to call the managers at the Red Cross, but the phone didn’t work. I bandaged and cleaned wounds and helped people to get rides to the hospital. Luckily, there were some motorbikes around. Some children I took to hospital myself: I took one child on each arm and a third one on my back and walked the three kilometres to the nearest hospital.”

Helping is a natural reflex

“Helping is a natural reflex in me. When I saw the destruction, I didn’t even dare to think about my own family. I couldn’t go home, I wanted to be of the greatest possible use to the injured people around me.

“When I finally got home at three in the morning, I saw that our house had collapsed. Thankfully, my family was alive: both my parents and my younger brothers and sisters. But our home was totally wrecked, nothing could be saved.

“At five in the morning, I returned to the streets and went on giving first aid and taking injured people to hospital. Later that day, I saw a satellite image of my home town in ruins, and I cried. It took the World Trade Center [in New York] ten minutes to collapse – how can an entire country be destroyed in less than a minute?”

Job gone

“My family now live on the street, no roof over our heads, with just a sheet to sleep on. I have a hard time falling asleep at night, because I fear there could be another quake. When I touch something, I imagine it is moving.

“Before the earthquake, I was a sports journalist at a local radio station. But the radio station was destroyed, so I have no work now. Thankfully, I can keep helping as a Red Cross volunteer. I help wherever I am needed.

“What we need now is to get treatment for all the people who have been injured, make sure people get food every day and new houses to live in. We also need better policing; there have already been [crimes], because people are living on the streets and police capacity is down.

“International organizations should pull together and work with the Haitian government. It is great that the Red Cross societies of various countries got here so quickly, and are providing resources for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to help the Haitian Red Cross. That is the best way to help. The job for us volunteers is to make sure the aid reaches the people who are worst off. Haitians trust the Red Cross and the fact that we are helping them. We mustn’t let them down.

A life-saving volunteer

“I have been a Red Cross volunteer since 2004. I’ve had first aid training and, whenever possible, I volunteer for the society’s ambulance service.

‘In 2007 I was involved in founding our blood service [in Haiti]. Now we have 4,000 volunteer blood donors. My whole family regularly give blood. In 2008 I helped to evacuate people away from hurricane Jeanne.’

Nikenson’s day at the Finnish Red Cross clinic is coming to an end. The volunteer gathers two one-year-old cousins into his arms. Both children have been brought to the clinic suffering from diarrhoea.

“The future? The only thing I can say about the future right now is that I want to be involved in rebuilding our country. I will do everything I can to improve people’s lives.”

Stanley Clairmont

Stanley Clairmont was washing his clothes for university the next day when a massive earthquake struck his home town of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Despite government reports that the earthquake only lasted 17 seconds, Stanley says it felt like an eternity.

Although Stanley’s house survived the quake, massive cracks in the walls and roof make it dangerous to be inside, particularly with the continued aftershocks in the city. For now, Stanley and his family are living with 100 other families from his neighbourhood in an open area near by.

“We stay out in the open, where there are no walls. We managed to make a shelter with blankets and sheets we got from the house, but it’s not much. I’m sharing with my mother, my grandmother, two sisters and my cousin. Soon after the earthquake, our neighbours started to join us and at one point there were about 150 families in our camp,” said Stanley.

After the earthquake Stanley went out to take photos of the devastation. “At first I wanted to take pictures of the devastation, but I could see people needed help and I couldn’t just stand there taking photos. My university friends and I started to try and move some rubble where we could see people and help get them out. It was exhausting and there were a lot of dead bodies too – it was difficult to breathe. But we managed to save about 13 people. Then I got news that my grandmother was in trouble and trapped under the rubble, too.”

Stanley got his grandmother out from her collapsed house and took her to several hospitals before he could get her treatment: “I ended up spending many days in the hospital with my grandmother and then the Haitian Red Cross helped her. After that I knew I needed to do something to help as well so I went to the Haitian Red Cross office to volunteer. For the last week I’ve been helping with relief distributions to different camps around Port-au-Prince – I’m just pleased to be able to do something to help. Many camps we visited hadn’t received anything.”

Stanley was in his fourth year of studying electrical engineering at Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince. “I only had to finish my thesis and just had six months to go. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I went to see the university and it’s completely collapsed and I haven’t heard anything from the university or the scholarship scheme I was on. It was my dream to get my degree and I just don’t know if that’s going to happen now. I just can’t really think about it right now.”

Stanley now has started working with the British Red Cross mass sanitation emergency response team as an interpreter and hygiene promotion volunteer. Stanley’s role involves helping the five-person team to prevent diseases and construct latrines in the many camps that have sprung up in Port-au-Prince since the earthquake struck. “It’s good to work with the sanitation team and see what they do and I’ll be able to use some of the engineering principles I’ve been learning through my degree.”

Duvogene lost a leg in the earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January 2010.

In addition to her physical needs, the Red Cross Red Crescent is trying to help her overcome the psychological trauma of losing a limb. She is regularly being visited by volunteerss who specialize in psycho-social support.

Red Cross Red Crescent medical teams from Norway, Canada, Israel and Haiti are working at the clinic, including 22 specially trained volunteers who are attending to both the patients and the hospital personals psychological needs after the earthquake.

Photos: Olav Saltbones / Norwegian Red Cross
For more information, visit http://www.ifrc.org/haiti.

Two babies were born yesterday (20 January) at a Red Cross Red Crescent field hospital in Port-au-Prince. The babies – a boy and a girl – and their mothers are reported to be doing well. They were born within the magnitude 6 aftershock that struck early in the morning.

“A patient suddenly arrived on whom we had to do a caesarean, and another who we thought we would have to do a caesarean,” explained Arthur Halvorsen, a Norwegian Red Cross anaesthesiologist. “We took the first mother in to the operating theatre and managed to deliver the baby in a caesarean. This kid is now doing very well. “The other mother who was brought in actually ended up giving birth naturally while we were doing the first caesarean.”

Red Cross Red Crescent surgeons began operating at the hospital on Tuesday (19 January).

“A large number of those coming here are having to have amputations since their wounds are so infected,” explained Norwegian Red Cross surgeon Brynjulf Ystgaard. “It is always a tough decision to make, and even harder in a poor country like Haiti.”

The 70 bed hospital can treat up to 200 patients a day. It is set up close to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince and has a staff of more than 20 from Canada, Norway and Israel. The hospital has an outpatient clinic, two operating theatres, a mother and child unit and post-operative care facilities.

The provision of emergency health assistance remains a top priority for the Red Cross Red Crescent in Haiti. As well as the field hospital, two basic health care emergency response units are now operational. These mobile clinics are designed to provide curative and preventative health care to 30,000 people in the wake of a disaster.

In addition, the Red Cross Red Crescent is producing and distributing more than 500,000 litres of water a day. This figure will continue to climb as more and more infrastructure reaches Port-au-Prince.

Distributions of relief supplies also continue to build momentum. The Colombian Red Cross, for example, has sent a boat with relief items for 6,000 families (30,000 people) to Jacmel.

Twelve emergency response units (ERUs) have arrived in Haiti.

A further seven have been mobilized and are en route. With 19 ERUs now having been engaged, this operation represents the largest ever deployment of these international emergency response teams in the history of the Red Cross Red Crescent.

Maude Froberg in Haiti

Note: Maude Froberg is the communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in New York. She recently joined the IFRC media team in Haiti.

Tonight – no shooting stars over Port-au-Prince,

Darkness has just fallen over the Red Cross base camp in the quake-stricken city of Port-au-Prince. Thousands of stars twinkle above us when we put up our tents and mosquito domes in the inner yard of what will become our Red Cross base camp. We, some sixty delegates, calmly share the one and only toilet and generously divide our food. The inner yard is surrounded by stores which will be used as warehouses, but which are still too insecure to sleep in. The quake has cracked the walls.

I arrived from the Dominican Republic after an eight-hour drive. I felt strange travelling through this holiday paradise, where many of my Swedish countrymen vacation. For a moment it felt as if I were back in tsunami-affected Thailand again.

A Norwegian field hospital, whose plane was not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince was also sent in over this route, after a rapid decision to load it onto trucks. In this emergency situation decisions often have to be altered and new ways sought to reach the people affected as quickly as possible.

I would like to point out that many of the delegates deployed in this disaster are experts at this. I say this not to praise ourselves, there is no time for that in a disaster. What I mean is that there is professionalism, team spirit and a genuine care for each other. All who been recruited in this emergency phase are deeply knowledgeable about disaster response, including relief distribution and assessment, health and medical care, telecommunications, water and sanitation, to mention just a few areas.

Head lamps are wandering in the tepid night, and I am kneeling behind the cauldron of simmering water to make the first cup coffee for me and my colleague from the Haitian National Red Cross. We talk about the dire situation, and share our relief that the rapid deployment units, such as mobile clinics, field hospitals, logistics and water and sanitation teams are arriving. But at the same time: aid is slow. The scale and the scope of the disaster with more than two million people affected, and the lack of access and telecommunications put serious constraints in the way of our humanitarian work. I am still grateful though that the airstrip is functioning, and four cargo planes an hour can land, and aid is being unloaded as quickly as possible.

The curfew starts at six o’clock, and I carefully walk through the camp, and climb up into the rusty old truck with a flat-bed without edges. This will be my bed for tonight. I share it with my colleagues from Norway, Denmark and Finland, and we are better installed than I thought. The rats scuttling on the ground are big as cats.

While waiting for the stars to pale and the curfew to lift, my thoughts go to the survivors of the quake. People should never have to experience something this painful. Earthquakes, especially in densely-populated areas, carry a particular brutality in their short-lived passage. In only 30 seconds peoples’ lives are erased, and years of development with them.

I am searching the sky vault to try and see only one star, a ray of hope, but tonight, there are no shooting stars over Port-au-Prince. Instead, the earth trembles, and with a jolt I am sitting up, calling out: ‘Wake up! Aftershock!’ Instantly the air resounds with people screaming and the frightened barking of dogs. Homeless people flee their make-shift camps in parks and streets. We all lay awake in our sleeping bags and share the pain. After a while, the screams recede and instead a chant rises in the night, almost like an incantation.

At that moment, I wish I could embrace each of the survivors, and say that all will be fine. It shall be fine. But the reality is unfortunately different. Tonight I don’t sleep at all.

Photo Credit: Dennis Drenner/American Red Cross

United States President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited American Red Cross workers on 18 January, 2010 in the disaster operations center at Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C.

American Red Cross staff Eric Porterfield (left) and Wendy Harman invited (right) President Barack Obama to “tweet” a message via the @redcross Twitter account announcing his visit.

After hitting send, he remarked that this was his first ever “tweet“.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also launched into work with Red Cross Red Crescent partners. From the onset of the disaster, ICRC staff already in Haiti distributed medical items to hospitals. Following that, a cargo plane carrying 40 tonnes of relief supplies left Switzerland Thursday evening. Due to the chaos in Haiti, access and security are the biggest challenges the humanitarian community is now facing.

Judith Betrand, 10, attended by a Dominican Red Cross volunteer in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince. Photo: American Red Cross/Talia Frenkel (p-HTI0167) For more information: www.ifrc.org/haiti

Along with our government and non-government partners, the Red Cross Red Crescent is in Haiti, delivering emergency assistance, first aid, shelter and water. Follow the Red Cross Red Crescent response online through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Also, share what you have done in your community, whether it’s serving as a local Red Cross Red Crescent volunteer, donating financial support or sharing updates on the Haiti disaster with your friends and family.

Facebook

• http://Facebook.com/RedCrossRedCrescent – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement page, which includes regular updates
• http://Facebook.com/OurworldYourmove – The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement campaign that urges “simple gestures make a difference. make yours.”

Twitter

• http://twitter.com/Federation – International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
• http://twitter.com/ICRCnews – International Committee of the Red Cross
• http://twitter.com/yourmove09 – International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement campaign

flickr

• http://flickr.com/IFRC – International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies photos, received from National Societies around the world

YouTube

• http://youtube.com/IFRC – videos discussing the Red Cross Red Crescent response
• http://youtube.com/ICRCfilms – videos discussing the International Committee of the Red Cross response

Miriam Castaneda

Canadian Red Cross Haiti Program Manager Miriam Castaneda has been living and working in Haiti since September 2009. She was in her apartment in Port au Prince when the earthquake struck and immediately went to the Canadian Red Cross office where she worked with staff and volunteers to provide emergency first aid, triaging over 250 injured the first night. Here is her account of how a recent day unfolded:

January 17, 2009

My days start very early in the morning. I have started a cantina service for our local logistic support staff (drivers, logisticians, security); I get up early every morning and prepare breakfast, with their help.

I spoke with the President of the Haitian Red Cross and expressed my concern for the people who were suffering beyond words, and asked for her support. She understood immediately, agreed and instructed her staff to assist us in transporting the injured for medical care.

I couldn’t help it; I gave her a tight hug, tears in my eyes.

Our action saved 10 lives.

On the drive back to the office, I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing; piles and piles of buildings, smashed cars, destruction and pain and suffering everywhere. An endless sea of people on the streets, “camping” in parks.

The Haitian Red Cross staff and volunteers are everywhere – working, moving people, moving equipment, trying to salvage what little can be saved from their seriously damaged buildings. Everyone is doing what they can.

We noticed a convoy of seven trucks from the Dominican Red Cross. The head truck driver was asking for directions, so we stopped and directed them to where they were supposed to deliver the medicine and relief items they were transporting.

The Spanish Red Cross has started setting up water-production plants as well as distributing water. They were able to distribute 100,000 litres of water in two areas and they’re mobilizing volunteers to help them from one place to another.

When I arrived back at our office I was informed that the search and rescue crews had located about 40 people in the collapsed Caribbean Supermarket. They had been given water to drink and crews were going to try and get them out as quickly as possible.

In the evening, I went to the Red Cross base camp and the scene was just amazing!

The Canadian delegates had already set up their tents. The Americans were planning their relief distributions. The French were coordinating the arrival of the Norwegian planes and equipment for the field hospital. The Swiss were entering the camp with all their equipment, followed by delegates from the Swedish, Finnish and German Red Cross.

The camp looks like the whole world is here! And more are coming!

For more information: www.ifrc.org/haiti.

Jet Li

I am deeply saddened by the news of this terrible disaster in Haiti. As a Goodwill Ambassador for the Red Cross Society of China and as a strong supporter of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, I would like to express my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones, and urge citizens worldwide to aid the disaster victims in any way that they can.

While the One Foundation has already donated 100,000 USD in relief funding to the Red Cross Red Crescent to help with the relief work, much more is needed and it will take the strength of the global family to save lives and rebuild futures.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) deployed a Field Assessment and Coordination Team (FACT) to assess emergency and early recovery needs, including the restoration of livelihoods and permanent shelter. The team is composed of experts in logistics, emergency health, shelter, telecommunications, reporting and communication.

Emergency Response Units (ERU), specialized in relief coordination, water and sanitation, shelter, telecommunications and health, are also expected in the next few days. They will provide much-needed support for the emergency operation, including the deployment of a field hospital with a capacity of attending to 50 patients at a time.

Matthew Marek, an American Red Cross delegate located in Haiti, took these initial photos.

For more information on how to help, visit IFRC.org or your local Red Cross Red Crescent.

Welcoming speeches were delivered by :

• Mr. Abdulhamid al-Madani, Manager of Libyan Red Crescent Branches Department
• MR. Omar Abuzaid , Secretary of administration and finance affairs Musrata Branch

The course was attended by 29 candidates, 25 candidates from various branches of the Libyan Red Crescent and 4 candidates from the Tunisian Red Crescent.

The course was supervised by Sofia Galand of the North Africa “Youth as agents of behavioural change”  (YABC) program, and coordinated and delivered by Noha Alyefrni from the Tunisian Red Crescent.

In general the main topics addressed during the course were:

• Definition of human principles and values and also an introduction to the YABC tool kit — a collection of games, activities and discussions intended to help participants
• Definition and analysis of human values.
• The hierarchy of the Libyan Red Crescent association and the role of such association.

Ricardo Darín - “XXY” © 2007 Wanda Visión

Ricardo Darín is an Argentinian actor and director.

Teungku Azhari, Indonesia, June 2009. Photo credit: Daniel Cima/American Red Cross (p-IDN1339)

Almost five years since the tsunami disaster, the Red Cross Red Crescent has helped hundreds of thousands of survivors take significant steps along the road to recovery.

Teungku Azhari, 55 years old, plants rice on his plot of land to be harvested in around four months. His wife helps maintain the 2500 square meter paddy field and he has four children and two grandchildren. For now the rice harvested (1.5 tonnes) from his land is just enough for his family, but he hopes to be able to produce more than one crop per year to sell at the market. His wife makes cakes and sweets and he teaches reading during the dry season (non-harvest time). Their house was destroyed by the tsunami, but they now live in a newly constructed house adjacent to the paddy field.

Marilyn Sandoval is a 17 year-old Red Cross volunteer involved in the HIV programme implemented by the Colombian Red Cross in Cali. Photo credit: Jean-Luc Martinage – IFRC

There is a lot of excitement when we meet with Marilyn as she is about to start another HIV awareness session surrounded by more than 20 lively and smiling young boys and girls from El Calvario, one of Cali’s poor neighbourhood. “This part of town has many of the characteristics of urban problems faced in Latin American cities,” explains Dr Yacid Estrada, coordinator of the Colombian Red Cross HIV programme. “The neighbourhood is filled with poor unemployed families, homeless people living in a mix of violence, alcohol and drugs.”

“Samaritanos de la Calle » is the social centre used by Colombian Red Cross volunteers for HIV prevention activities. It is located in the heart of one of Cali’s poorest neighbourhood: “El Calvario”. Photo credit: Jean-Luc Martinage – IFRC

In this difficult environment, the “Samaritanos de la calle” social centre is a safe haven where teenagers attend activities including HIV prevention sessions. “We provide them with basic information on HIV, show them how to use a condom and, as importantly, we are there to listen to them, share their stories and fears and try to support them in the best possible way”, Marilyn explains, surrounded by some of the 30 Colombian Red Cross volunteers involved in the HIV project.

“Children and teenagers living in this area are highly vulnerable”, she adds. “Young girls are often offered money for sexual intercourse when they have very little idea of sexuality and the risk they could face by having unprotected sex. Since there are many drug users in this part of the city, they also risk HIV infection and other diseases through injected drugs and having unprotected sex with injecting drug users.”

From first aid to HIV

When asked why she decided to get involved as a Red Cross volunteer, Marilyn tells us that it all began when she was only 11 years old and saw a newspaper advert about Red Cross first aid courses. She asked her parents for more information and they allowed her to follow the courses. She started with first aid and then, as she grew older, she became interested in the HIV programme.

“I liked the idea of using prevention and work closely with local communities. But we are more than just volunteers involved in HIV prevention activities. We are also there to listen to their doubts and concerns, as well as advising them when necessary. Some children are abused and it is important for them to share the problems they face at home or in their neighbourhood.”

HIV prevention activities take place in several social centres around the city, as well as in schools, and sometimes volunteers also go to universities when they are asked. Most of the teenagers that are reached through the programme are between the ages of 11 and 17.

Red Cross volunteers are providing HIV prevention training and first aid to the inhabitants of “El Calvario”, one of Cali’s poorest neighbourhood. Photo credit: Jean-Luc Martinage – IFRC

Building close links

Marilyn and the other volunteers have built real links with the people living in El Calvario. Colombian Red Cross doctors are also coming to the social centre on a regular basis, providing a very useful assistance for a community who cannot afford any sophisticated medical treatment.

“Obviously, our mission is not easy but I am glad to help my community and I am so happy when I see them change their behaviour: Some of the teenagers we met in El Calvario are even thinking of doing just like me and also becoming volunteers. Isn’t it great?” she concluded with a smile.

Asri, Indonesia, June 2009. Photo credit: Daniel Cima/American Red Cross (p-IDN1395)

Almost five years since the tsunami disaster, the Red Cross Red Crescent has helped hundreds of thousands of survivors take significant steps along the road to recovery.

Asri, 40 years old, has a small brick workshop in her village, Tanjung Raya Village, Darussalam, Aceh Besar District. Asri’s husband passed away a few months ago and she currently lives with her children and son-in-law. She has 5 children.

In order to sustain her family’s financial life after the tsunami hit, Asri restarted their existing small brick workshop. She begins her daily routine in the brick workshop around 10 a.m., compacting the clay, forming it into brick, and then burning and drying.

In her spare time, Asri plants fresh vegetables in her house yard.

Learn more about the tsunami disaster at http://www.ifrc.org/tsunami and http://www.redcross.org/tsunami.

Khatijah, Indonesia, June 2009. Photo credit: Daniel Cima/American Red Cross (p-IDN1357)

Almost five years since the tsunami disaster, the Red Cross Red Crescent has helped hundreds of thousands of survivors take significant steps along the road to recovery.

Khatijah, a 57-year old-woman, sells shrimp. She lost three children when the tsunami hit. Today, she makes about 5,000 rupias a day selling shrimp. This CHF/American Red Cross market allows people to sell fruit, vegetables, and fish in a cleaner, centralised area.

Learn more about the tsunami disaster at http://www.ifrc.org/tsunami and http://www.redcross.org/tsunami.