Haiti: One Month On

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI—Action Against Hunger | ACF International has provided emergency services in clean water, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene to more than 100,000 people since the earthquake devastated the Haitian capital one month ago today. The humanitarian organisation has also expanded its current operations in Port de Paix and Gonaives, cities that have experienced an influx of hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors fleeing the capital.

Update from Port-au-Prince

• Clean water: Action Against Hunger has installed 41 large water reservoirs and five water treatment stations in hard-hit neighbourhoods across Port-au-Prince that provide daily clean drinking water access to nearly 70,000 people.
  
  
• Sanitation: The humanitarian agency is constructing 100 latrines equipped with hand-washing stations and has mobilised 60 staff members to conduct public awareness campaigns in displacement camps on best hygiene practices in emergency settings.
  
  
• Nutrition Services: A dozen makeshift tents are now operational in Port-au-Prince, providing nearly 500 mothers and their young children with a safe setting for breastfeeding, as well as counselling and psycho-social support, each day. The centres also provide feedings to forty infants whose mothers were killed or injured in the earthquake.
  
  
• Distributions: Since the earthquake, Action Against Hunger has distributed 62 tons of high-protein BP5 biscuits, 3,600 blankets and more than 2,000 emergency kits containing plastic sheeting, soap, buckets and other essential items. Some 35,000 people have benefited from Action Against Hunger’s distributions.

Strengthening programmes in surrounding areas

In response to the arrival of an estimated 500,000 survivors from Port-au-Prince who have taken refuge with families in nearby cities of Gonaives and Port de Paix, Action Against Hunger has scaled up programmes in nutrition, health, clean water and sanitation already underway prior to the earthquake. Having run programmes in these cities since 2001, the organisation is focused on the treatment of severely malnourished children; the installation of clean drinking water stations,  latrines and other sanitation facilities; and the provision of technical and logistical support for local health centres and hospitals.