Haiti Earthquake Response – focus on children
AMURT is developing and maintaining ten Child-Friendly Spaces in Port-au-Prince. The purpose of the centers is to help children affected by the earthquake restore normalcy and improve overall well-being in their lives with psychosocial and educational support.
Besides psychosocial, educational, and creative activities all children in the Child-Friendly Spaces program receive nutritional biscuits in addition to a hot meal of rice, beans and vegetables.
 Child-friendly spaces offer children affected by disaster psychosocial and educational support |
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AMURT & AMURTEL in operation GIVE YOUR HEART TO HAITI continues the work on the ground in Port Au Prince by feeding children, distributing family size dry rations, tents and tarts, as well as arranging emergency medical clinics and community based capacity building.
Community Based Food Distribution
When the earthquake struck Haiti, AMURT-Haiti’s seasoned team were on the ground in Port-Au-Prince ready to deliver an immediate response, by applying its community-based Emergency Management Response Plan. The first steps involved the facilitation of transferring food, medical services, water, and non-food items from the large aid agencies into the hands of smaller community-based groups who are best positioned to effectively coordinate distribution. AMURT is facilitating inclusive and participatory community forums to structure the distribution themselves while enhancing their capacity. This reduces the inevitable gaps in communication and coordination inherent in large-scale disaster response, and prepares the ground for future sustainable community development.
Mobile Clinics in Isolated Slums
The initial intervention targeted those most heavily impacted by the earthquake, assisting residents in the isolated slum areas of Boudon, Cite O’Kay and Cite Jereme by providing transport of wounded and supplies to hospitals. In the community of Delmas AMURT Haiti has working with our community-based partners providing logistical support, transport of medicine and patients, and coordination of medical volunteers, while in Boudan, our sister organization AMURTEL has been providing daily mobile clinics .
 Volunteers distribute dry rations |
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Long-Term Commitment to Grassroots Empowerment
AMURT will continue to align both its immediate and long-term response with the human rights-based framework of community empowerment, self-determination, and leadership capacity building. AMURT & AMURTEL have more than two decades of experience with relief work in Haiti, and have facilitated many ongoing development projects there. AMURTEL particularly focuses on meeting the special needs of women and children in disasters. The teams are responding to this calamity as rapidly and effectively as possible, and will remain far after the triage and immediate relief has been completed.
For a better understanding of this approach, please view our past and current community-based projects on our Haiti website, www.amurthaiti.org.
Please donate directly online to the Haiti earthquake relief effort today >>
or send a check made out to AMURT to: 2502 Lindley Terrace, Rockville MD 20850, USA
