An Urgent Appeal from the
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Haiti hit by the first large earthquake in 240 years

January 23, 2010

Dear Friends of Haiti:

Haiti has been hit by the first large earthquake in 240 years. The enormity of the effects of this devastating 7.0 quake are only barely understood at this time. Over 200,000 may have died and three million have been left homeless.

This is a moment in which your solidarity is of critical importance.

Haiti’s grassroots movement – including labor unions, women’s groups, educators and human rights activists, support committees for prisoners, and agricultural cooperatives – will attempt to funnel needed aid to those most hit by the earthquake. Grassroots organizers are doing what they can – with the most limited of funds – to make a difference. Please take this chance to lend them your support.

This is a time for all of us to act.

What Can You Do?

Since its inception in March 2004, the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund has given concrete aid to Haiti’s grassroots democratic movement as they attempted to survive the brutal coup and to rebuild shattered development projects. We urge you to contribute generously, not only for this immediate crisis, but in order to support the long-run development of human rights, sustainable agriculture and economic justice in Haiti.

All donations to the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund will be forwarded to our partners on the ground to help them rebuild what has been destroyed.

Here are just a few examples of what your funding has already been able to accomplish:

We have helped to send a truckload of medical supplies to the Aristide Foundation, which has become a center for medical relief work in the Port-au-Prince area. Thousands of people sought refuge in the Foundation right after the earthquake, and – with your support – the organizers there have begun to provide food, water and medical care for those in need. (See statement from the Aristide Foundation below)

We have given funds to a series of neighborhood committees organized by grass roots activists in Port-au-Prince. These committees have been housing the homeless, providing food and water for those who have never seen any U.S. military or UN aid. Neighbors helping neighbors, Haitians helping Haitians, activists helping to sustain their local areas.

We have aided schools in the Port-au-Prince area, including SOPUDEP – a school that serves the poorest children in the Petionville community, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Your aid has helped educators reach out with aid and support to their students and their families, many of whom have experienced incalculable losses.

We have supported a women’s organizing project in Les Cayes, an area hard hit by the earthquake but ignored by most relief efforts.

We have facilitated the travel of nurses and other medical personnel to Port-au-Prince, using our networks to insure that they connect with communities that are in the most need.

We have sent a generator to community organizers in Cite Soleil, the poorest neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, so that residents there can contact their families in the diaspora. We have also provided funds to help house children in Cite Soleil who have orphaned as a result of the quake.

We have provided funds for thousands of tarps in the Port-au-Prince area, where people continue to sleep outside, either because their homes are destroyed or because of fear of after-shocks.

Our aid goes directly into the hands of Haitians. We give aid, not charity; we respect the people of Haiti and honor their commitment to lead the rebuilding of their society in the wake of this disaster.

We have worked to support Haiti for the past six years, not just for the past two weeks. We will continue our work long after Haiti has dropped from the front pages. We hope that you will be there with us. We appreciate every penny, every dime, every dollar.

Our hearts are with Haiti.

Thank you.

Walter Riley
Civil rights attorney, Chair of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Sister Maureen Duignan, O.S.F.
Co-Chair, Haiti Emergency Relief Fund

Pierre Labossiere,
Board Member, Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, Co-Founder of Haiti Action Committee

Randall White
Deacon, Allen Temple Baptist Church, Board Member HERF

Robert Roth
Educator, Co-Founder Haiti Action Committee

Marilyn Langlois
Board Member, HERF, community advocate for Mayor's office in Richmond CA

Statement from the Aristide Foundation for Democracy

Since the earthquake the Aristide Foundation for Democracy and the Medical School of the Foundation have been receiving large numbers of refugees and treating the wounded. Approximately 4000 people are now sheltering in the dormitories of the Medical School. Getting food, water and medicine for them remains a daily challenge. Foundation staff, together with a group of 53 doctors(Cuban and Haitian) attached to the Foundation, have been providing emergency medical care to the injured. The AFD has mobilized over 250 young people from the area to help distribute food and water, treat the wounded and maintain calm. In the coming week we plan to send mobile clinics out into some of the larger refugee encampments in the city. We are working to serve where possible as a bridge between the larger relief effort and the vast network of organizations, neighborhood groups and people who make up the popular movement, to whom we remain closely bonded, and for whom the continued presence of the Aristide Foundation is a symbol of hope.

We are grateful for the financial support of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund.

The Aristide Foundation For Democracy

 

HERF fundraising flyer from November 16, 2006