from Amber Lynn Munger

In my thir­teen years of work­ing in Haiti, not once before have I seen such mas­sive destruc­tion as we are expe­ri­enc­ing now.  Nor have I seen such moti­va­tion, deter­mi­na­tion, com­pas­sion, and sol­i­dar­ity among peo­ple.  When we entered por­to­prens after the quake struck, the city had fallen and was con­tin­u­ing to fall as a result of con­tin­u­ous after­shocks.  The streets were full of peo­ple sit­ting together.  Every­one was sit­ting in the mid­dle of the roads for fear that the houses would con­tinue to fall on them. They were singing.  The whole city was singing.  They were singing songs of sol­i­dar­ity.  They were singing songs of thanks and praise that they were still able to sing and to be together.  These peo­ple have lost every­thing.  The city is now a city of refugees.  But they are putting their voices together to be thankful.

After recov­er­ing our loved ones that we could find from the wreck­age, we spent the rest of the night assist­ing oth­ers in the street, strate­giz­ing and attempt­ing to rest to pre­pare for the com­ing days.  The whole night we passed hear­ing peo­ple singing, peo­ple scream­ing and cry­ing when their loved ones died.  Peo­ple were dying all around.  And the tremors con­tin­ued all night.  The hos­pi­tals are full and can­not accept more peo­ple.  All over PAP there is dan­ger from the destruc­tion.  There are still no cell phone com­mu­ni­ca­tions or inter­net avail­able.  Coor­di­nat­ing activ­i­ties is extremely difficult.

What is needed now is a way to get peo­ple out of the city.  I am work­ing with sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions on a coor­di­nated dis­as­ter response that is focus­ing on rein­forc­ing the coun­try­side so that peo­ple can leave por­to­prens and go back to their fam­i­lies in the province.  Almost every­one in PAP has fam­ily in the coun­try­side.  The efforts that I am sup­port­ing are help­ing haitians to sup­port their fam­ily mem­bers in leav­ing PAP and in receiv­ing the care that they need when they leave.

If not orga­nized strate­gi­cally, this dis­as­ter will soon have huge con­se­quences to the food pro­duc­ing regions that depend on PAP to pur­chase their prod­uct and ser­vices.  We need to rein­force these areas and set up ser­vices in the com­munes so that peo­ple can flee the cities and find the sup­port that they need in the com­munes.  We need to sup­port grass­roots orga­ni­za­tions in the com­mune by send­ing them resources to buy food, by send­ing them med­ical experts and mate­ri­als, and pro­vide them with other basic ser­vices that will sup­port them in stay­ing in the province and get­ting their lives together.

I am work­ing with grass­roots lead­ers in zones all over PAP as well as lead­ers from the provinces to iden­tify strate­gies to move the peo­ple out and to assist the peo­ple in PAP who can­not leave in find­ing food, water, shel­ter and med­ical care.  I am help­ing these lead­ers to coor­di­nate and to facil­i­tate out­side help as well such as for­eign doc­tors and sup­plies being sent by other coun­tries.  These lead­ers are iden­ti­fy­ing the needs in their com­mu­ni­ties and the net­work I am work­ing with is coor­di­nat­ing thier needs with the resources that are bging sent from out­side the coun­try as well as from zone to zone within the coun­try.  I am assist­ing in the coor­di­na­tion of this effort on the ground in Haiti and Melinda Miles of Kon­pay is cur­rently han­dling the logis­tics and coor­di­na­tion from the US.  I am also part­ner­ing with AMURT-Haiti to coor­di­nate emer­gency food relief in slums in the bour­don area of por­to­prens.  We need help.  We des­per­ately need money to be sent to use for gas, trans­port, food, sup­plies co,ing from the US such as med­ical sup­plies and web phones, and to pay Haitians work­ing to help Haitians. Many Haitians are work­ing together with­out com­pen­sa­tion to help one another.  But this is not sus­tain­able over the next month as resources begin to dwin­dle and people’s needs become des­per­ate.  We need to be able to sup­port their work.   Please send con­tri­bu­tions to Kon­pay and go to their site where they are devel­op­ing a page on our dis­as­ter response efforts at http://www.razoo.com/story/Haiti-Earthquake-Emergency-Relief-Campaign.  You can find dona­tion infor­ma­tion on that page.  You can also visit the Kon­pay, AMURT-Haiti and Beyond Bor­ders web­sites to learn more about the work of those partners.

Please help!

Amber Lynn Munger, J.D.