How Can Rotarians Help?

You ask a great but very big question which, as you said, many are asking.  What is the best thing to do.  As each day comes our needs change and we are now going through some transition.  We have been providing medical supplies and teams up to now.  WE have sent in protable x-ray and have just located a sterilizer for the insturments to send in.  Food, water and shelter are ongoing.

Many Rotarians and clubs are donating Shelterboxes.  It is my understanding that 3,000 have already been commissioned.  

Locally we have divided the funds between immediate relief and long term rebuilding.  We have been paying for fuel for the 57 airplanes that have taken our supplies down to our Haitian Rotarians on the ground.  We have received significant donations from our medical suppliers in Nassau and then purchased antibiotics and other supplies to send down.  Tortola has two Rotarians with planes flying back and forth with supplies.  USVI has sent a ship of supplies.  St Maarten has 40,000 pounds of supplies on the way.  All these are our district helping our friends in Haiti.  We have a direct conduit to the head of medical activities, Dr. Claude Surena, who is a Rotarian.  He guides us as to the needs each day.

With the migration away from PAP the needs in all the other regions have grown enormously.  We have had our success going to aiports outside of PAP where our Rotarians meet the planes and drive the supplies to where they are needed. 

Food, water and shelter will be needs for a while but now that "search and rescue" is officially over there will be an effort to clear areas to find bodies.  Control of disease is going better than expected as the tent communities are extremely close quarters but there is some clean wate and they keep it clean.

I believe that our greatest needs will be going forward in helping them to rebuild their country.  Our DAF will primarily be used for that effort, I believe.  Our district fund may still provide some of the immediate relief but will go significantly to helping the rebuilding efforts.  Our funds in Nassau will probably continue going to immediate needs as we are doing the coordinating with the local Rotarians from here.  

The clubs in our district have already committed close to $1M to the cause which is incredible as many of our countries are poor.  Rotary has stood up to be counted here and are working side by side with our Rotarians in Haiti.  Of course, in our efforts to help rebuild the need for cash to spend in the right projects will be the greatest need.

I probably have not answered any of your questions yet.  Already many thousands of shelterboxes have been sent and many have been donated and we still don't really have a good count so premature to ask for more in my opinion.  Perhaps later when the needs are more focused.

In my humble opinion clubs should donate to the DAF in order to be able to magnify the impact Rotary can make by pooling our resources and picking projects that will make a major difference in the years to come.  Also they should plan on doing their own projects when we are able to start putting the "big plan" together as to what the rebuilding needs are.  Meantime if they wish to contribute to immediate needs then we still need antibiotics, pain killers, antiseptics and bandages.  Down the road there will also be opportunities for hands on projects.

I can assure you that we are very close to the Haitian community and whatever we send in to help gets to the people who need it.  I know of the horror stories of the well intentioned who have sent items that have gone astray in one manner or another and they are probably true.  However, with the Haitian Task Force that we created for Rotary we have been able to control all items that we have sent through them and gotten the biggest success.  This has created a joint responsibility with the clubs for any TRF projects so that we have oversight of the activities.  It will always be of some concern but we are feeling very comfortable with this infrastructure we have put in place.   Our Caribbean Partnership www.caribbeanpartnership.org  has also worked very well with enabling quick communications and assistance between clubs within zones 33 and 34.

Sorry to be so long but this is a major effort with many pieces to it.  Some of us have done nothing but focus on this effort since January 12 and will continue as long as it takes.  We need all the help we can get for as long as we can get it.