Today’s Independent newspaper carries a focus on the people and the conditions in the notorious slums of Cite Soleil in Port au Prince the earthquake-devastated capital of Haiti.
The piece, by Guy Adams, pictures people living on mud cakes – made from clay, salt and a little cooking oil. They are all but nutrition free and they make sick those who eat them – but there’s nothing else.
30,000 people live – exist – in this shanty town slung between the airport and the sea. They have no food, no water and no doctors to tend to the injured and medical supplies are non existent.
When any aid arrives in Haiti – and unbelievably little has done so to date – nothing is sent to Cite Soleil. Being already so hugely deprived, they are not considered victims of the earthquake by their own authorities. It is accepted that the conditions in which they survive are unimaginable. They always have been.
Aid workers have traditionally been afraid to go to work in Cite Soleil because traditionally it has been run by gangs and crime is rife. When Haiti’s last President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed in 2004 the Cite Soleil slum became a war zone. Westerners are still advised not to go there.
But Argyll’s Dalmally-based charity, Mary’s Meals, has been there since 2006 – running 7 schools and feeding around 6,000 children in Cite Soleil one good meal a day – 6,000 out of a total of 12,000 children oi feeds in Haiti as a whole.
The charity knows the area, is known there, has the contacts. It is now focusing the appeal for donations it has just launched on help for an ares so desperately on the fringes of survival that, normally described as ‘one of the most dangerous slums in the world’, violence is already an hourly threat.
Mary’s Meals’ seven schools there were among the only concrete buildings in what is a maze of corrugated iron shacks and open sewers. Although they were partially damaged, we understand that people made homeless by the earthquake are sheltering in the courtyards.
This charity is committed to helping to re-establish lessons and school feeding in Cite Soleil as a matter of urgency. ‘We want to inject some normality back into the lives of these children’, explains Doug Campbell, a project manager.
Mary’s Meals’ Chief Executive, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow, will be in Port au Prince today (21st January) to establish how the charity can further help with the relief effort.
Elsewhere in Haiti, Mary’s Meals is working to prevent the starvation that threatens as food runs out. In Hinche, in the central plateau, it has been providing food, water and medical supplies for the injured earthquake victims and their families who have arrived looking for shelter and treatment.
Where possible, it has been sourcing food, such as cans of nutritious black beans, locally; and bringing in by air supplies and medical equipment requested by a local hospital.
‘More and more people are coming into the provinces’, says Father Jacques Volcius, who organises Mary’s Meals projects in Hinche. ‘Many are sleeping outside in tents. During the day, they are out roaming in the streets. Many have lost everything’.
Although the Haitian Government has closed schools for at least the remainder of January in response to the emergency, Mary’s Meals has been asked to continue its feeding programmes at Los Abeilles (near Roy Sec) and in the Maison Fortune school and children’s home (in Hinche). For children there, the daily meal they receive at school can be the only one they have.
The Maison Fortune home has taken in many extra children. It normally runs a feeding programme for school pupils and residents and has extended this to provide meals for displaced earthquake victims as well.
Mary’s Meals has benefited from huge public support in recent days, from personal donations, to the proceeds of church and street collections and school fundraising events. ‘We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of supporters, who have made amazing efforts to support our Haiti appeal’, says Ruth Black, Communications Director. ‘We would urge people to keep giving – our commitment to Haiti is long term and there is a lot of work to be done’.
- To donate, go to the Mary’s Meals website or call 0800 6981212.
- Please send postal donations to Mary’s Meals, Craig Lodge, Dalmally, Argyll, PA33 1AR.
Jim Mather, Argyll’s MSP, joins us in asking for Argyll to support this knowledgeable local charity, present in Haiti since 2006 and focused on helping Haiti’s children, one million of whom are orphaned.
Mr Mather says: ‘it is important to remember and support charities such as Mary’s Meals that were in Haiti before the earthquake, involved in school feeding projects in communities where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education. Their role will be pivotal as we look to a new generation in Haiti to restore democracy, well-being and the true and proper fulfilment of people’s potential.
‘Especially as it is rooted in Dalmally and helps, under the stewardship of Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, to link the generosity of the people of Argyll & Bute directly to the people of Haiti’.
The photograph at the top of this article is of the consequences of the earthquake on Bel Air in Haiti;s capital Port au Prince. It is by copyright holder Marcello Casal Jr/ABr and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.
The photograph in the centre of the article is of the Cite Soleil slum in Port au Prince – and shows the conditions in which its children lived before the earthquake struck. These children have always been victims.
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