Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, chief executive of Dalmally-based Mary’s Meals, went to Haiti last Thursday (21st January) to see the effect that donations from Oban and across the UK were having; and to assess what further help could be provided.
He has seen aid from Scotland starting to make a difference but sees too that more must be done for people in Haiti in the long term.
In one of the world’s worst and most gang-ridden slums where the Mary’s Meals had been providing daily meal for more than 6,000 children before the earthquake – Cite Soleil in Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince, Mr MacFarlane-Barrow found serious damage to schools.
‘Some of our schools are complete write-offs, as above, with lots of damage and they will need to be knocked down’, he says. ‘Others look like the damage is not too bad but then you see huge cracks in the cement and the walls.
‘There was a horrible stench when we arrived at one school, and I was worried about what we would find going in. It turned out that the smell was the beans that had been being prepared for the children, rotting.
‘As the earthquake struck, volunteers had been busy working to prepare the next day’s batch of Mary’s Meals. A lady told me that they had been “up to their elbows” in beans at the time. Fortunately, none of the volunteers was hurt – they had crawled out of the building. Everything was lying in the kitchen where it had been left’.
Despite the challenges, it has been possible to get some help through to those who most need it. In Cite Soleil, where open sewers run through the streets, clean water is essential.
The charity has now been able to buy diesel from the United Nations which means that a team can fill a water tanker and drive it to Cite Soleil, to be distributed to those who need it most.
‘Cite Soleil is incredibly poor and it was already a disaster zone before the earthquake happened. The bit of hope that the children had was from these meals and these schools. It has to be a priority to reopen and rebuild them as soon as we can’, says Magnus.
In Hinche, in Haiti’s central plateau, Mary’s Meals has been providing food for injured earthquake victims at St Therese hospital and for 1500 of the refugees who have fled to the town in recent days.
‘People are crowded into family homes and orphanages’, says Magnus, ‘I visited a one-room hovel in a back street where about fifteen people were crammed in.
‘A lot of people have ended up in Hinche because they got on the first bus out of Port au Prince. They’ve arrived with the shirt on their back and nothing else. These people are desperate and it’s important that we help them – at the moment we’re the only people who are’.
Since its Haiti appeal was launched, Mary’s Meals has continued to benefit from generous support from those in the Oban area. Oban High School held a lunch-time fundraiser on 22nd January; and children at Achaleven Primary School in Connel had a non uniform day on 19th January.
While Mary’s Meals is not able to accept material items for delivery direct to Haiti, the charity welcomes contributions of clothes, books and bric-a-brac – which can be sold to raise money to help – at its shops on Stevenson Street in Oban and Argyll Street, Lochgilphead.
You may donate to Mary’s Meals Haiti appeal:
- online at the charity’s website
- by phone on: 0800 6981212.
The photographs above, taken a couple of days ago by Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow, CEO of Dalmally-based Mary’s Meals, show, from the top:
- A father and his children in a bed at St Therese hospital, Hinche. Patients and their families have received food from Mary’s Meals.
- Children from the Cite Soleil slum in Port au Prince outside the rubble of their ruined school through which Mary’s Meals supplied their only source of a daily meal.
- A ruined classroom in a Cite Soleil school.
- Girls living in a dangerous rubble heap in Cite Soleil.
- A plane lands medical supplies from Mary’s Meals at Hinche, on Haiti’s central plateau.
- Locals help to load a truck with medical supplies from Mary’s Meals in Hinche, Haiti.
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