Mary’s Meals launches appeal for donations for relief work in Haiti

As of midnight on 17th January, we have heard that Argyll’s Dalmally-based charity, Mary’s Meals, is now managing to get food through to injured earthquake victims who have travelled to Hinche, a city in Haiti’s central plateau, which has been filling up with injured and displaced people.

If you have any doubt about the situation in Haiti, note that the photograph above shows what life was like before the earthquake – in the Cite Soleil slum where Mary’s Meals has been working since 2006.

The charity’s plan remains to help with the recovery effort in any way possible. Specifically, this will involve getting food, water and medical supplies to people in Hinche (see situation note on Hinche below) and working in the Cite Soleil slum (in Port au Prince) to repair the charity’s  seven damaged schools and care for the pupils and their families.

Mary’s Meals has now launched an appeal for financial assistance and we joint with it in asking you to contribute generously to this unimaginable humanitarian tragedy.

The appeal

Dalmally-based charity Mary’s Meals is appealling for help from people in Argyll as it focuses its initial relief efforts in Haiti on victims in the city of Hinche.

While the bulk of the earthquake recovery effort is concentrated on the capital, Port au Prince, Mary’s Meals has identified a growing need in Hinche, approximately 130km from the capital, where many of the injured are now being taken for treatment.

As supplies of water and food are so short in Port au Prince, a further influx of survivors are making their way to the central plateau in search of food and water and shelter – and with the normal supply route through the capital cut, starvation is a real risk as stocks run out.

Mary’s Meals has been supporting school feeding projects in Hinche since 2007. In the first instance buying food and medical supplies for distribution to those most in need locally, particularly the earthquake victims and their families at the hospitals.

However, as these supplies are also expected to run out very soon, the charity is making arrangements for the purchase and delivery of more, from the Dominican Republic.

‘The local hospitals in the higher and lower central plateau have reached maximum capacity with patients from Port au Prince,” explains Father Jacques Volcius, Mary’s Meals’ partner in Hinche.

‘These victims are from all over the country. Their surviving family members have travelled with them. Many have lost everything and have travelled only with clothes on their back. Many people from Port au Prince are coming to purchase food in Hinche now because resources are almost finished in Port au Prince’.

Mary’s Meals has been operating in Haiti since 2006 and was feeding 12,000 children across the country at the time of the earthquake.

One of its biggest projects was in Cite Soleil, a shanty town in Port au Prince. Seven schools Mary’s Meals worked in there have been damaged, but not destroyed, and the charity will be working to help to repair and rebuild these schools, to support their pupils and to assist with the wider recovery as the need arises.

Local support for Mary’s Meals work in Haiti has already been generous with many people donating at Mary’s Meals shops in Oban and Lochgilphead, and to the Oban and Lorn Lions’ street collection in Oban on Saturday.

● To donate to support Mary’s Meals work in Haiti, visit the Haiti Quake Appeal page on the Mary’s Meals website.

Situation note on Hinche

While the bulk of the earthquake recovery effort is concentrated on the capital, Port au Prince, Mary’s Meals has identified a growing need in Hinche, approximately 130km from the capital, where many of the injured are now being taken for treatment.

As supplies of water and food are so short in Port au Prince, a further influx of survivors are making their way to the central plateau in search of food and water and shelter – and with the normal supply route through the capital cut, starvation is a real risk as stocks run out.

Mary’s Meals has been supporting school feeding projects in Hinche since 2007. In the first instance it is buying food and medical supplies for distribution to those most in need locally, particularly the earthquake victims and their families at the hospitals.

However, as these supplies are also expected to run out very soon, it is making arrangements for the purchase and delivery of more, from the Dominican Republic.

‘The local hospitals in the higher and lower central plateau have reached maximum capacity with patients from Port au Prince’, explains Father Jacques Volcius, Mary’s Meals’ partner in Hinche.

‘These victims are from all over the country. Their surviving family members have travelled with them. Many have lost everything and have travelled only with clothes on their back. Many people from Port au Prince are coming to purchase food in Hinche now because resources are almost finished in Port au Prince’.