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Haiti podcast: how do we help people recover?

By Sarah Oughton
January 22, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Although the last few days have seen some miracle stories of people still being pulled alive from the rubble in Haiti, the reality is the search and rescue phase is coming to an end. Aid organisations are now steaming ahead with the relief effort.

And while the focus is getting medical aid and vital supplies of food and water to survivors as quickly as possible, my colleagues are already talking about the importance of planning for long-term recovery. I’ll be reporting back more about these plans as they evolve over the coming weeks.

Today, British Red Cross delegate Jacqueline Frize is flying to Haiti to join a field assessment and co-ordination team. Last night I interviewed Jacqueline, who will be working with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to begin looking at how to help the people of Haiti get back on their feet. Listen to the podcast and find out her initial thoughts.

Donate now to the British Red Cross or DEC Haiti appeal.

Image 1 ©  Talia Frenkel/American Red Cross

Image 2 © Penny Sims/BRC

Transcript:

I’m Sarah Oughton, International Writer with the British Red Cross based in London and I’m speaking to Jacqueline Frize who is flying out to Haiti to help with the emergency response effort. Jackie, can you tell us what you’re going to be doing and who you are going to be working with?

Hello, I’m part of what’s called a field assessment and coordination team. The federation in Geneva sends out a team to do the first assessments and to really try to get an understanding of the scale of the disaster and the impact on the people so we can program accordingly.

And what do you expect to find when you get out there?

I think since it has been almost ten days now since the disaster we’ve all had an idea about the devastation, the massive destruction, the loss of life, injuries and people who are sleeping outdoors that are at a loss at what to do. So we’re going to find quite a tragic situation, a lot of people in a very small area that need all sorts of support and hopefully the Haitian Red Cross Volunteers and staff are still active and available to use their knowledge and work with them to try and meet the most urgent needs and think about how to reconstruct people’s lives.

So as you say, you’re going to start thinking about the longer term recovery, what do you think the major challenges for that will be?

In a country like Haiti that had very poor infrastructure before the disaster and quite heavily populated, the major challenges are going to be coordinating, getting people to feel that we are taking everyone’s needs into account and prioritising, and making sure the vast amounts of humanitarian aid money that’s coming through is spent according the priorities that the people have and not the priorities that we here, sitting in our offices, think they have.

And I know you’ve previously worked on the tsunami recovery program, how do you expect this operation to be different?

During the Asian tsunami the British Red Cross also raised a lot of money through the DC appeal and we were quite quickly able to use our experience for livelihood support and shelter support. The tsunami was a very wide vast area and affected people of different cultures. Here, it’s the complete opposite. It’s a tiny island, condensed, people living very close to each other. So I think the challenges are going to be stepping on each other’s toes, and making sure we give people the space they need to reconstruct their lives and hopefully make them better.

And from your previous experience can you describe what it’s like working in the aftermath of a disaster?

It’s challenging, you never feel you can do enough. The needs are always greater than the capacity to respond. However, with every emergency we build up experience, learn to prioritise and learn to listen, which I think is a key skill. To try and do things in an orderly way, in an accountable way to the people that we’re there to support and to spend the money that has come in for direct help. Sometimes people want things to happen quicker than they can. You can’t just provide certain things for a small group of people if you know that there’s a large group waiting so sometimes patience is one of the things that you need to be very disciplined about. And you need to be able to look up into the future and not just see that devastation but see how people themselves are getting up and dealing with their day to day life and finding solutions. Sometimes you can get distracted by the debris and the lack of water and the terrible living conditions but you’ve got to remember that there was a culture and previous habits before the disaster and that’s what you need to look up towards, and get away from the rubble.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us and all the best for the operation.

Thank you.

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Tags: disaster, disaster response, earthquake, Emergencies, emergency response, emergency response unit, Haiti, recovery, volunteer

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 2:13 pm and is filed under Emergencies, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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