Red Cross Blogs

Haiti quake: latrines, logistics and linking up recovery

By Sarah Oughton
January 27, 2010 at 3:09 pm

I always watch BBC breakfast, while eating my muesli, both to enjoy Bill’s quips and to keep up-to-date on the latest international news so I’m ready to hit the ground running when I get to the office. Obviously in the last two weeks, Haiti has dominated the headlines and I’ve seen many a report including interviews with my colleagues and footage with glimpses of the Red Cross emblem in action.

This morning, there was the amazing story of the man pulled alive from the rubble, just as the search and rescue phase has been declared over. However, it’s clear that Haiti is not going to dominate the headlines for much longer, although it will continue to be a huge part of our Red Cross work for the following weeks, months and years.

The first thing I did when I got to work this morning, was read Sharon Reader’s blog. Sharon’s a colleague I usually work pretty closely with as her day job is in our London press office. But she’s also a trained member of our mass sanitation emergency response unit. She’s currently in Haiti helping provide toilets. It’s certainly not a glamorous job – and you can’t be shy to talk about things such as ‘wild defecation’ – but it’s an important job and as Sharon points out, it certainly makes you think twice before complaining about the toilets at Glastonbury!

As well as loos, logistics is another area of British Red Cross expertise. Yesterday, we sent two more logs delegates – Kenny Hamilton and Gareth Morgan – to the Dominican Republic. They are joining Emily Knox and David Stephens who are helping receive the aid that is being flown into Santo Domingo before being trucked on to Haiti.

Gareth said: “I got the call 20 minutes before Osprey’s v Leicester on Saturday. It was a bit of a distraction, but I said yes and I can’t wait to get out there. I’ve been following what’s been happening on the news, and also I have been in contact with some colleagues on the ground, and reading their accounts on the Red Cross website, so I know it’s not going to be tough but however difficult conditions are for me, I will be able to come home afterwards, which is a luxury many of those affected by the disaster don’t have.”

Kenny, whose day job with the Red Cross is head of refugee services in Scotland also had experience in transport and warehousing and was involved in responding to the floods in Gloucester in 2007. He said:“ This is my first international deployment, but I’ve done a lot of training for this role and I’m looking forward to going out and using the skills I’ve learned. There’s no better organisation in the world to learn from and use these skills with, and this is such an important cause. The fact that more people with logistics skills are being sent out to expand the existing team is a real sign that the flow of aid getting into the country is growing.”

This morning, another colleague is flying out to Haiti. Paul Jenkins will be helping co-ordinate the Red Cross emergency response operation. This means linking up the different areas of the response and considering all a community’s needs, such as linking where new homes are built to future sources of livelihoods, as well as access to safe water and sanitation, and providing people with the skills, cash or assets to get back on their feet. Read more about long-term recovery on our website.

Before he left, I caught up with Paul to find out more about what he will be doing. Listen to the interview.

Donate now to the British Red Cross Haiti Appeal.

Image 1 © Marko Kokic/IFRC

Image 2 © Lloyd Sturdy/BRC

Image 3 © Sarah Oughton/BRC

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Tags: emergency response, emergency response unit, ERU, Haiti, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, sanitation, video, water and sanitation

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 3:09 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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