GOAL's work in Haiti

Already considered to be the poorest country in the western hemisphere, Haiti was hit by a massive earthquake on the afternoon of January 12th, 2010.

The quake tore through the capital of Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. The loss of life, destruction and long-term affects on the country and the survivors required an immediate and comprehensive aid response from the international community.

A GOAL representative entered Haiti some 26 hours after the quake. Within a short time he was joined in Port-au-Prince by GOAL’s emergency response team.

Today, two years on, we are continuing to deliver aid to some of the many survivors most affected by the disaster. We are operational in Port-au-Prince, and in Gressier, a district to the west of the capital that was close to the quake’s epicentre.
 

Some of GOAL's work in Haiti includes:

• the completion of a $9 million food distribution programme with the World Food Programme of the United Nations as part of our initial emergency response, where we fed almost 500,000 people.
   
• the distribution of materials for 2,000 emergency shelters to some of the 1.3 million people who were displaced from their homes.
   
• just recently, we completed a €12 million US Government-funded response programme.  Thanks to this funding, GOAL was able to provide:
  • 2,000 transitional shelters for 2,000 households left homeless (circa 10,000 people) in Port-au-Prince and Gressier.
     
  • Cash-for-work opportunities for 5,000 beneficiaries engaging in rubble clearance and solid waste removal.
     
  • Construction of over 800 latrines and 200 wash-blocks to be used by earthquake-affected communities.
     
  • Construction of 10 child-friendly structures to be used as temporary schools and community centres.

• in addition to this programme, GOAL responded to the emergency cholera outbreaks by providing additional water and sanitation facilities, hygiene promotion and cholera case referral for 50,000 earthquake-affected beneficiaries in 20 temporary settlements in Port-au-Prince.

Learn more about Haiti and why the people there need our help by clicking here.

Haiti profile

Map source: OCHA/ReliefWeb

Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a former French colony in the Caribbean with an estimated population of 10million. Along with the Dominican Republic, it occupies the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antillean archipelago. Its capital is Port-au-Prince, and French and Haitian Creole are its official languages.

The country has a history of violence, instability and dictatorship, though democratic rule was restored in 2006 and UN peacekeepers have been deployed there since 1994.

Before the earthquake of January 12th, 2010, the infrastructure in Haiti was already in a sorry state, and drug trafficking had corrupted the police and the judicial system. Massive deforestation had left just two per cent of forested area, making the country prone to flooding.

The economy was in ruins, unemployment chronic, and foreign aid considered vital.

Haiti was plagued by violent confrontations between rival gangs and political groups, with the UN describing the human rights situation as “catastrophic”.

Haiti’s most serious underlying, and largely unaddressed, social problem has been the huge wealth gap between the impoverished Creole-speaking black majority and the French-speaking minority, one per cent of who own nearly half the country's wealth.

The 2010 earthquake

On January 12, 2010, a massive 7-0 magnitude earthquake struck just a few miles south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. This was followed quickly by two strong aftershocks with magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.5.

Port-au-Prince was almost completely flattened, with more than 230,000 people killed. About 300,000 people were injured and some 1.3 million left homeless. Water and sanitation, electricity and phone connections were destroyed. Houses, hospitals, health centres, schools, the local UN headquarters building and even a large prison were all brought down.

The airport and seaport were rendered inoperable.

With so many people left homeless, hundreds of spontaneous settlements sprung up around Port-au-Prince. As of January 2012, two years on from the quake, more than half a million people were still living in temporary settlements in the capital and other earthquake areas.

For information about GOAL's work in Haiti, please click here.

Haiti - Fact Box
 

The statistics in the Fact Box relate to pre the earthquake of January 12th, 2010 and, unless otherwise stated, have been sourced from the United Nations' Development Report 2009.

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ABOUT GOAL

Providing a better life for vulnerable children is a cornerstone of GOAL's humanitarian activities

What is GOAL?

GOAL is an international humanitarian agency dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the poorest of the poor. We are a non-denominational, non-governmental and non-political organisation.

Our history:

GOAL was founded in Dublin in 1977 by former sports journalist and Chief Executive, John O’Shea.

Since its inception, GOAL has spent in excess of €720 million on humanitarian programmes in more than 50 countries. Over 2,300 GOALies and many thousands of local staff have worked in the developing world on GOAL’s behalf and the organisation has responded to every major humanitarian disaster since 1977.

Where are our operations?

 GOAL currently has in excess of 100 GOALies based in 13 countries: Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Kenya, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Haiti and Pakistan.

Across GOAL’s fields of operation, thousands of locally-based staff are employed alongside the GOALies, where together they deliver on a range of humanitarian programmes. GOALies come from all walks of life: accountants, nurses, doctors, nutritionists, logisticians, engineers, administrative personnel, and so on.

For more information on where we work and how we help, click here.