Haiti and Partners in Health

I have talked about Partners in Health in health previously (Haitian Inspiration), I think they are my favorite organization working in Haiti and one of my favorite charities overall. One of the reasons, is that they seem to actually engage with the communities they are helping, not dictate, and truly understand their needs. They have been in Haiti helping for decades and really stepped it up after the earthquake to provide even more help to the people of Haiti. Here is a video of talking about the current situation in haiti and what needs to be done.



Their Stand With Haiti page is full of information on the work they are doing in Haiti and the work that still needs to be done. They have released a one year later report and in their summary they discuss their “Stand with Haiti” plan to help "Haiti recover and rebuild over the long term (...). Key elements of the plan include:

• providing comprehensive primary health care to more than 100,000 people living in four of the spontaneous settlements of tarps, tents, and makeshift shanties that have sprung up in Port-au-Prince;
• expanding clinical and social support services at our network of hospitals and health centers in the Central Plateau and Lower Artibonite to meet the needs of tens of thousands of people displaced by the earthquake and the communities that have taken them in;
• strengthening specialized medical services for which the earthquake had greatly increased a widespread, long-standing, and frequently unmet need, including surgery, rehabilitative medicine, and mental health;
• rebuilding and reinforcing the public health and health professional education systems in Haiti."

These are all very important issues to address and fix, they have always been focused on health and the country has to have a health system to combat illnesses so that people are able to rebuild their country. Also Haiti had one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean and it is very important that those people receive their medication in a timely manner and from good facilities, and the previous clinincs run by Partners in Health were some of the best in the country, to my knowledge.

Another factor which is really important in their success, and one of the reasons I like this organization, is that they try to engage with the local community through employing the Haitian people, it "strengthens public institutions and governance, and works not just to repair the damage caused by the earthquake, but also to address the extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure that greatly worsened the disaster’s impact and weakened the country’s ability to respond." By giving Haitian's paid employment in their hospitals and building their hospitals, not only are they rebuilding school and infrastructure, but also the countries economy. Giving a person a job might be one of the best, and simplest, humanitarian approaches to rebuilding the country, because it allows peoples to care for themselves and their families and gives them a sense of self worth again. I imagine, it must be very disheartening to have so little one can do to change your circumstances and to rely on others for everything, being able to work again must be very rewarding and helps the economy of the country recover.

I hope you enjoyed hearing about the work of Partners in Health in Haiti and that you will consider helping them as well. Real quick, I wanted to point out the fact that they are a four star charity from Charity Navigator and 94.7% of their expenses goes to program expenses, which is just amazing for a charity whose headquarters are located in the USA, so they really focus on getting their money to the programs that are on the ground helping people around the world.

V-Day supports Pakistan

I just logged in to check my old school email address, I don't get much email to that address anymore. However, there was an email from the V-Day organization talking about their involvement in Pakistan and asking for donations. V-Day is an organization dedicated to ending violence and abuse against women worldwide. They are most well known for their grassroots performances of The Vagina Monologues, which are always performed for local charities and global issues that affect women's safety. I have helped organize and been in the play multiple times and I found it very empowering, and loved my experiences and the friends I made from the performances. I appreciate the global outlook of their spotlight every year, from Katrina victims to the widespread violence women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo face they try to raise awareness of the problems women face globally and I think that is very important.

Angelina Jolie on the Pakistan flooding.

I was reading more about the Pakistan flooding and it just moved me so much. Its difficult to convey the true scope of the catastrophe or the urgent needs of the people affected. So I am going to let Angelina Jolie express her thoughts on it and hope they touch as they did me.



And here's another one, where she hopes people will start giving and helping and not give in to donor fatigue.  While not all of us can afford to give the $100,000 that she has, we can afford to give something. The numbers for Pakistan are very low considering the scope of the tragedy. "While 3 million people were affected in Haiti the number affected in Pakistan is 7 times as much and climbing. As the flood waters recede, human misery is escalating."I will be donating to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees as Angelina Jolie suggests, because they are working with the people directly affected and they are already there on the ground.



Please join me in helping those affected Pakistan flood, and if you know of any good organizations doing good work their, please do no hesitate to recommend them. Thanks and enjoy your weekend.

Pakistani Flood Relief

Yesterday, I was reading one of my favorite blogs Racailicious - which focuses on the intersection of race and pop culture. I always find it informative and helps me to look at issues from a different context. If you haven't read it, its a great blog to talk about how race interacts with our culture, I highly recommend it. From there I was directed to some information about the Pakistani Flood Relief effort and was underwhelmed by the US response. First I want to really reinforce the scope of the flooding; here is a link to a map (from the BBC) with a visual overlay of the flooding on top of the US, so you can see the size of the affected area. I think it helps to have that kind of a visual to really understand the extent of the disaster.

Racialicious had a link to an article from the Atlantic - 4 Reason Why American's Aren't Giving for Pakistani Flood Relief by Max Fisher. This article is discussing the dismal response for this natural emergency, in comparison to other's such as the Haiti earthquake. "The figures for the Haiti earthquake, tsunami, and Kashmir earthquake were $1087.33, $1249.80, and $388.33 respectively. For the Pakistan floods, the world has given only $16.36 per victim. These shortfalls have led many to ask a macabre question. Why did the world, particularly U.S. individual donors, give so much for Haiti but show so little concern for Pakistan?" Here's an article in WIRED discussing the difference in response from the US compared to the Haiti earthquake, and the differences are startling." According to the U.S. embassy in Islamabad, a month after the flooding started, the United States has provided an aggregated $200 million for Pakistan. That’s less than half of what it gave Haiti’s much, much smaller population."