CHF - Helping Rebuild Haiti

“This is not a marketplace, this is a piece of art,” said the President of the Republic of Haiti, Michele Martelly in regard to the Savané Pistache Market in Carrefour-Feuilles, Port-au-Prince. The Savané Pistache market was inaugurated today at an event hosted by CHF International, the...

Ever since she was a little girl, Germaine Fils-Aime, now 31, dreamed of driving one of the big construction machines. But, she was only able to study pastry making and soon was married and had two children. It was actually Germaine’s husband who heard of the program to train heavy machinery operators and told her...

Camélita Cadet, 40, had a very different experience with Hurricane Tomas than in previous hurricanes: this time, she did not have to evacuate or find her belongings buried under mud when she returned. “The water just flowed through the canals without causing any damage to the area,” says Camélita....

I recently visited a St Marc fishermen’s association in the downtown area. St Marc is on the Caribbean sea and fishing is a major industry. But traditionally, fishermen would go out, catch some fish then come back and try and find a good place to sell them. It might be the side of the street somewhere, it might be near...

President Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive met with CHF International in Leogane, Haiti yesterday afternoon for a brief visit to a cluster of four steel-framed, transitional shelters constructed by CHF in response to the January 2010 earthquake. Accompanied by Paul Farmer (anthropologist, physician and...

One of the important things about working with the community closely is that you both learn to respect each other. CHF focuses on community-based development. The workers we employ to clean up are from the community, and our community mobilizers are key to all these efforts. From David Humphries, CHF Communications Manager...

From David Humphries, CHF Communications Manager-- One of the key concepts that CHF works by is what we call ‘capacity building’. What this means is training the local people in a country so that by the time CHF leaves, they are able to continue the same level and quality of work – without us. Even in an emergency...

Six weeks after the earthquake struck, David Humphries, Communications Manager for CHF International, is in Haiti. He will be producing daily blogs of the situation on the ground. Port au Prince has changed since I visited last November. The hotel where I stayed has been obliterated. The shop where I bought food and...

US Deputy Chief of Mission David E. Lindwall visited Petit-Goave on Sunday, February 21. Accompanied by representatives from CHF and the U.S. Marines, the Deputy Chief of Mission visited a variety of sites in the area, including the hard-hit areas of downtown Petit-Goave and the devastated coastal neighborhood of Petite...

CHF's cash for work programs are well underway in the cities of Port au Prince and the Petit Goave. Of the 586 workers currently employed in Petit Goave, 40% are women. Marie Bonese Point Du Jour is a 35 year-old mother with a 9-year-old son and former businesswoman who lived in Port-au-Prince. after the earthquake she...

Dorzely Octave is a 42 year old mother of eight children, aged between 10 and 24 years old. She is the head of household and supports her family alone. Before the earthquake, Dorzely had a small business selling coffee and bread and kept her supplies in a storage place in Delmas. But when the quake struck, the building was...

On February 16th, CHF completed the first payroll for its ongoing cash-for-work earthquake recovery project. In less than two hours, CHF paid 429 workers for their two-week participation removing rubble from streets, public buildings, and private homes in Petit Goave. This was the fastest and most orderly payroll CHF has...

CHF continues to work at emergency response, lending our facilities, equipment and logistics to assist in the relief operations. In Petit Goave we are working closely with Swiss organization Medecins du Monde Suisse. Kits arrived for 1000 families that include shelters, kitchen sets, mosquito nets, jerry cans, and four...

A typical Haitian night is filled with a plethora of sounds – confused roosters, unsettled dogs, nightclub rhythms, to name a few. As I lay out on the damp grass (my new bedroom on the CHF Haiti office lawn), looking up at Orion and the other stars, there is one sound that I would not have expected to hear – at least...

CHF International is continuing to undertake relief work both immediately and plan for the longer term. We have been able to survey many of our previous infratructure projects and we are glad to be able to report that most have survived the earthquake well, which means we can launch into new works with the knowledge that...

For every person lost in the Haiti earthquake there is a personal tragedy that we can hardly begin to understand, even when we hear the bald and terrible numbers of casualties repeated every day in the media. Our staff in Haiti were surveying the damage in Port-au-Prince when they passed a house that had been completely...

CHF received a huge amount of information on areas beyond Port-au-Prince from our Field Director Bob Fagen. Bob and his entirely Haitian team based in Petit Goave have been supporting the Boy Scouts and Red Cross with a donation of tools such as wheelbarrows and shovels, plus loads of facemasks, shirts, hats, and gloves....

CHF International is working closely with other local and international relief agencies and helping with the immediate relief effort. As well as giving supplies to rescue workers such as gloves, face masks, pick axes, shovels and sledge hammers, tomorrow we will be transporting 750 hygiene/kitchen kits from St. Marcs to...

Yesterday CHF International received the good news that CHF Haiti had been able to account for all 170 staff members. No one was hurt in the earthquake. But please keep our staff’s family members and friends in your thoughts and prayers as we find out about them. We are establishing a supply line from Santo Domingo in the...