Life-Saving Food Assistance to Haiti in Crisis

Laurent-Antoine Augustine has been a beneficiary of World Food Program (WFP) assistance since she and her husband tested positive for HIV several years ago. They were both unemployed and relied heavily on the food they received from WFP for survival. Today, Laurent’s husband has recently passed away and she is waiting to enroll in a new WFP program.

"I thank WFP for having provided me, my husband, my son and my brother with pulses [beans], wheat, flour, vegetable oil and sugar," she says. "With the combination of the food and medication, God has carried me through and I still have my life."

Laurent is just one of 800,000 individuals, including 40,000 vulnerable families, who receive food assistance from WFP Haiti. Haiti has been recognized for years as the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and the Food and Agriculture Organization has recently reported that Haiti is the country hardest hit by the global food crisis. Three-quarters of Haitians live on less than $2 per day and therefore end up spending an extremely large portion of their incomes on food. As a result, 50 percent of the population suffers from malnutrition. The Haitian population is also extremely vulnerable to food price increases as it imports more than half of its food, including rice - a staple of the Haitian diet.

The most recent program initiated by WFP Haiti to assist this vulnerable population is to provide school meals and take-home rations to 200,000 children over the summer months. These hot meals increase attendance rates in primary schools and, in doing so, prevent kids from joining street gangs or searching for work instead of attending classes.

WFP expects to rapidly expand its beneficiaries to an estimated 2.3 million by the end of the year. “Our food is critical to helping people cope with high prices - a daily burden on people who were already very poor,” said WFP Regional Director Pedro Medrano.

In order to continue to cover Haitian beneficiaries’ needs for 2009, WFP needs further financial support. It is only through generous, dedicated individuals like you that WFP’s critical work in Haiti has been made possible – nearly $23.3 million has already been raised by the U.S. alone! Friends of the World Food Program will continue to provide financial assistance from US donors to the World Food Program. Thank you for your support of this life-changing initiative!