Haiti Disaster Response: The Road to Masson

CRWRC Newsroom | April 27, 2010

More on CRWRC in Haiti: Dealing with the Trauma of the Quake Working Near the Quake Epicenter Construction Begins on 1500 Homes 3 Month Update (pdf)

Traveling the road from Port au Prince to the quiet rural communities of Leogane is both fascinating and fraught.   Looking in any direction the destruction wrought by the earthquake is plain.  Entire buildings are “pancaked”, piles of rubble continue to grow vertically and horizontally as Haitians dig out.  Encouragingly, dump trucks line up for what will be months of labour hauling rubble away.  The sea is frequently in view, beyond the tent cities which exist in almost any empty space--including the median between the east and west bound lanes of traffic.  For at least one heart-stopping mile, children play calmly in an area between shelter and traffic that is simply defined by tires placed on the road.  The activities of commerce and rebuilding are gaining momentum, as is evidenced by what is carried on a Haitian head:  a bag of cement, tarps, plastic bags of purified water, garlic, large plastic pails, and other items intended for resale.  The hands of children are tightly held by parents as they negotiate both pedestrian and vehicular traffic; schools have started again for the first time since the quake.  The hair of the girls is intricately braided and ribboned;  the school uniforms of boys and girls alike are clean and neatly pressed.

This is the road CRWRC Disaster Response Team staff have traveled frequently since January.  Once the landscape has shifted from urban to rural, it does not take long to reach the Leogane communities of Flon, Masson, Macombe, and Luitor, where CRWRC is focusing its disaster response.  The first indication of CRWRC’s presence is a sign, placed at the road and marking the entrance to Flon and the ICTA Professional School, where CRWRC is establishing its office and a depot for materials.   Driving along the lane the second sign of CRWRC’s presence quickly comes into view:  nearly a hundred green wheelbarrows assembled beneath two stately rows of trees.  Not far off a transitional shelter is assembled, with the elements for more shelters piled beside.   1500 of these transitional shelters are going to be built for those in these communities whose homes were either leveled by the quake or are  too damaged to repair.

Onwards to Masson, a rural village of 6,000.  Cleeford Dalce, a Haitian national and CRWRC’s Community Organizer for the four villages, is standing in a field, a short distance away from the tent where his family sleeps at night.  Having worked with CRWRC and Partners Worldwide for a time in 2005, Cleeford was delighted when his colleague Josef Giteau handed him CRWRC’s card and told him that CRWRC was interested in helping the community of Masson.  “I know this CRWRC,” he told Josef, “CRWRC is my NGO!”  Josef gave George and Toni Fernhout, CRWRC International Response Managers, Cleeford’s phone number, and the next day they called him and asked to meet with him and the community based organization (CBO), OJPM, of which he is a member.  Upon meeting with Cleeford,  George and Toni knew they had found an individual who could play an important role for the Disaster Response Team by liaising with the Leogane communities.  “You just had a feeling that his heart was so much in the work, his heart was in helping the people here, and it wasn’t one of feeling sorry or begging or seeing them as being oh-so-dependent on us, it was an attitude of co-dependency, of 'we can work together,'" said Toni Fernhout.  Their positive impression of Cleeford was verified after talking with Cleeford’s contacts at CRWRC and Partners Worldwide.  The next day they called Cleeford and said, “we need you on our team, so that we work together on the earthquake disaster response.”

Cleeford’s family home, his grandmother’s home, and his great aunt’s home were destroyed by the earthquake. They were among the 1200 households surveyed by CRWRC and, like the other households, their needs are being addressed through food and tarp distributions and transitional shelters.  But Cleeford thinks CRWRC is doing more than addressing these physical needs.  “When CRWRC went to Masson, something was changed, and after explaining their program, we think that this program is matching with our own in Masson… and we say that something is going to happen, something good in this area… seeing we have doctor, we have engineer, we have nurse, we have almost everything in Masson, we have everything here… so [CRWRC] only needs to be a frame, so that everyone can come inside and work together.”

Cleeford is looking not only to CRWRC and other NGOs to provide a framework, but to the Haitian government as well.  His thinking is that if the government can put new frameworks into place, then this—combined with the initiative of the Haitian people—could mean a new day for Haiti.  “We need to help ourselves first… If we say that… I need to buy a car, the first dollar, I must put it there…  If I say I need to buy a car and I don’t have a plan, a program, an agenda for that, I stay all my life without this car. So I think after this earthquake our government will see that there is something they must do… It is time now to know the plan. The first plan was wrong, so they have to change it, and to gather every people who have something good in mind so that they can say okay, we’re going to do this for Haiti. Not for myself, not for my own family, but for all Haitian people.”

This is the spirit with which Cleeford mobilizes himself, members of his family, groups of volunteers to conduct surveys as well as tarp and food distributions, and the “Committee Advisor for CRWRC in Masson” (which is democratically comprised of four members from OJPM, his CBO, four members from CIEPLE, a neighbouring CBO, and one person from the general population).  This is the spirit that came through in the psychosocial workshop he conducted with community members in Luitor, to help them overcome their fear of another earthquake.  And this is the spirit with which he now faces the logistics, together with the CRWRC Disaster Response Team, of bringing in 1500 transitional shelters to these hard-hit communities of Leogane.

Please pray for the continued resilience of Cleeford Dalce, the work of the CRWRC Disaster Response Team and the Committee in Masson.  Give thanks for the tenure of IRMs George and Toni Fernhout, whose effective work will be taken up by Ron and Lauris Fuller later in May.

To support CRWRC's ongoing eathquake response in Haiti, donate online:  US | Canada

Checks, marked "Haiti Earthquake 2010" can also be sent to:

CRWRC-US
2850 Kalamazoo Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49560
Ph: 1-800-55-CRWRC

CRWRC-Canada
3475 Mainway
P.O. Box 5070 STN LCD 1
Burlington, Ontario, L7R 3Y8
Ph: 1-800-730-3490

photos and reflection by Christina de Jong, CRWRC Communications