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A woman in the Bel Air neighborhood of Port-au-Prince carries clean water from a water system provided by the CWS-supported ACT Alliance.
Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT |
Thursday, March 4, 2010
New York and Port-au-Prince, Haiti--As the global community, including Church World Service, honors the work, struggles and achievements of women on International Women's Day, March 8, one way to spotlight the status of women is to look at recovery efforts underway in earthquake-stricken Haiti.
To women like Saint Elene Alcidonis, 52, newly widowed and the mother of seven children, ages 10 to 24, the immediate issue is how to take care of families in crowded displacement camps. Alcidonis' case is typical of many people in the camps: Alcidonis' late husband, Jean-Claude Bien-Aime, 53, a mason and carpenter who perished in the quake, was the principal breadwinner in the family.
Without homes to return to and the loss of spouses, many do not know what the long-term or even immediate future holds.
"It could be months, I don't know what to expect," Alcidonis told CWS staffer Chris Herlinger recently as she prepared morning coffee in one of the many displacement camps in Port-au-Prince – camps where Church World Service Blankets, Hygiene and Baby Kits are being used by quake survivors. "There are so many to take care of."
Alcidonis' short-term concern is survival – she is going to have to care for her family. In the long-term, humanitarian response like that being provided by CWS needs to be based on "resources that will help her and other women gain the skills and support necessary to do so," said Donna Derr, who coordinates emergency response for CWS. "We've been doing it in Haiti and around the world for decades."
Of course, there are immediate pressures being felt by female survivors of the quake. Women, as well as children, face particular risks because of security fears – worries that displacement camps are risky places because of the growing number of sexual assaults.
Given those concerns, humanitarian responders – like the CWS-supported ACT Alliance working in Haiti – must be vigilent and act as advocates for women and children in an increasingly insecure environment, said Anna Olivier, a humanitarian worker with ACT member Norwegian Church Aid. Women and children, she said, are particularly vulnerable and as a result require services especially keyed to their needs. |
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
EDITORS, PRODUCERS: CWS's Don Tatlock in Port-au-Prince available for interview, Martin Coria in Domincan Republic, and CWS CEO John L. McCullough from New York
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI--Following this morning's 5.9 aftershock (lowered from 6.1) in quake-decimated Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Church World Service staff on the ground continue to expedite emergency aid to those in need, while also turning attention to vulnerable children and people with disabilities. Emergency hygiene and baby care kits and blankets now are being distributed.
With ocean shipping schedules backed up, the agency quickly diverted part of a 40-foot container shipment of emergency kits scheduled to leave tonight, with the remainder to be expedited by fastest means available.
"We've also scheduled an air shipment on Thursday (January 21) of medicine boxes given the ongoing desperate medical needs of survivors," says CWS Disaster Response Program Director Donna Derr. "As soon as they arrive in Port-au-Prince, we'll provide some of those to our long-time local partner the Christian Center for Integrated Development (SKDE), who manages a small clinic there."
Each IMA (Interchurch Medical Assistance) medicine box contains enough essential medicines and medical supplies to treat the routine ailments of about 1,000 adults and children. Medical responders and the few clinics now operating are crying out for more supplies, where even aspirin is scarce and shipments of medicines and supplies are in stasis at the airport or waiting on ships. |
A quake survivor gives her daughter a bath amid the rubble in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Belair. Water remains in short supply. CWS and its partners are helping to provide basics.
Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT |
Trauma care team arriving
From Port-au-Prince, CWS's Don Tatlock reports that three trauma counselors and psycho-social care specialists have arrived to provide services for individuals, especially children and aid workers who also are suffering in the wake of the death, injuries, loss and tragedy, of a disaster as great as the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. CWS's local partners are carrying their own losses and the setbacks to their work on the island around in their hearts even as they help others.
"Today, we accompanied Ernst Abraham to the Service Chretien d'Haiti offices, which were destroyed. It was very emotionally wrenching as he talked about the programs they had worked so hard to build, such as projects to serve those with disabilities, and how the momentum of those initiatives and all that had been accomplished over the last years felt like a victim of this disaster as well."
Church World Service, which has issued a national appeal for cash donations and contributions of CWS hygiene and baby care kits, first began work in Haiti in 1954, when it assisted Haitian churches in the founding of Service Chretien d'Haiti, and then provided relief supplies for survivors of Hurricane Hazel. The agency most recently has been working with local Haitian partners to provide development and agriculture assistance and response to disasters like the brutal hurricanes of recent years.
The CWS team, working in Port-au-Prince and from a coordination center in the Dominican Republic, has sent pre-positioned supplies from the D.R. and plans to obtain food from markets in Haiti, if possible, but all other items will definitely need to come in from outside, said CWS's Martin Coria. A collection center for water, food and clothes--to be distributed by churches in Haiti--has been set up on the Dominican Republic border, says Coria, who directs the agency's work in Latin America and the Caribbean.
CWS serving needs of Haitian migrants, monitoring issues
Church World Service is "closely monitoring developments in the displacement of Haitians from Port-au -Prince and the social and legal challenges to Haitian immigrants living in the United States," said Erol Kekic, director of the agency's immigration and refugee program.
The CWS Miami Office and 17 Board of Immigration Appeals-recognized CWS affiliate offices across the United States are prepared to provide immigration legal services and assistance with applications for Temporary Protected Status, which has just been extended to Haitians. The well-established Cuban/Haitian Program based in the CWS Miami Office is ready to respond to the needs of any new arrivals from Haiti, even as it continues to serve the Haitian-American community through its Refugee Youth and Family Program in Miami and its Haitian Family Services Program in Palm Beach.
Since its founding in 1946, CWS has helped refugees resettle to the United States and is a long-time advocate for and provider of social and legal assistance to refugees, asylum seekers and other immigrants. The agency also supports programs elsewhere in the world for populations displaced by conflict and disaster.
For further information on the CWS response in Haiti, visit: www.churchworldservice.org.
How to help
Contributions may be made at www.churchworldservice.org/haiti or by phoning 800-297-1516 or by mailing to Church World Service, P.O. Box 968, Elkhart, IN 46515 (please indicate Haiti Earthquake).
Recognized as one of America's Most Efficient Charities, Church World Service has earned an "A" rating from the American Institute of Philanthropy and was named one of the Top 100 Highly Rated Charities by GiveSpot.com.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net |
Saturday, December 19, 2009
NEW YORK--As the Copenhagen climate change conference ended Saturday morning without official adoption of a non-binding accord brokered by President Barack Obama and emerging countries, humanitarian agency Church World Service called on individual nations to "act 'as if,' starting now."
Delegates from 193 nations at the close of the summit did agree to "take note" of the document tooled on Friday by President Obama, emerging nations China, India, South Africa, and Brazil and key European countries--an accord that did not set forth any legally binding levels for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or binding mechanisms for verifying countries' emission levels.
Just returning from the United Nations climate summit, Church World Service Executive Director and CEO the Rev. John L. McCullough said, "Regardless of the agreements, signed or not signed at Copenhagen, binding or not binding, this does not leave developed and emerging nations off the hook in terms of lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Nor is it a license for emerging nations to proceed with development without self-regulated, intentional measures toward greener development.
McCullough cited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruling finding CO2 emissions harmful to one's health as "just one example of how nations can move ahead on their own until a legally binding international accord is reached, pending of course that the U.S. EPA ruling is applied." |
Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director and CEO of Church World Service, joins thousands of others in sending a message about the urgency of climate change during the Copenhagen summit.
Photo: Levi Bautista |
CWS acknowledged all parties in Copenhagen for making strides by agreeing to a $100 billion fund intended to assist developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change between now and 2020. Said McCullough, "Secretary of State Clinton's address in Copenhagen Thursday turned a corner."
"Over the two decades of discussions about adaptation funding, COP15 marks the first time world leaders have agreed to an actual amount to help the world's poorest nations who are also the most affected by climate change," he added.
The resulting Copenhagen declaration also includes a commitment to attempt to hold global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, but other countries and even the accord's crafters have also admitted that this cap is still not sufficient to curb global warming.
On the issue of transparency concerning use of adaptation funding and meeting proposed greenhouse cuts, CWS's McCullough noted that, "There has been significant progress at COP15 in regards to furthering governance and transparency needs."
While endorsing the need overall for international transparency and good governance on climate change mitigation, McCullough warns that, "Any future agreement on an international monitoring mechanism does not delete or replace the need for a binding agreement to meet specified emissions targets."
According to a Reuters report late Friday night, a "constellation group" of 28 powerful developed and developing nations did agree to a list of national actions and commitments, which includes an agreement to give information on their emissions through "national communications" and possibly international consultations.
By all countries' accounts including President Obama's, the Copenhagen agreements lead the way to and underscore the urgency for a more definitive agreement to be produced in next year's UN meetings.
The 1997 Kyoto Protocol accord, which the U.S. did not sign, limits greenhouse-gas emissions among 37 industrialized nations, but that accord and its targets are still set to expire in 2012. CWS had expressed hope that President Obama would take a different stance to the Kyoto Protocols and that the Copenhagen negotiators would endorse continuance of those agreements.
"The climate clock hasn't stopped for politics," CWS's McCullough said. "As one protester's sign at Copenhagen said, 'There is no Planet B.’"
Church World Service strongly urges the international community to recognize climate change adaptation as a high priority for immediate-to-long-term funding and action, given the current critical plight of climate-vulnerable populations around the world. The agency's sustainable development and relief programs worldwide have been integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation solutions for some years.
CWS also promotes a focus on "sustainable consumption" on the part of developed countries. "When it comes down to it, it's up to us as sustainable consumers, particularly in rich countries, to drive the market to climate responsibility," said McCullough.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net |
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Five years have passed since the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami--one of the largest-scale disasters in modern history, both in terms of its geographic reach (it affected more than a half-dozen countries) and the global response it prompted.
Former UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland called tsunami recovery "an extraordinary effort, probably unique in the history of humankind."
Chris Herlinger of CWS--who just completed a book on the tsunami response--recently interviewed CWS Indonesia Director Michael Koeniger, about CWS’s continuing tsunami-response efforts and ongoing work in tsunami-affected regions.
The story Koeniger tells is full of complexity--not surprising in a response that was unprecedented for CWS and other global humanitarian agencies.
Overall, he says, CWS was successful--we “achieved what we set out to do, in some cases even achieving more than planned--more beneficiaries for the livelihood program in Nias, for example. I do think that the goals were met. This has been confirmed by several evaluations of our work.” |
In Kuala Tadu, Aceh, a boy who survived the tsunami in front of his family's new home, constructed by Church World Service/ACT.
Photo: Paul Jeffrey/ACT |
At the same time, Koeniger points out that a continued challenge for CWS is “to raise funds to continue our work in Aceh and Nias, as there are many remaining unmet needs. That includes ways to overcome donor fatigue--or ‘tsunami fatigue’--as there might be a perception that the work is done. It's not.”
Church World Service’s on-the-ground tsunami efforts were based largely in Indonesia's Aceh province, where CWS had worked prior to the tsunami, as well as supporting CWS partner work in India and Sri Lanka. Efforts also focused on the impoverished Indonesian region of Nias, the site of a March 2005 earthquake.
CWS efforts in Indonesia focused on housing reconstruction and rehabilitation, supplementary feeding, and distribution of medicines and CWS Health and Baby Care Kits and other non-food items. CWS also provided access to clean water and sanitation facilities, as well as trauma counseling, psychosocial support and child development programs.
Read Chris Herlinger’s interview with CWS Indonesia Director Michael Koeniger.
Media Contact:
Lesley Crosson, 212-870-2676, lcrosson@churchworldservice.org
Jan Dragin, 781-925-1526, jdragin@gis.net |
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