One year ago on 12 January 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake ripped Haiti apart, leaving over 222,000 dead, 300,000 injured, and more than 3 million Haitians affected. In the weeks that followed, people resettled in over 1,000 temporary camps. Humanity First (HF) was amongst the first few humanitarian organizations that arrived at the disaster zone. With generous support from its donors and volunteers including the United States, HF was able to provide medical assistance, shelter, clean drinking water and food, sanitary and other supplies to almost 60,000 Haitians. Over 400 HF volunteers around the world were involved in the Disaster Response Phase. HF continues to help the Haitians in need in the Post-Disaster Rehabilitation Phase and has provided medical and non medical relief to more than 30,000 people since March 2010.

Highlights of the Disaster Response Mission:

• HF responded with over 75 international and over 20 Haitian volunteers.
• More than 300 international volunteers supported the relief work remotely.
• More than $250,000 medicines and medical supplies sent by HF countries.
• Our teams were able to care for more than 23,000 patients in the Base Camp Medical Clinic in Port-au-Prince, 28 Mobile Medical Clinics and at partner locations.
• Distributed 2,300 Aquabox water filter systems, other filter systems and bottled water. Served more than 21,000 people.
• Distributed 2,300 Family Survival Kits that included hand tools to build shelters, tarps and plastic sheets, health & hygiene kits, first aid kits, clothes and kitchen utensils. Served over 14,000 people.
• 9 orphanages that were caring for 700 children were helped with food, water filtration kits, clothing, baby diapers, baby powders, and health and hygiene supplies.

Highlights of HF-USA’s Contributions in Disaster Response Mission:

• More than 40 volunteers supported the Command Center in the USA.
• Sent First Response Team including 5 medical and 1 logistics personnel.
• For 38 days of the 45 days mission, a HF-USA volunteer provided Camp Management services.
• HF-USA Physicians remained Medical Leads for 30 days of the 45 days mission.
• Sent logistics personnel to Santo Domingo for 31 days
• Sent 38 volunteers in total (15 Doctors, 12 Nurses, 11 Logistics) for 354 days of service
• HF-US volunteers contributed over $100,000 worth of services in the field.

Rehabilitation Efforts:

After the end of Disaster Response Phase in March 2010, HF carefully analyzed the needs of Haitian population. Health infrastructure in Haiti, which needed help even before the earthquake, became almost non-existent after the earthquake. HF decided to continue to provide health care services that were initiated during the disaster response phase. HF remained the doors of its base camp clinic open until November 2010. During this period, more than 20,000 Haitians were provided healthcare and relief supplies like, Aquaboxes, Aquatabs and Family Survival Kits.

Highlights of HF-USA’s Contributions towards Rehabilitation Efforts:

During a medical reconnaissance mission in February 2010, Dr. Clayton Bell, a HF-USA volunteer identified Seguin region in the Southeast of Haiti that was in dire need of health care. Seguin is an isolated mountainous and farming community of approximately 60,000 people. In June 2010, with the help of Dr. Bell, Humanity First was able to establish the Cloud Forest Medical Clinic in cooperation with ‘Haitian Christian Outreach’ and ‘Where the Stars Still Shine’. Operations of the clinic are managed by Dr. Bell, who is volunteering for three years, and Kyle Martin, a third year medical student from Michigan who is volunteering for one year.

• Reintroduced healthcare to the Seguin Plateau after 8 years.
• Only physician mediated medical care for 7-8 hours hike or 2-3 hours of mountainous drive in any direction.
• Over 6,000 patients treated for a variety of medical complaints.
• Providing employment and training to 19 Haitian staff.
• Started Orphan Relief Program July 2010 to provide assistance to orphans suffering from malnutrition and other health maladies.
• To date, 22 children have been enrolled in the program between the ages of 3 months to 5 years of age and significant health improvements are recorded almost all the children.
• Kyle Martin, started and is supervising a Community Health Workers program.
• For the program, 1 Director and 5 Community Health Workers (CHW) are hired.
• Each CHW cares for 10 chronically ill patients in the community.
• CHWs are responsible for spreading public health awareness across Seguin.

Cholera Treatment Efforts:

• A 24 bed Cloud Forest CTC (Cholera Treatment Center) was built by MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Spain and completed on Monday, January 3, 2011.
• It was built in response to the increasing number of Cholera cases in the Seguin Plateau.
• Our teams have seen over 300 Cholera patients so far.
• Teams of volunteers are being deployed from the US to help at the CTC.
• Hiking expeditions are exploring villages across the mountains of Seguin Plateau and distributing hydrations packs, Aquatabs and providing public health education to prevent Cholera.
• Our public health campaigns have been highly successful so far and have prevented spreading of Cholera in most of the hundreds of small villages in Seguin Plateau.

How You Can Help:

• Please continue to support Humanity First efforts in Haiti through generous donations.
• Volunteer with Humanity First USA.