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Humanity First USA Mission to Haiti |
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.
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.
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.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 10 March 2011 23:58 |
Humanity First is registered in 43 countries across 6 continents, and has been working on human development projects and responding to disasters since 1994. These have included the earthquakes in Turkey, Pakistan, Japan and Iran, floods in Africa and Latin America, hurricanes (Katrina and Rita) , tornado's (Kansas) and wild fires (California) in the USA, Indonesia and Bangladesh, and conflicts in Eastern Europe.
Since its inception and IRS registration in 2004, Humanity First has been focused on spending most of the raised funds on direct program related expenses. As a result, more than 90% of its funds are in that expense category. This is achieved through dedicated volunteers in its management, and program operation teams.