The Joint Task Force combines the strengths of the nation’s First and Largest Latin Greek Organizations, Lambda Theta Alpha, Latin Sorority Inc., the Pave the Way Foundation, the Lambda Theta Phi Foundation and Lambda Theta Phi, Latin Fraternity Inc., to assist those that were affected by the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Haiti on January 12, 2010. Read More
This Joint Task Force has begun Operation Haitian Relief, whose purpose is to provide all levels of assistance to these victims, including monetary donations, food, clothing, medical supplies, and temporary shelters.
First of all we would like to take all those who have helped or been in any way part of our on going effort to assist the victims of the Haitian Earthquake. Among those we would like to thank Lambda Theta Phi Latin Fraternity Inc, Senator Robert Menendez, Union Positiva, the Miami Medical Team, the Senate of the Dominican Republic, USAID, U.S. Southern Commend, the South Florida AFL-CIO, the Democracia Movement, Lambda Theta Alpha, Latin Sorority Inc, Payolibre, and the list continues to grow of those who care for those who have suffered so much. We also wish to thank all those hundreds of individual who have assisted us a individuals who can on campuses and communities all over the country.
Now we are entering the reconstruction and relocation phase of the effort. We will be announcing our ongoing plan for individuals from campuses all over the country to be sent to assist as volunteers in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic. In the coming days we will be announcing the acquistation of US private grants and International NGO grants to further assist with our mission in Haiti, Dominican Republic and in the US relocation efforts, with particular emphasis in South Florida. This assistance we deal with finances, education, and housing, as well as on going medical assistance and coverage where they may be located. Remember this recovery may take several years to accomplish.
For further information contact us at 305-859-7741.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Doctors and aid workers are running dangerously low of supplies in Haiti’s capital and in the countryside, complicating efforts to treat 200,000 people in need of post-surgery care following the earthquake and increasing the potential of many more deaths due to infection and disease.
As days turn to weeks, doctors struggling to keep up with demand in devastated hospitals and improvised clinics are warning of a looming public health calamity as earthquake survivors with untreated injuries fail to get proper attention, Elisabeth Byrs, of the U.N.’s humanitarian coordination office said Friday in Geneva.
Poor sanitation can also kill as tens of thousands of Haitians living in squalid camps with limited water, she said.
Medical teams also are seeing a big shift in the types of cases they are treating, World Health Organization spokesman Paul Garwood said Friday in Geneva. He said there are a growing number of diarrhea cases, as well as unconfirmed reports of a rise in measles and tetanus cases in resettlement camps — a particularly worrying development because of the high population density in the camps.
“The health care system in Haiti has been terribly affected by the earthquake,” said Joe Lowry, a spokesman for the International Federation of the Red Cross. “Medical staff have been killed and injured, hospitals destroyed and stocks damaged and depleted.”
Dr. Nancy Fleurancois, volunteering at a damaged hospital in the Haitian coastal town of Jacmel, said Thursday that her team is treating 500 people a day — many for the first time since the Jan. 12 quake — and desperately needs antibiotics and surgical supplies.
“You see people come here and they are at death’s door,” said Fleurancois, a Haitian-American from Newark, Delaware. “More help is needed.”
Anthony Banbury, deputy head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti, said during a tour of Jacmel that he would try to resolve Fleurancois’ shortages — but he noted there is a “grave need” for medicine all over Haiti.
Those needs are competing with the urgency of delivering tons of food, water and tents which, like the medicine, are delayed by bottlenecks as a result of damaged roads and ports and a tiny airport that is unable to accommodate the backlog of flights waiting to deliver supplies. Coordination remains a problem, leaving big gaps in the distribution of food and medicine.
An estimated 200,000 family-size tents are needed as temporary shelter for the homeless, international agencies say, but only a fraction of that number are in Haiti or on their way. In Jacmel alone, more than 20,000 people are homeless.
Food is also still in short supply: The U.N. World Food Program says it has delivered more than 4 million rations, equivalent to more than 13 million meals, to 500,000 people. But it projects that 2 million Haitians need food aid — now and until December.
Desperate Haitians long accustomed to relying on themselves rather than government handouts have resorted to looting the collapsed stores in Port-au-Prince. Armed Haitian police have tried to stop them by firing guns in the air and threatening them with their batons. Several people have been injured.
On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators near downtown Port-au-Prince protested against the police actions while cheering U.S. troops who have confined their activities to clearing rubble.
Officials estimate the quake killed as many as 200,000 people and injured another 200,000. Among the injured are more than 2,000 people who have had amputations, a number that is likely to increase, said Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. Those patients are in need of postoperative care to prevent infection.
At the chaotic General Hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince, amputees groan in pain while recovering in canvas tents in the courtyard of the damaged structure. There is a shortage of painkillers as well as crutches, wheelchairs and physical therapy equipment, said Dr. Bob Norris, who leads an International Medical Corps team of physicians.
“We have a country full of people with new amputations who have to learn how to live their lives,” Norris said.
At the Bernard Mevs Hospital near the airport, administrator Kathleen Sejour said doctors are short of such basic supplies as gloves, gauze and antiseptic as well as malaria medicine and treatment for amputees.
“There are too many patients we’re seeing who have malaria,” Sejour said. “Most of the kids right now have it.”
At a clinic run by U.S.-based ACTS World Relief and a Haitian group called Operation Hope in Carrefour, a hard-hit Port-au-Prince district, volunteer Dr. Laura Asher said just about everything doctors need is lacking as they treat hundreds. She said she had pleaded with international aid agencies and better-funded private groups for help.
“It’s a constant need, a constant need. Every day we go out and beg,” Asher, of Silver Spring, Maryland, said as patients waited in the shade of the front yard of the clinic, which has been set up in a house.
To be sure, there are any number of small groups providing badly needed medical aid, and not all are running low.
Dr. Margaret Degand, who runs a private clinic in Petionville, said her depleted stocks were replenished by a French humanitarian organization.
Officials from both Doctors Without Borders and the International Federation of the Red Cross said both organizations have adequate medical equipment and supplies.
But even some of the largest institutions are feeling the strain.
The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort reached its “care limit” after treating more than 3,000 people, Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, told reporters Thursday. U.S. authorities are now planning a new treatment center for up to 5,000 patients on land provided by the Haitian government.
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Associated Press writers contributing to this report include Paisley Dodds and Vivian Sequera in Port-au-Prince; David McFadden in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Juan Zamorano in Panama City; Frank Jordans in Geneva; and Mike Stobbe in Atlanta.
(CNN) — There’s nothing like images of infants and children in distress to make outsiders yearn to help, which is why the unfolding story of Haiti’s orphans — the most helpless of earthquake victims — has kept people riveted.
But what can be done and what should be the focus of attention and efforts remains a mystery to many Americans, who are flooding the phone lines of organizations, seeking to adopt these children — immediately.
The offer to open arms, hearts and homes is no doubt well-intentioned, but several leading aid organizations recently said new adoptions should stop and not be rushed. They want to protect children wrongly identified as orphans from being moved out of the country or falling victim to child traffickers.
First shipment sent to Haiti: Milk for the children
UPDATE: January 25, 2010
The Joint Task Force prepared and sent it’s first shipment of relief supplies to Haiti this Sunday, January 24, 2010. The shipment comprised of over 700 containers of milk, medical supplies and other necessities destined to the infants and children who fell victim to Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake and was raised in only 2 days! The Supplies weigh over 600 lbs and are a great start, but we require more!
This is the first of many shipments to be sent directly to the island’s victim supply centers on the island.
We would like to sincerely thank those who donated directly to this cause. A special thanks goes out to the following individuals who assisted with moving and packing the supplies:
Founding Father Agustin “Gus” Garcia
Brother Steve O Hernandez, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Andrew Ibrahim, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Pedro Da Silva, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Japheth Pizarro, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Jean Paul Bermeo, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Rafael Da La Rosa, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Diego Giraldo, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Tito Soto, Beta Gamma Chapter
Brother Osvaldo Valdes, Beta Sigma Chapter
Brother Jose De La Salas, Beta Iota Chapter
Mrs. Natalie Hernandez
Ms. Jillian Maffucci
The Garcia Family
Agustin “Gus” Garcia, Lambda Theta Phi Founding Father and Lambda Theta Phi Foundation Chairman, submits a preliminary report on needs of the victims in Haiti.
“We have hundreds of infants coming into to these medical checkpoints that haven’t eaten in days. We are in desperate need of non-perishable milk (those that are sold in cartons and do not require refrigeration) to feed these children. There is also a dire need for medical supplies (first-aid kits, medicines, etc), medical equipment and anesthetics as doctors are operating on patients who are awake.”
Operation Haitian Relief needs your help! A plane has been scheduled to depart from Miami, Florida on Sunday, January 24, 2010 carrying as much milk that we can get our hands on. Please make donates immediately so we can purchase the life saving food for these children.
Please contact your local Chapter of Lambda Theta Phi or Lambda Theta Alpha to coordinate donations.
Washington (CNN) — One of two piers at the port serving the Haitian capital has reopened, and a gravel road was laid off of it, clearing a major route for aid to come into the city, officials said.
A Dutch Navy ship, the Pelikaan, unloaded 90 tons of humanitarian aid Thursday morning. Two other ships previously offloaded containers for trucks to carry supplies into Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
However, the road only allows for one-way traffic, and because of concerns about the pier, only one truck was allowed on it at any time.
The reopened pier is the city’s south pier, a smaller and older one. The north pier was rendered impassable by the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck Haiti January 12.
The road was opened through a joint operation with Haiti port authorities and the U.S. military, according to Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Gibbs.
Repairs on the pier continue, Gibbs said. “We’re working on it. We’ve got a long ways to go … if we lose this pier, that’s it. We can’t bring in anything.”
U.S. officials say they have been taking steps to get aid into Haiti more quickly. A senior administration official involved in the aid operation said the speed of aid delivery is improving, with as many as 100 flights a day coming in now, compared to 25 flights per day just after the earthquake hit last week.
The official acknowledged that not all aid, particularly medical supplies, was getting through fast enough, but said that in recent days, at least half of the flights entering Haiti are carrying humanitarian supplies, and most of the other flights, including those of the U.S. military and foreign governments, are still carrying some kind of aid.
The official attributed the slight delay in getting aid through to two factors.
Dozens of planes were flying into the Port-au-Prince airport, carrying a variety of food, water, medicine and search-and-rescue gear.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said military personnel on the ground were sometimes confused about what the planes were carrying.
The military will now station aid officials in the airport control tower to assess the contents of each flight to ease the flow of aid.
Also, a Web-based system has been created so that aid groups, donor countries and others can track when each flight is scheduled to land and the supplies it has aboard.
The official also said the operating procedure of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) says it can work without security only during daylight. The arrival of U.S. troops means they can take over a large share of security and speed up the processing of aid.
“Realistically, I am aware of the difficulties that this terrible natural disaster has posed,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier Wednesday.
The senior administration official said that more than 300 aid distribution sites are up and running, in which more than 400,000 meals and humanitarian rations and more than 600,000 bottles of water have been delivered.
Clinton said she was impressed by how much had gotten done, considering “so many challenges that had to be addressed all at once.”
“But when the principle instruments of authority and assistance dealing with the Haitian government, the United Nations, MINUSTAH themselves, were so impacted, we really had to start at the very beginning,” she said.
At least 72,000 people — including dozens of U.N. staff members — have been confirmed dead in the magnitude-7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, according to the country’s prime minister.
International aid contributions have totaled hundreds of millions of dollars since, but relief agencies on the ground say transportation bottlenecks and poor communications have slowed the delivery of food, water and medicine to survivors.
On Wednesday, U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah ordered more medicine and other supplies to be sent within the next 24 hours, the administration official said.
The aid group Doctors Without Borders has blamed five deaths on delays, saying that several flights carrying medical supplies have been diverted from the Port-au-Prince airport to the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, the head of the U.S. military task force in Haiti, said any aircraft identified as carrying medical supplies have priority for landing. They are turned away only “if there’s no parking space on the ramp and they don’t have sufficient fuel to hold in their holding pattern,” he said.
“If the air traffic controller knows what’s on the plane and what the tail number is and he has three planes stacked up and he knows one of them has got medical supplies on it and that’s the top priority identified by the government of Haiti, then that plane is going to come in,” Keen said.
Another senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the priorities for aid flights are set “by the government of Haiti first and then by the U.N. second.” But the number of flights that can land at Port-au-Prince is “a sheer issue of physics and geometry; you just can’t get them all in there.”
“There are great people on the ground, working very, very hard to try and get as much in as they can as fast as they can, and try and keep everybody impressed that we are there to support them. But there are some people that are just not going to be happy, because we can’t get it all,” the official said.
The U.S. military, which has been assisting with air traffic into Port-au-Prince, says the single-runway airport has been handling up to 180 flights a day. But to improve flow, the U.S. military said Wednesday that it had obtained landing rights at the Dominican Republic’s air base at San Isidro, 150 miles (about 220 km) east of Port-au-Prince.
NEWARK - U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on foreign assistance, today received a phone briefing from USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on the assistance efforts in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. Menendez said that the U.S. is clearly acting robustly, decisively and in a leadership capacity, but the main challenges remain logistical. Among the updates Menendez received were:
The U.S. Is delivering 600,000 pallets of food and high-energy protein packets. The U.S. Is delivering 12,000 water containers, and is also delivering hygiene kits. Logistical issues, including the lack of available landing points, are forcing the U.S. and non-governmental organizations to adapt. This includes the reliance on an aircraft carrier as a primary staging point.
“It is clear that the rescue and recovery operation in Haiti remains a signifcant challenge because of forces out of anyone’s control, including a simple lack of space and facilities that would help the effort,” said Menendez. “Assistance and relief agencies are adapting as well as is humanly possible, and they are constantly thinking outside of the box to help get relief on the ground. Dr. Shah is literally in his first days on the job, and I have tremendous admiration for the organization, decisiveness, and leadership he is showing. If we can continue to send life-saving resources and to adapt to logistical limitations, literally thousands of lives can still be saved.”
(CNN) — As delivery of aid to Haiti is hampered by damaged ports and an overwhelmed airport, another conduit into the earthquake-ravaged nation — its border with the Dominican Republic — has become a challenging crossing itself, a United Nations situation report says.
The 200 miles from the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo to the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince has been backed up and can take as long as 18 hours to travel by vehicle, according to the report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), released this weekend.
A CNN crew reported taking 12 hours to drive from Santo Domingo to Port-au-Prince on Tuesday, though the crew left before dawn, intending to avoid peak traffic.
Vehicles crossing from the Dominican Republic into Haiti included large trucks carrying supplies and vans and public buses that seemed to be local, the crew reported. Some aid trucks were followed by sport utility vehicles, likely transporting international aid personnel.
Traffic is heading the other way, too, the U.N. reported.
Hospitals in the border region [in the Dominican Republic] are overwhelmed and have begun to refer patients to hospitals in other cities,” OCHA reported, citing the Office of the Resident Coordinator in the Dominican Republic.
“There is a shortage of specialized medical supplies, equipment, and physicians at these hospitals, and no clear inventory of what is needed,” the report continued. “An effective waste management system is required for the border region in order to avoid disease and contamination of rivers.”
As a result, U.N. aid distribution is being shifted to a different road that goes through the Dominican border city of Jimani, instead of the main highway that leads through the Dominican city of Elias Pina.
The CNN crew, which passed through Jimani, did not witness many injured Haitians crossing from there into the Dominican Republic. A giant pothole there made crossing the border there a one-car-at-a-time affair.
According to a priest in Elias Pina, Haitians there were worried about their families back home.
“There are many Haitians living here in Elias Pina and many don’t know anything about their families,” the Rev. Mike Seis of the Green Bay Diocesan Mission in Elias Pina wrote in a letter recently. “The casualties are staggering. This weekend all of the Catholic parishes in the Dominican Republic from the 11 dioceses in the country will be sending their Sunday collections to Catholic Charities of Haiti.”
