SOS Haiti Emergency Appeal

SOS Children Appealing for funds for Haiti Emergency

Update January 2012: See how SOS Children is helping to rebuild the lives of children in Haiti two years after the earthquake

See also Latest Haiti earthquake news

The needs of a child whose family and home have been destroyed in an earthquake extend long beyond immediate medical and trauma care. If you are able to, please be thoughtful and set up an emergency relief sponsorship.

We are a well established charity in Haiti (since 1978) , and before this earthquake we already had 800 child sponsorships needed for children orphaned by AIDS, tropical storms, unrest and poverty related disease. Port au Prince was still recovering from tropical storms in Nov 2008 which destroyed 10,000  homes and made many more homeless. The earthquake has destroyed most communcations. So far we have not managed more than brief contact with our offices and field workers in Haiti because of the infrastructure collapse. It is clear that there will be a massive need for emergency relief work after the earthquake yesterday. Therefore we have decided to appeal for funds to help the people of Haiti.

After the massive earthquake in Haiti yesterday evening, brief communication has been possible with the national director, Celigny Darius. He informs us that all staff at the national office in Port-au-Prince are uninjured but the national office has been partially destroyed and we have not been able to move from the office. Unfortunately, since all communication lines are down and all roads are blocked, there has been no possibility of communicating with any of the SOS Children's Villages or other programmes as yet. There are severe damages to some of the team's own homes and some of them have not been able to contact their families. The epicentre of the quake was just 10 kilometres from the capital Port-au-Prince, where the national office, one village and one SOS Social Centre are located.

An Emergency Programme is being developed and immediate support will be coordinated from SOS Dominican Republic where we still have working facilities.

Our track record in emergency relief speaks for itself. We have staff and infrastructure on the ground and we will be one of the first to offer assistance. In all likelihood, as with the Asian Tsunami and with the Kashmir Earthquake and so many other places, as we are already registered to care for lone children, in the short term we will probably be entrusted by the government to run emergency shelters for children who have been orphaned or separated from their family (in Kashmir we ended up as temporary guardian for all unaccompanied children). We expect to be involved in trauma care and family tracing. We are in Haiti long term and we will probably (as is usually the case) end up providing the long term home for children who have been orphaned by the disaster. This is a well established pattern.

In all events we undertake to spend 100% of all funds generated by this appeal helping in Haiti, with absolutely no deductions for UK costs such as administration or fundraising. 

If you would like to contribute to this appeal please donate to Haiti here. We will keep you informed of news and of what we achieve with your funds.

In the immediate days we will provide basic medical supplies, drinking water and basic food supplies to the children and families living in the communities surrounding our SOS Children´s Villages and other programmes. We will provide temporary shelter for children in the affected area and we will support children who have lost their parents in the catastrophe.
 
Examples of what a donation to SOS Children Haiti Emergency Relief could typically do:

   1. With £20 it is possible to buy 30 water purification tablets for one month
   2. With £40 it is possible to buy 50 litres of milk for one month
   3. With £80 it is possible to buy 80 boxes of baby food
   4. With £120 it is possible to guarantee a psychological support session to 15 children
   5. With £200 it is possible to guarantee a daily meal to 5 children for one month
   6. With £400 it is possible to guarantee a daily meal for one family (ca. 9 children) for one month.

 There is a poster to help fundraise for us on the  Schools Resources on Haiti page