No progress in Haiti

Haiti under the tons of debris has entered in a routine even if less than 30 000 people are moved into permanent shelter. The rest still lives in tents or whenever they can find. The crime is sky high, people are murdered, women are raped and the struggle with fear of darkness and hunger every night. People with no jobs and no homes wander around the ruins of their homes. The figures are frightening: 230,000 deaths, 1, 5 million Haitian displaced from their home and 25 million cubic yards of debris.

But where is the progress? For six months the progress is covered by debris.

“Until we address this rubble issue – on a mass scale – OK, all of the other programs that focus on recovery – is going to take time,” declared Matthew Marek from the American Red Cross to CBS news.

A lot of funds and help from all over the world came to Haitians but still the Haitians feel no progress.

The people of the United States donated trough the Red Cross almost 468 million dollars. The amount that was spent until now is 150 million dollars.

More than 5 billion dollars will come from 49 countries through the period of reconstruction estimated to 2 years, said the International commission.

UNICEF providing fresh drinking water for almost a million people daily, The World Food Programme has given jobs to 35,000 people paying them 5 dollars a day in food and cash, Habitat for Humanity is building 70 temporary shelters per week.

So if there is so much money sent to Haiti, a country which everyone stated clearly and didn’t forget to remind the Haitian the fact that it was the poorest in the west area of our globe, why isn’t progress visible?  Some sources from Haiti declared that a lot of the money never arrived in Haiti and that only a small percent of this sum reached the desired location which was scattered around there.

A country with only one government building and more than 25 percent of the government workers killed would find a big challenge and a lot of difficulties to organize the aid that gets there.

The people are disoriented and when asked they can’t even think of a section to start and repair because all of them are so affected. Some say that jobs will help them; others think that education is the most important in situations like this and some think that the health department should do better.

The progress exists that is certain, but is the progress faster than the decline of Haiti?

The pertinent questions are “where is the money that didn’t get to Haiti?” and “how much would take to help Haiti?”