heks

HEKS has been engaged in development and emergency aid projects in Haiti for 38 years now. It works with local partner organisations and runs a coordination office in Port-au-Prince. Being so well networked, HEKS was able to spring into action very quickly with the provision of emergency aid following the earthquake on 12 January 2010. HEKS is now concentrating its reconstruction work in the Petit Goâve and Grand‘Anse regions and has therefore opened two more regional offices and hired additional staff.

HEKS set up street kitchens in Port-au-Prince just days after the earthquake. For 100 days, 42 local employees prepared 3,000 hot meals daily in a large kitchen. Those meals were distributed at 12 camps in Pétion-Ville. Shortly after the earthquake HEKS also launched activities in the Grand'Anse department in the southwest of the island where the agency has been active for decades in agricultural projects, amongst others. Beneficiaries also received support in the form of seeds and tools to grow more bananas, vegetables and rice for themselves and their family members who had fled a ravaged Port-au-Prince and taken refuge with them.

Thanks to humanitarian aid it was possible, by December 2011, to build 10 houses with stoves, toilets, cisterns and water filters in Grand'Anse, and another 15 houses are being planned and built. Besides, work has been completed on 15 km of the planned 20 km road, and scholarships have been awarded for school children and for the training of masons.

In addition to Grand’Anse, HEKS is also focusing its humanitarian aid on rebuilding and repairing houses in the Petit Goâve region, which sustained severe damage from the earthquake. Most of the NGOs working here left the area at the end of 2011. HEKS has stayed on and kept its local office open and is the only NGO in Petit Goâve that is building not just temporary accommodation but also solid houses for permanent use. The foremost beneficiaries are single parents, large families as well as families with family members who have been left physically disabled by the earthquake. One hundred new houses are being built and 300 are being repaired. So far 15 houses have been erected. This is not the pace that HEKS had expected for the project. There are several reasons for the delay: HEKS needed more time than planned to recruit suitable personnel, because the task could not be accomplished with local partners alone. HEKS is now working with a mixed team of foreign and local personnel, all of whom had to be first recruited and allowed to learn the ropes. Moreover, it took longer than anticipated for local home ownership issues to be carefully sorted out. Besides, the authorities wanted bigger houses than HEKS had planned to build. Compromises therefore had to be negotiated, and this also took time. Finally, the reconstruction had to be reconceived as the original plan to build an entirely new settlement had to be discarded, since HEKS did not receive the expected permit from the authorities.

HEKS is planning a total spend of 9.1 million francs for emergency aid and reconstruction by the end of 2015. Of that amount, Swiss Solidarity is expected to provide some 6 million francs.

Account for donations: PC 80-1115-1, please mark “Earthquake in Haiti”

HEKS is an accredited partner of Swiss Solidarity.

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January 2012