A U.S. aid charity’s failed attempt to deliver hundreds of thousands of meals to Haitians this week highlights the logistical problems facing relief workers on the island, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Scott Lewis, head of the Eagles Wings Foundation, in Florida, organized a 15-truck convoy to carry beans and rice to hungry and homeless earthquake victims in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. But little of the 150-ton haul reached its intended targets as traffic snarls and communication breakdowns stranded drivers for hours at a time, preventing delivery before sundown, when security concerns halted the mission.
A Duke University instructor who teaches Haiti’s Creole language has developed a crash course to equip students and professors heading to the island to aid relief and reconstruction efforts with basic linguistic and cultural skills, reports the public radio program Marketplace.
2 Responses to Haiti Roundup: Logistical Nightmares Hamper Food-Aid Efforts
jmm_2010 - January 29, 2010 at 3:47 pm
http://www.oursoil.org/content/fear-slows-relief-efforts-papAdditional perspective on the slow pace of relief provided by an individual on the ground in Port au Prince who founded SOIL, a small non-profit working in Haiti.
phillipsal - February 1, 2010 at 3:29 am
The chaos of the aid efforts in Haiti suggests that too many organizations, too many people have flown in to help. Despite the best of intentions on the part of many, the results for Haitians have been much less than the sum of its parts. Indeed, the uncoordinated efforts of too many groups actually impede aid efforts and Haitians–not NGOS or aid workers–are paying the price.