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    • Sep 19, 2021
    • 4 min read

Earthquake Relief Update #2 - Phase One


It's been a month since a 7.2 magnitude earthquake ravaged the south of Haiti, and based on what our team is observing in Haiti, the situation is still overwhelmingly dismal. In coordination with OneDiaspora/Haitian Diaspora Emergency Response Unit (HDERU), GCF completed its 3rd week of relief effort and we are stretching our resources to the max. As of September 17th, through the medical relief efforts, we've cared for 3,073 victims in 16 distinct locations. We distributed water, food and hygiene products to over 500 families. We've decided to increase our target to distribute food-water-hygienic kits to 1,000 families from our original target of 500. The need is enormous! Trust that your financial and in-kind contributions have already touched thousands of lives. None of what we do is possible without your trust and your support.


Medical Relief


We continued with our medical relief efforts and have been going to locations recommended by the Minister of Health and Population (MSPP). In GCF's response plan, we estimated that we will care for 2,000 victims. As of September 17, 2021, in collaboration with local Doctors and Nurses from Klinik Fonfred, FHHH and HANA-I, we have cared for 3,105 victims. We are seeing many cases of skin infections due to the worsened living conditions. We are also seeing many cases of the chronic conditions that are rampant in Haiti: unmanaged Hypertension and Diabetes, vaginitis and gastritis. The need for medical care has magnified and many of those we cared for, especially the children, are in need of psychological assistance. GCF is exploring the possibility of integrating 1-2 Psychologists at Klinik Fonfred for the next few months to help provide a space for some victims to receive group counseling on site, and for a minimum period of 3 months.


Food, Water, Hygiene Kits Distribution

We have distributed food, water, hygiene kits to about 500 families so far. Our approach is simple:

  1. Department de la Protection Civile Sud (DPC-Sud) shares with GCF the communities to be prioritized. We insist on getting our priorities from DPC as they know the communities that have not yet received any humanitarian relief.

  2. Our team visits those communities to assess the need and identify the victimized families.

  3. During that assessment, we deliver a 5-gallon water for each family

  4. In areas near Les Cayes, we also give the head of each family a coupon to redeem their kit at a local distributor's store. For the more remote areas, our team personally delivers the food kits. As much as possible, to protect our team and to ensure the real victims receive our relief, we avoid large crowd distributions.

We also decided to distribute food, water and hygiene kits to several communities that we felt are in real need of relief. From passed lessons learned, we've implemented the coupon system as a way to keep our distributions safe and orderly. Each family received rice, corn grown locally, beans, salmon, spaghetti, oil to cook a meal for about 2 weeks. So far every community we've served, we were the first ones there. The need is so great that we have decided to double the number of food and hygiene kits. We will be preparing 500 more kits for distribution next week. That will be our last round of distribution as we will be transitioning into the second phase of our response by next week which will focus more on the rehabilitation. We have estimated $200,000 for phase 2 of our response.




Challenges

  • Donated supplies from Boynton Beach and Broward have cleared customs. They will be delivered to our site when it is safe to travel to Les Cayes. Thanks to your timely contributions, we were able to purchase medication, food, water and hygiene products in Haiti.

  • Shipping bottlenecks and bureaucracy are causing major delays in receiving supplies from the Diaspora - to date, we had to utilize Klinik Fonfred's reserve medical supplies and purchase medications in Les Cayes to keep the medical relief going.

  • Traveling to the south is still considered unsafe due the social and political unrest

  • The need is overwhelming. In order to maximize the impact of our resources, our team on the ground has to be disciplined and innovative.

Money Update - Thank you to all our supporters!

To date, we have raised $181,005. We are only $68,995 away from reaching our fund raising goal of $250,000 for phases one and two of our relief. THANK YOU!

Food, water, and hygiene products were all purchased locally. The kits that we distributed were assembled in Les Cayes.

  • More kits are being prepared by our volunteers for next week's distribution.

  • Some of the tents we purchased from the US will be delivered early next week.

  • An additional 300 tents are in transit and have not yet cleared customs

  • GCF is a 501c3 organization. Completed 990 form for 2019 can be found at www.gaskov.org


How can you help?

Please help us meet our $250,000 fund raising goal for phases 1 and 2 of our response. Share this link with all your friends and family www.gaskov.org/gofundgcf


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Instagram: @gaskovclergefoundation

Email us: info@gaskov.org

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With our deepest gratitude,

GCF - Team 2021 Earthquake


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