Czech aid to quake-stricken Haiti underway

The magnitude-seven earthquake that struck the Caribbean state of Haiti on Tuesday is threatening to become one of the worst natural disasters in recent memory, with death tolls estimated between tens and hundreds of thousands. Thousands of more people remain buried in the rubble. There is little water and a tragic scarcity of other resources that survivors need; understandably most are under extreme emotional and physical strain. As the gravity of the situation has grown clear, Czech charity organisations and the state have begun organising their response.

A city of four million people and only two fire stations, the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is calling out to the world for assistance after what looks to be the most deadly earthquake in the last 34 years. Czech charity organisations are among those responding to the emergency. The Olomouc branch of the Catholic organisation Caritas has a presence in Haiti running adoption services and has freed up half a million crowns in immediate financial aid. Martin Zamazal runs the organisation’s humanitarian division.

Photo: CTK

“Immediately in the morning our time we began collection activities. In these first days, the first and only thing we can do is collect finances and plan the involvement of Caritas Czech Republic. So now the decision should be made whether to stay and work through the Caritas groups that have already been in Haiti for many years, or to send our Czech team to be on the spot and coordinate the aid and save lives.”

Caritas is one organisation that has Czech workers currently on the ground in Haiti, and with the local communications infrastructure in tatters they have been unable to contact them or determine the fate of the 55 children they care for.

“Since the earthquake there has been no possibility of reaching anyone in Port-au-Prince, including the children and the local coordinators, and we are quite scared, because there are a lot of casualties. It’s most likely that some of our children are not in good condition I suppose, and we are just waiting to establish a link.”

The Czech Republic’s primary charity organisation People in Need will for the time being be taking a support role in the aid efforts. Šimon Pánek is the foundation’s director:

Šimon Pánek

“People in Need – through Alliance 2015, which is an association of seven European NGOs – is in contact with four of them who are in Haiti with more than 20 expatriates and 200 Haitian nationals who are normally working on long-term development projects. They of course are now turning to the relief operation, and it makes much more sense to support their operation from here than to plan to go to Haiti and open our own mission and starting relief operations maybe one week from now.”

So you’re not going to be sending people so is it just going to be a question of sending finances to these partner association?

“We might be sending some people at the request of the partners at the weekend to support their teams. But basically we will be working through our structure of Alliance 2015 and sending the funds to support the Alliance operation in Haiti. In the past, for example in Iran after the earthquake, People in Need was the one working in Iran on behalf of Alliance and implementing the funding from Italy, Germany, Ireland and the Czech Republic as well. So this is a way to reduce the transaction costs and make operations more effective and efficient.”

How much money were you able to free up immediately when you first heard about the earthquake and how much have you managed to collect since yesterday?

Photo: CTK

“Yesterday we released 300,000 Czech crowns, which is something like a little less than 20,000 dollars. Since then it looks like fundraising is going quite well, so we are at something like 60-70,000 dollars at the moment. We expect we will raise a few hundred thousand dollars.”

Meanwhile the official response of the Czech Republic is in design as officials coordinate with Brussels. Jiří Beneš of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“We are of course keeping abreast of the situation and assessing how we can contribute to Haiti during this humanitarian crisis and at the same time discussions are underway in the European Union, which coordinates the aid, and we will specify our bilateral aid based on what decision the union makes and we will determinate the form and amount of our aid. Those discussions are currently underway, so I assume that the result should be known today.”

Photo: CTK

The Czech Republic also has a canine rescue brigade from South Bohemia that has frequently been deployed to earthquake zones to search rubble for survivors. That organisation is currently awaiting a request from international aid organisations, which could come at any moment.

For information on the work of Czech charity organisations in Haiti please see www.charita.cz for Caritas Czech Republic and www.clovekvtisni.cz Both sites have English versions.