Source: Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation Date: Aug 26, 2014
In January 2010, an earthquake with the magnitude of 7.0 devastated Haiti and left billions of dollars in damages and thousands of lives destroyed in its wake.
The earthquake struck the most populated areas of the country, including Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, not only taking more than an estimated number of 300,000 lives throughout the country, but displacing millions, leaving them without medical aid, shelter, and food.
During the initial months of emergency aid period immediately following the earthquake, Tzu Chi’s relief efforts included medical and humanitarian aid and shipments of food with more than 350,000 packs of Tzu Chi’s nutritional “Jing-Si” instant rice among other relief goods, enough to provide 100,000 meals. The rice, created by Tzu Chi to provide meals during emergencies and disaster, is very simple to prepare as all that is required is water; no gas stove or electric cooker is needed.
After the initial four months of emergency aid, Tzu Chi relief efforts entered mid and long term stages, which incorporated the rebuilding of hospitals, schools, and public sanitation facilities. Long term relief efforts by Tzu Chi saw the continued provision of medical care and distribution of supplies, including the ready-to-eat rice packs to the homeless, schools, and orphanages, but moreover, the construction of three schools completed in 2013 run by Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anne, which was in itself a demonstration of interfaith unity. And in 2013, Tzu Chi Global Headquarters sent 8,000 bags of rice, totaling 160 metric tons, to Haiti, with 500 bags being handed out by Tzu Chi volunteers, local scouts, and UN Jordanian peacekeepers to the Haiti Boy Scouts Community Center, and hundreds more at several orphanages, including a school and orphanage for over three hundred deaf and mute children run by the Catholic Congregation Daughters of Wisdom. In the second rice distribution, more than 1,000 families received bags of rice, each bag weighing forty-four pounds.
Tzu Chi volunteer Johan Alwall who volunteered in 2013’s rice distribution wrote that “The rubble is gone from the streets, and many have been able to move back into their restored or rebuilt homes. However, there are still nearly a quarter million people living in temporary tent camps without proper sanitation or security, unemployment numbers are sky high, and hundreds of thousands of people are unable to eat their fill every day.”
Now in 2014, Tzu Chi’s presence in Haiti continues with the continued provision of instant rice in Haiti, the first and most recently at a free kindergarten school opened and ran by a local Catholic church in Sun City, Port-au-Prince, one of the poorest slums in the Northern Hemisphere with only 2 government schools for 200,000 to 400,000 residents. In this distribution, 40 Tzu Chi volunteers gave 1600 bags of rice to 800 underprivileged families. Father Zucci of the OPEPB stated of Tzu Chi and the Haitian people that “it is not the first time that [Tzu Chi] makes this distribution, the people are always happy [with] this organization.” And nor will the rice distribution in Sun City, Port-au-Prince, be the last; Tzu Chi plans on distributing 240 tons of ready-to-eat rice in Haiti throughout 2014.
Four years ago there was only devastation, piles of rubble and debris, shattered remnants of construction accompanied by the deepest sounds of sorrow, a grim reminder of the fragility of life and the impermanence of our world; but now with time, multi-sectoral collaboration, and most of all compassion and charity, that bleak surreal image of a wounded and broken Haiti is instead replaced with one of joy, where men, women, and children in schools receiving bags of Tzu Chi’s own “Jing-Si” rice. Though the road to full recovery is arduous, acts of compassion and humanity like these give hope to the people of Haiti.