Before Jan. 12, 2010, Haiti was already one of the poorest countries in the world, struggling with political instability, environmental degradation, and health crises.
After the magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck, the nation lost as many as 200,000 lives, leaving more than one million homeless and hundreds of thousands injured with a government in shambles ó children dying, families lost and unaccountable suffering.† Luckily, others from around the world immediately stepped up and rose to the cause.
Practically speaking, people are doing everything they can to help in the relief efforts of Haiti.† Sure, there will always be more that people can do, but it is not always the most feasible.† America could ship the entire military over and start guarding the place, but the people of Haiti have done nothing wrong, they donít deserve that.
The reason some military personnel are currently on the island is because they are an easily and quickly mobilized force ó some of the first ships that arrived (after the blocked ports were cleared of hinderances) were military hospital ships, which can treat a large flow of patients.
Many victims are seeing doctors for the first time in their entire lives.† Along with the rapidly-arriving hospital ships came others that can treat contaminated water, a major necessity.
Many citizens are currently living in ìtent cities” ó dwellings of makeshift structures built from corrugated tin, cardboard and/or sheets.
Though these temporary shelters are increasingly becoming more permanent, there is still lack of food, medications and sanitary services.† There is† rising concern about the arrival of the rainy season.† More rain increases the occurrences of diseases such as measles and tetanus, which means vaccines will be in even higher demand in a country where supplies of vaccines have always been scarce.
While improvements are slowly surfacing, this overall situation simply canít be cleaned up within a week or two ó it will take time.† But along with this time, the strife canít be forgotten.
All too often people become deeply moved by such a disaster and jump into a relief effort head-first, only to forget about it after some time.† If the support dies down, the country will eventually be abandoned once again.
As a country, we cannot forget about Haiti.† Its people need help now as much as they did three weeks ago and will still need in a month.† Such a prodigious quantity of distress requires a substantial amount of time, effort and money.
Meanwhile, what can we, as citizens, do to help?† There are various websites, such as www.worldvision.org, where one can make financial donations or even take steps toward adopting a child.
There are organizations, such as ìCatholic Relief Services,” which have been involved with Haiti for over 50 years, providing assistance for half a million people on the island during the most recent crisis.
There is always more that can be done, but given the circumstances, people are doing the best that they can, and improvements are already apparent.† We just canít forget.