Haiti on my Mind, by volunteer Winnie Romeril

A lot of people ask when am I headed out to the next crisis. The thing about responding to international emergencies is that no timeline exists. 

I recently returned from six months working on the Ebola response. Often in Sierra Leone, my mind turned to Haiti. Freetown reminded me of Port au Prince. Both are port cities with pastel-colored houses piled up mountainsides rising quickly from the sea. In both places, the people are mostly young--around 60 percent under 25 years old--figuring out how to get by in the face of unbelievably high unemployment. Both countries were getting back on track after emerging from a history filled with conflict, only to suffer tragedy on an epic scale.

The American Red Cross sent a team of us to Haiti immediately following the 2010 earthquake to

Winnie Romeril in Haiti

give help where it was needed most. We supported our permanent in-country staff who had worked for years with Haitian Red Cross volunteers in disaster preparedness, public first aid training and HIV/AIDS programs. They narrowly escaped when their Red Cross offices shook violently for less than a minute and blew out the wall where they exited with their lives.

Five and a half years later, Haiti continues to emerge from the dust and rubble of that day. In the Red Cross, we know that recovery from catastrophic disasters takes many years. We have only to look at communities on our own Gulf Coast still searching for normal 11 years on from Katrina. Yet we also have the privilege of accompanying survivors of disasters as they walk their individual roads to recovery. Every recovery is unique and we tailor our support based on lessons from previous experience.

One key change in our initial response to the Haiti earthquake was based on lessons from the Indian Ocean tsunami. We asked tsunami survivors how we could improve aid to people for the next disaster. One thing they said was, in essence, “Thank you for the help, but this doesn't feel like my home when it has your logo on it.” Since returning dignity to disaster victims is paramount, we took their concern to heart. In Haiti, the Red Cross imported and distributed over one-third of all tarps for temporary shelter, covering more than 800,000 survivors. The tarps were everywhere you looked and easy to spot, if you knew what to look for--plain light grey with a dark blue or grey stripe. Yet many a visiting politician and journalist complained they didn't see evidence of Red Cross aid other than the red crosses worn by our volunteers or painted on our trucks. While I did my best to explain our rationale and what to look for, sometimes the press didn't get it right.

Five and a half years on, the American Red Cross has helped build and operate eight hospitals and clinics, stem a deadly cholera outbreak, provide clean water and sanitation, and move more than 100,000 people out of make-shift tents into safe and improved housing. When land was not available for new homes, the Red Cross provided a range of housing solutions including rental subsidies, repairs and retrofitting of existing structures, fulfilling our promise to ensure tens of thousands of Haitians are back in homes. We also built and repaired schools, roadways and water distribution points vital to neighborhoods. 

It’s important to keep Haiti on our minds.

Winnie Romeril, International Response Team

American Red Cross

"Waking up the Dead" by Restoring Family Links

One of the perhaps lesser-known services of the American Red Cross is reconnecting families separated internationally. Like most of our services, this is done largely through the efforts of our incredible volunteers such as Mohamed Kissma. Prior to arriving in the United States nearly a year ago, Mohamed worked for the Red Cross Society in his native Sierra Leone. Now an International Services volunteer living in Rochester, Mohamed shared this uniquely personal account of helping a teen now living in Liberia reconnect with his native village:

There is hardly anything more painful than finding oneself in the midst of unfamiliar faces after having been separated from loved ones as a result a nerve-breaking circumstance. Some people could go on an empty stomach for hours or even days because of the grinding pain caused by having no immediate relatives, and in the worst cases no familiar face to turn to. This pain was a common experience Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees and displaced persons went through during and after years of internal armed conflict. 

Warranted by this situation, the International Red Cross Movement stepped up to its international responsibility by facilitating restoration of family links (RFL) between separated families.

As an RFL caseworker, I completed my notes and proposed actions on each case planned for the following week on a Thursday afternoon and set off for Katanga village to deliver Red Cross Messages (RCMs). A five-year-old boy (now 17) left behind by his parents during a brutal invasion could remember his father’s nick-name and his birth village. The Red Cross registered and kept track of his movement for six months until he could finally put together the pieces of a heart-trembling experience 12 years ago. 

His father was killed during one of the attacks on the village. During this attack his elder brother and sister, ages 10 and 12 at that time, were conscripted by one of the fighting forces. They were later reported dead. The only surviving member of the family was the mother. She lived in a state of despondency in a one-bedroom mud hut on the outskirts of the village since she got back from hiding.

Like most villages in that region, it was the tradition of Katanga to perform sacrifice for the ‘departed’. In observance of this tradition, the community decided to perform a ceremony for her family on a Friday.

I got to this village the same day. On arrival, I went to the chief to observe the usual courtesies. He halted me a few minutes into the briefing. ‘Stop! Stop!’ he said. ‘This is meant for the ears of the entire village’, he jumped out of his seat.

This got me nervous and uneasy! It sent shock waves down my spine. The chief and his men marshaled me to a large gathering a few yards from his house, where the ceremony was taking place. In a split second we were surrounded by almost the entire village.

In a few more seconds a woman in her early fifties emerged from the middle of the crowd. In no time she became the center of attention. It became obvious at that point she was the reason for my visit. It was apparent from the tears raining down her cheek that she already knew about the boy's message.

The chief requested I deliver the message to the woman publicly, against the normal practice. Everyone present burst into tears. Tears of joy, I believe.

A few yards away from where I stood, I overheard an old man say, ‘Red Cross de gi life to die man’ meaning, ‘the Red Cross raises the dead’. No one imagined this could have happened because everyone believed the boy was dead. Receiving a message from him was like waking the dead from the grave.

Food was served and prayers offered for the late father, brother and sister. I collected the reply and took some pictures to deliver to the boy in a refugee camp in Liberia.