By Leslie Pitterson
14 July, 2010 [MediaGlobal]: With the hurricane season underway, plans for the transitional shelter of 2.3 million Haitians have yet to be finalized. According to the United Nations Inter Agency Standing Committee’s six-month report on Haiti, the “Safe Shelter Strategy” has been stalled as UN and Haitian officials identify settlement sites for those who will be unable to return to their homes.
The process of rebuilding is a complicated one, says Jim Kennedy, CARE’s Shelter Coordinator in Haiti. Speaking to MediaGlobal from Port-au-Prince, Kennedy explained that while plans for large scale settlements have been stalled, there is some building underway at a local level:
“Without being too blunt, CARE isn’t waiting. We took a decision in February that our approach would be a community approach…to help each family, individually. We’ve spent a lot of time in the communities asking where they came from, but also where they want to go. So, our policy has been to provide transitional shelter or other support to families as they leave the camp.”
In its report, the United Nation’s Inter Agency Standing Committee warned that unless the situation is addressed, living conditions “may well become one of the major causes for social unrest and public disturbances in the near future.”
Due to deforestation in Haiti, much of the lumber needed for shelter must be imported into the country. Although unfulfilled aid commitments remain an issue in terms of purchasing, Kennedy says that NGOs are not idly waiting.
“Of course we’d all love to magically have all the materials we need right here right now, but I think we have to accept this is an emergency of enormous scale,” said Kennedy. “The rubble clearing alone is literally clearing out a city. Bringing in the materials to build will be bringing in a city.”
In his last day as UN humanitarian chief, Under-Secretary-General John Holmes said that the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs was working as quickly as possible to get the Safe Shelter Strategy off the ground before unrest in the camps worsened. But he wanted to reassure Haitians that the shelters would be structurally sound.
“If building back Haiti better means anything, it means making sure its people are never again as vulnerable as they were on January 12th.” said Holmes.
As hurricanes return to their island, many Haitians have taken matters into their own hands by building makeshift shelters on their own. While there has been concern about the safety of these improvised constructions, Kennedy insists that NGOs have to recognize Haitian’s attempt to rebuild:
“Of course people are building back themselves. If you were in a situation where your house had fallen down, you wouldn’t wait around; you’d roll up your sleeves and get to work. So where NGOs need to double up their efforts is not emphasizing just build back better, but also stressing build back safer.”
CARE and other NGOs have worked to communicate with displaced Haitians, emphasizing safety measures for shelter building. Working with local artists, humanitarian workers have distributed posters with instructions in Creole on how to build structures that are safe and durable.
“We are still at the starting point. We have to remember that shelter is a verb, housing is a process,” said Kennedy.
As the recovery efforts continue, the humanitarian community hopes to bring more to the island than just lumber and steel.
“The immediate goal for us is to provide sufficient privacy, dignity and protection from the rain,” Kennedy reiterated. “The ultimate goal is to facilitate a technical transfer of knowledge. With the right information, Haitians will have the knowledge to keep building safer even after NGOs are gone.”
