Plan's response

As one of the oldest and largest development organizations operating in Haiti, Plan has been playing a critical role in its recovery after January’s devastating earthquake. Plan has worked in Haiti since 1973 and with staff already on the ground was able to respond quickly when the quake struck.

In our immediate relief efforts, we provided food, water and shelter, protection for children, health care, education, and livelihood support to those affected. Today our attention is focused on long-term reconstruction and rebuilding.

Our accomplishments since the earthquake include:

Shelter/basic provision kits

• 39,000 people were provided with tents and basic non-food provisions, including family kits and hygiene kits, in the direct aftermath of the earthquake.
• Plan is providing 100 transitional shelters to mothers with young children who’d lost their husbands during the earthquake, which the families helped to construct.

Health

• Plan secured a $13 million donation of essential drugs that enabled us to support the treatment of over 27,000 patients in mobile and fixed-location clinics.
• Over 31,000 children were vaccinated for measles, diphtheria and tetanus.

Cholera response

• Plan’s cholera response has so far reached over 100,000 people through prevention and awareness campaigns, hygiene kit distributions, water and sanitation assessments and improvements and health interventions.

Education

• Five thousand schools in Haiti were either damaged or destroyed by the earthquake. Plan has helped over 30,000 children return to school by providing school kits, re-building classrooms, training teachers and supplying equipment for schools.
• 257 semi-permanent classrooms have been built and 102 more are under construction. We have also provided equipment for 700 classrooms.
• Plan has distributed 180 portable library kits to 90 schools, and has held training sessions with 975 teachers and school directors to introduce them to the library kits.
• Over 1,000 children participated in summer school and catch-up classes to prepare them for the beginning of the school year.
• Plan Haiti youth volunteers assembled and distributed 30,000 school supply kits, which include pens, notebooks, pencils, erasers and rulers.

Child protection

• Approximately 11,000 children have participated in activities inside the 30 safe and supportive child-friendly spaces that Plan constructed after the earthquake.
• Plan is operating 11 community child protection committees, which work as the first layer of community protection, with watch groups helping to prevent and protect children from abuse, exploitation and violence.

Water, sanitation and hygiene

• A total of 45 new water and sanitation facilities have been constructed in Croix-des-Bouquets and Plan is working to build 15 more. We are also providing services to more than 20 sites in Jacmel.
• 45 water and sanitation facilities have been installed on school sites.
• 23,000 people have received hygiene promotion kits and public health awareness messages.

Cash for work

• Plan provided over 28,000 people with employment through our cash for work programs; Over 12,000 of these have been women.
• Work included clearing over 13,000 meters of road, clearing over 50,000 meters of canal and drainage systems, digging latrines, preparing sites for temporary classrooms and planting over 400,000 seedlings on land that had been deforested.

For a full report on Plan's post-earthquake response, download: Haiti Earthquake, 12 Months On.