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Haiti: The Aftershock

Guest Blog by World Vision aid worker James Addis in Haiti Well, a heart-stopping moment this morning when a powerful after-shock, just after 6a.m. had me making a hasty exit out of my hotel. I was soon joined by the rest of the World Vision, staff, mostly in pyjamas. Once we had recovered our breath, the conversation quickly turned to how many more fragile buildings might have been brought down. More injuries The whole thing maybe lasted six or seven seconds. I’m writing at 6.30 a.m. and my heart is still pumping quite hard. It’s certainly the biggest quake I’ve ever been in, but I imagine peanuts for others. You can’t help feeling the people of Port-au-Prince could use a break. Yesterday, I spoke to a man at one of the city’s hospitals, where World Vision was delivering medical supplies. He was holding his bandaged up son, but had actually come to visit his daughter, who was lying on a stretcher, wrapped in multiple bloodied bandages. She had been trapped in a church building for two days before being rescued. Call of Nature But it was the father, Rosmond’s story that struck me on this occasion. He and his wife and 8-year-old son had been living on the street since the quake, sleeping on plastic sheets. He had been using the cash he had on him to buy food and water. That morning, his money had run out. It was about 3 p.m. and he and his family had not eaten all day. In one sense though, he was remarkably lucky. His home is built on a hillside and he was the only one at home when the quake struck. His wife was at work and his son at a neighbor’s house. Seconds before the quake hit he had gone to the outhouse to relieve himself. It will probably be the most fortuitous call of nature of his life. He had just stepped outside again, when the quake hit. Three houses slid down the hillside and crashed into and demolished his home. Rosmond and the outhouse remained standing.

Visiting Uganda: People rebuilding their lives after the war

“This is where the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) used to take all the abducted children” my colleague Santos tells me, pointing at the vast bamboo and grass forests around us. “They would abduct 300 to 500 people and hide them here for a few months before marching them south for an assault.” I’m visiting an Irish Aid funded World Vision Ireland project for Internally Displaced People in Uganda. Between 1987 and 2006 in Northern Uganda, 25 000 children were abducted by the Lords Resistance Army - a brutal guerilla insurgency, led by Joseph Kony. Creeping into villages at night, Kony and his men captured large groups of children and forced them to fight for him. Peace Restored “Four years ago it would have been impossible to drive along this road; even with a fully armed escort, we would have been very much risking our lives.” Since peace has been established, over 10 000 children have returned home, but this has also brought new problems as a lot of the children and their families are traumatized by what they went through. Returning Home When we get back to Pader town, Santos points at the large field in front of our hotel, where there is a large gathering of people celebrating an anti gender-based violence campaign. “You could not even stand where those people are. You would be abducted. It was so dangerous.” Thankfully, those days are over now. The massive camps are emptying and thousands of people have already returned to their homes. But when they got home they found all the infrastructure in ruins: schools, water points and health centres had been destroyed by the LRA’s brutal campaign. Rebuilding Infrastructure While there are still doubts about the sustainability of the peace, particularly with trouble brewing in Southern Sudan with the upcoming elections, people are delighted to be home. With the support of Irish Aid, World Vision Ireland has been able to dig 22 wells and train the community on how to maintain them. This means that the community can access safe water for their homes and schools, preventing the outbreak of diseases and simultaneously encouraging people to move home and begin the journey to sustainable development. Long may it last!

Victoria's Secrets

Written by Guest Blogger Tressan McCambridge I was really disappointed to hear that the RTE Drama The Clinic has been axed. The fact that TV3 is looking into picking it up is good news though. It’s a really good show. I met with Victoria Smurfit yesterday, who has been staring in the show for the past 5 or 6 episodes and she was saying what a shame it is for all the fans, cast and crew. It had over 400,000 viewers they say. Victoria was around to go on The Afternoon Show on RTE 1 to talk about sponsoring a child with World Vision Ireland and our Community Gift Catalogue. I have to say she did a fantastic job. Looking as beautiful as ever and full of energy as always, she talked about her trip to meet her sponsored child in Tanzania and how important it is for her to teach her children the real meaning of Christmas. That's why she's buying charity gifts this year. You can watch it here - the interview starts about 3.15 minutes into the show.

So Relieved Sharon & Hilda Are Safe

I received the text at 4am on Sunday that Sharon Commins and her Ugandan colleague Hilda Kawuki had been released from being held captive in Sudan. I haven’t met Sharon, but she used to go out with a close friend of mine and throughout the whole ordeal, I was really worried about them.

Sharon and Hilda were both snatched from a Goal compound in Darfur and held captive for 107 days. I am so relieved that this story had a happy ending and that they are both now safe at home with the people they love.

Kidnapped There are few experiences that could be more harrowing than being kidnapped. As an aid worker in Nairobi- which in the past year has experienced over 100 kidnappings – I am all too aware that this is a major risk that I face in going about my daily life. See article in the New York times last week - Kenya’s Criminals Tap a Growth Industry: Kidnapping.

Ireland: The Somalia of Europe ?

Travelling to Somaliland in North West Somalia, is another painfully early start. You may have guessed it already, but I am not a morning person. It’s a 5.30am check in for the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). The flight took about 5 hours. UNHAS offers a genuine no-frills service, with not even the option of purchasing food, so by the time I reached Hargeisa I was starving. On paying the $22 on arrival for visa and airport security tax, I am handed my change in Somaliland shillings. A dollar equates to 6,500 shillings and the standard bill is 500, so I can barely close my wallet now. Waiting for Godot I head outside to look for my pick-up, but the driver is nowhere to be seen. It’s a baking 36 degrees so I settle under the shade of a tree and chat with some old Somali men, while I wait for Godot. When they hear that I am from Ireland, they tell me that “Ireland is the Somalia of Europe”. This is not the first time I have heard this, but I am still a bit mystified by that statement. Female Genital Mutilation The reason for my trip is an evaluation of an Irish Government funded Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting eradication project. We met with a group of women who used to carry out Female Genital Mutilation on girls, but have since publicly announced that they have completely stopped practising. They had each cut hundreds of girls in their careers, but since learning from the World Vision project that it is not a religious requirement and that it does major damage, they made a public announcement that they would abandon the practise. They told me how they really regretted what they had done and would never go back to it, even though it meant a significant drop in their income. “The girls are so happy now. They used to fear being circumcised so much that before the season started they’d be crying. Now when the circumcising season begins they all go out together and play.” Why do they do it? Which begs the question- if your daughters are terrified and it hurts them so much, why would you do this to them? I’m not making apologies for this practice, but people aren’t doing it to be cruel. Most of the community genuinely believed FGM is a religious requirement and that women can not pray or marry without undergoing it. They would be stigmatised and ridiculed. Many would rather go through the pain than be a social outcast. Life is tough enough out here and there is nowhere for an outcast woman to turn to. There are no safety nets or social welfare. But attitudes towards FGM are gradually changing. World Vision has been working closely with religious leaders to highlight that the Prophet Mohammed never practised FGM on his daughters and that it goes Against core Islamic principles and gradually we are seeing a change.

There are still people in the community that practice FGM on their daughters, but from all I heard today the numbers are reducing. What a relief.

I'm in the Irish Independent today

It’s so weird seeing yourself in the paper. Today’s Irish Independent has an article in it that I wrote to highlight the difficulties faced by those who wish to "make a difference" in people's lives.

The headline is ‘Don’t be a mug when you’re trying to help…’ and talks about how it takes more than good intentions to make a difference.

Many NGOs, like World Vision Ireland, have gotten past a lot of the hurdles I mention in the article and have gained a lot of experience about what it takes make a genuine impact on people's lives and deliver effective aid effectively.

Aid really does work - when it's done right. You can read it here >

Aid Success in Kenya

Yesterday I was back in Eastern Kenya visiting one of our development projects in Mutonguni, with Helen Keogh, World Vision Ireland Chief Executive and my boss. It was baking hot and very dusty. The last three rainy seasons have failed and there’s not a blade of grass for miles. The key focus of our work here is water and sanitation and we’ve already brought clean, safe water to hundreds of households. This saves women and girls from walking for miles to fill up a 20 litre jerry can of water and then lugging it back (collecting water is typically considered women’s work) . Marriage Proposal The community like to tease me, asking me to marry one of their sons. I tell them, with all honesty, I would make a useless wife. I doubt I could make the 10km roundtrip with 20 litres of water weighing me down for half of it. Not to mention the farming and childrearing. Irish Accent The other thing I get teased for is my accent – the school health club at Mutonguni Primary School find it hilarious. As I’m chatting with them some of them start imitating my accent by holding their noses. Apparently us wazungu (white people) sound nasal, like – and I quote – “we are picking our noses”. Charming. Health and Hygiene I manage to get over this though as the chairman of the school health club, 14 year old Gitari Kagendo, tells me how they have been promoting health and hygiene (e.g. handwashing) to their peers and the community. World Vision Ireland, with the help of Irish Aid, has supported the construction of pit latrines, hand washing facilities and 2 rainwater harvesting tanks in the school. This has helped reduce school absenteeism caused by diarrhoea and other water borne diseases. They’ve also established a vegetable patch with some seeds we gave them and vegetables are a regular part of the school lunches now. At the end of the visit, I’m sorry to leave but glad to be able to report that there’s some fantastic work going on in Mutonguni.