Canadian Association Step by Step News

"Dear all,

Before I get to the PAZAPA updates, I wanted to share with you some statistics that I found in a newspaper article about Jacmel. There is a total 1,785 destroyed homes in Jacmel, 87 businesses, 54 schools, 24 hotels and 26 churches. The death toll was around 3000, which represents 10% of the Jacmel population. Finally, there is a total of 5,730 families who are displaced.

Where the PAZAPA families are concerned we have a total of 10 families whose homes have been completely destroyed by the earthquake and 37 more homes which were damaged and need repairs.

As I usually tell myself on a daily basis: “in Haiti it’s one step forward and five steps back”. PAZAPA is facing one more setback. The house that we were negotiating for our temporary location is no longer available. The owners felt that our expectations were too high and they were not willing to make the appropriate repairs to the unfinished part of the building. Our Administrator, Mr. Forgeas, is a very cautious person and he did not feel comfortable risking donated funds on this deal. Therefore, PAZAPA continues to search for a new temporary location as well as a suitable property for the building of our new Center.

With the extra CRS food that was left in our storage room, we felt the need to donate it since there would be no school in the near future and we feared that it would go bad. Mr. Forgeas contacted Catholic Relief Services and they agreed that the Centre hand out the food to our families. There was another food distribution done last Monday, February 8th, to a total of 80 families. They received wheat, soy, beans and oil. The distribution was done out of my home and everything was done in a calm and orderly fashion thanks to the dedication of the PAZAPA staff and not to forget the cooperation of the families.

Day by day, the staff has been gradually emptying the Center’s main building and storing certain items in our storage room in the backyard. So far all computers have been removed because they were exposed to rain, sun and dust damage, the DVD and TV, all medical and casting materials/files. The entire main level of the center has also been emptied. They have spent most of this week doing this dangerous task knowing that the last aftershock was last Tuesday of 4.6 magnitude!

I have been speaking with Dr Colleen O’Connell from Healing Hands Canada regarding their support to PAZAPA’s rehabilitation efforts in the future and here are some very promising things that she has said: “We are working on having HHH teams in steadily to go wherever the needs are… and are now bringing mainly pure rehab professionals. St. BonFace hospital (somewhere between Jacmel and Les Cayes) is receiving rehab patients, and we have some HHH people there. If you thought we could set up “shop” somewhere, we could certainly send a team to Jacmel. Also, I asked one of the doctors there to let me know how many amputees – HHH is working with Handicap International to ensure P&O centres get set up across the country, not just PAP, so you shouldn’t have to send people that far”.

For your information, Colleen has annually sent Healing Hands volunteers to PAZAPA since 2007. They are a very dynamic team and have supported our needs mostly in physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech language therapy among others!

Finally, we are in need of casting material for our orthopedic and clubfoot patients because CURE Haiti is currently shifting its focus on earthquake relief in Haiti. Also, the other centers who were partners in the clubfoot project no longer exist (Healing Hands Haiti and St Vincent). This will be the case until all centers reopen and CURE makes a decision on the project.

I have posted the pictures of PAZAPA as well as all the other colonial homes in Jacmel damaged by the earthquake on my Facebook account."

Marika MacRae, Executive Director of Pazapa