Two years ago, one of our neighbours, Haiti to be exact, had a dreadful earthquake that even today, it has not recovered fully from. We sat in front of our television sets and saw their pain being broadcasted; many of us scrambled to donate money through bank accounts set up locally for that purpose, many of us dropped to our knees and prayed furiously for them. But there was a group of people there in Haiti, on the ground before, during and after the hurricane, who went to help and never gave up. They make up the Food for the Poor organisation. This year, this relief and developmental organisation, celebrates its 30th anniversary. They have been in Haiti for the past 26 years. At Port-au-Prince, donors and volunteers feed about 15,000 people a day at one of the feeding centres set up by Food for the Poor. At 5 o'clock in the morning, when most of us are either already driving up the highway to get to our jobs, or pulling the covers up over our heads in silent protest that morning has arrived, Haitians are already lining up with their buckets outside these feeding centres, while volunteers are busy getting ready to serve them. This is done in every one of the 17 countries that Food for the Poor serve, feeding hundreds of thousands of people each day.
Sandra Caskey is one of these selfless persons who wants to make people aware of the work Food for the Poor is doing and to encourage people to help. Two years after the disaster in Haiti and over 400,000 people are still living in tent cities, she says, and there is a cholera epidemic. "When you give, you're changing someone's circumstance, you're not giving them a handout; you are giving them a hand-up," says Caskey. Since inception, Food for the Poor has built more than 77000 homes for families in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Guyana, Nicaragua, Jamaica and Haiti, but of course, there is so much more left yet to do. "Let us not wait until the next earthquake, or the next hurricane," she advises. "Let's try and see what we can do right now. These people who are living in tent cities, we are trying to provide housing that gives them a sense of security. When they have a home, they have a dry, safe environment, they have doors they can lock, they have windows. They are not just living under plastic and cardboard, where they are exposed to, not just the elements, but also to crime. We want to provide schools so that the children can have a normal childhood, we want to provide them with clean water to help reduce and one day, eradicate the cholera epidemic that is so prevalent in Haiti right now."
Although Caskey knows that cholera can take sometimes ten to 15 years to eradicate, she has seen the diarrhea, vomiting and dysentery lessen in the different villages that Food for the Poor has introduced water filtration systems. Apart from building houses and schools and attacking cholera, the organisation wants to build community centres and provide solar lighting so that the people of Haiti can have lights in their villages. Caskey explains that very soon, the organisation will be partnering with Living Water, as well as, other friends of Food for the Poor in Trinidad and Tobago to make these goals reality. The organisation is aware that these people that they are helping need a stepping stone to get back onto their feet and return to normalcy, so they teach sustainability through their projects. The organisation provides boats, nets and GPS systems to people and they teach them how to fish, so they can teach someone else how to fish and so they can feed themselves, their communities and sell to a market. Animal husbandry and agriculture are other projects that the organisation assists with. But as Caskey points out, you can't talk to someone about being sustainable if they're hungry, first you have to feed them, put a roof over their heads so they have security and then you teach them skills. Returning the land to a state of normalcy is another aim of the organisation.
There is a huge deforestation problem in Haiti where trees were cut down so that people could provide for their families by making charcoal to sell. It has ruined the land so much so that if there is a storm, not a hurricane, just a storm, says Caskey, many people will die; in times of flooding, the trees won't be there to hold the soil. As a result, Food for the Poor has a Reforestation project where students go out every Friday and plant trees. Last year, they planted 170,000 trees. However with all this hard work, there is much more to do and Haiti's infrastructure, land and people are not yet ready to withstand the devastation of two years ago. Florida has already seen two hurricanes this year, and Caskey is afraid that there will be more disturbances to come. Food for the Poor has already begun stocking their warehouses with water and canned non-perishable food supplies in the case that a disaster hits Haiti again. The organisation promises 100 per cent transparency, she says, sending reports to donors, inviting them to the inauguration ceremonies when the villages are completed, and offering them the opportunity to come and meet the people they have helped. Food for the Poor has the lowest expense ratio (four per cent) in the United States, says Caskey, which means that 96-97 cents of every dollar donated, goes directly to the poor. If you are interested in helping Food for the Poor to continue their work, you can visit their website www.foodforthepoor.org and gift there. Companies who may be interested in donating, can get together and donate containers of canned non-perishable foods to Food for the Poor. For such companies, Caskey says, Food for the Poor can get a container to sit on the company's warehouse property, the company can fill the container and Food for the Poor will then move the container to Haiti or to whatever island they are serving.
You can email Caskey at sandrac@foodforthepoor.com and she will direct you accordingly.
