Earthquakes and prison breaks - UKaid in Haiti

24 March 2010

The first British minister to visit Haiti since the devastating earthquake in January has seen how UKaid is helping hundreds of thousands of Haitian people.

International Development Minister Mike Foster has also seen how experts from the UK Government are helping rebuild the prison system – after one of the biggest jailbreaks in history.

Mr. Foster also met with the United States’ Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton to discuss the ongoing relief effort.

He also met Mia Charlet, aged two, who was rescued from the rubble of a local kindergarten by the UK Search and Rescue team.

Mike Foster was in the capital Port-au-Prince to see how £20 million Department for International Development funding is helping more than 350,000 people with water, shelter, food, medical care and other essential supplies.

He also met UN chiefs and saw aid funded by the £90 million in public donations from the British people and senior Haitian ministers to discuss the future of the country and its reconstruction.

The UK Government is funding $50 through the World Bank, European Commission and Inter-American Development Bank to help with the reconstruction process.

Mike Foster said:

"Seeing the scale of the devastation really brings home how vital the UK’s aid effort has been. The British public have been amazingly generous.

"People can be very proud that their support has helped hundreds of thousands of people, and will continue to provide vital shelter as the rainy season begins.

"Meeting baby Mia and her mother highlighted the ongoing needs of the Haitian people – it will be many years before their country is rebuilt.

"The UK has been a vital part of the international effort. We will continue to provide support and expertise, in terms of the massive humanitarian effort, and also bringing specialist knowledge – for example in the restoration of the prison system.

"Bill Clinton as special envoy and former president has a long history of working with Haiti and a clear vision for its future. We talked about the economic regeneration taken forward by the Haitian people supported by the international community.

"With the leadership and advocacy of the type demonstrated by President Clinton, the project to rebuild Haiti is achievable."

During the day long trip the DFID minister visited:

• Juvenile Detention Centre. Experts from the UK Government’s Stabilisation Unit who are advising the Haitian Ministry of Justice on a major prison rebuilding scheme and helping improve long-term prison standards. This is a top priority for the capital, after many of its prisons collapsed during the earthquake, leading to the escape of around 4,000 convicts.
• Mia Charlet and her mother Marjorie Saint Joie. Mia was pulled from the rubble of a kindergarten three days after the earthquake by a team of firemen from the UK. Although initially in shock and dehydrated, she has made a full recovery.
• A community shelter. As the rainy season approaches it is vital that people have good quality shelter. UKaid is helping organisations such as Oxfam, International Organisation of Migration and International Federation of the Red Cross to set up temporary community camps, with decent sanitation, where people can live until it is safe to return to their homes. 63 percent of the capital’s 1.3 million population how have basic shelter kits, with the aim of reaching 78 percent by the end of March.
• A field hospital set up on tennis courts by UK medical aid agency Merlin in the centre of Port au Prince.  The hospital has carried out over 350 life saving surgical operations - combining orthopaedic and plastic surgery to save survivors limbs - and treated a further 4,250 people for potentially fatal diseases including acute diarrhoea, malaria and respiratory infections.  Merlin is also running mobile clinics to provide health care support to underserved areas.

Carolyn Miller, UK medical aid agency Merlin's Chief Executive, said: "The British public should be proud of our government's commitment to this impoverished and shattered country.

"The DFID funding Merlin received has been pivotal to the life saving health and surgical care our teams are providing - benefiting over 4,500 people already. Merlin will stay on in Haiti as long as we are needed."

Notes to Editors

The UK Government’s £20 million emergency aid programme for the earthquake victims in Haiti has already helped more than 350,000 people get food, clean water, shelter and medicine.

So far, DFID’s overall contribution to the relief effort includes:

• £1m for the Haitian Red Cross to provide food, shelter, clean water and other immediate needs for 20,000 families.
• £2m for the World Food Programme for transport, communications and base camps to help with the logistics of getting relief where it’s needed.
• £300,000 for the World Health Organisation for disease surveillance, to help prevent the spread of epidemics such as malaria and dengue fever.
• £1m to help the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs bring in more than 30 extra staff to help bolster humanitarian coordination.
• Allocating Oxfam with £1 million, Action Against Hunger with £1 million, and Handicap International with £500,000.
• Pledging help towards rebuilding Haiti’s Government, such as the Justice, Interior and Finance Ministries. This will help the Government of Haiti to re-establish law and order and improve infrastructure. This support from the UK Government will include extra communications, office equipment, logistics and other vital equipment.

The Stabilisation Unit is jointly owned by Department for International Development, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.