Having seen poverty in many countries around the world this was simply on another scale. Hundreds of tarpaulin tents had sprung up on every spare inch of ground in Port-au-Prince – stretching for a mile down one of the main roads the central reservation had a continuous row of these simple shelters, children playing inches from where trucks and lorries hurtled past.
The images that I had seen on the TV in the immediate aftermath were now played out in front of my own eyes. Buildings reduced to rubble remained untouched where they had spilled out onto the roads. Little had been done to even simply clear the debris from the road.
But when I looked under the surface I saw that so much had in fact been done – it was just obscured by the unprecedented need that confronted both those who live in the tents and those who have come to help.
How could I have expected further progress to be made when I consider the desperate plight of this country even before the earthquake struck? 70% of the national budget was already funded by foreign aid, 70% unemployment rates and 50% of the population living in abject poverty on less than $1 a day. The Government whose GDP was already going backwards was only able to run 15% of the schools and had little in the way of health care. If Haiti was at point zero in the New Year then it's now in negative figures.
An unprecedented international humanitarian emergency response is still underway and ADRA is playing a key role. After distributing tarpaulins to people to give immediate shelter ADRA are now providing semi-permanent shelters, which will give additional protection during the imminent hurricane season.
For people who had lost all their possessions, the list of needs was endless and ADRA was there to provide these - 6,000 kitchen sets, 6,000 hygiene kits, 12,000 mattresses, 12,000 tarpaulins, the list goes on. Water and sanitation needs had to be met and I met some of the teams of Haitians who had been trained by ADRA to provide mobile water purification units that operated off the back of motorbikes. These provided a vital lifeline in communities with no access to safe water. ADRA had provided latrines, shower facilities and laundry stations to newly formed communities of the homeless, for whom the earthquake had left them with nothing.
The 42- acre Adventist University is now home to some 15,000 people and whilst the university's normal function may have been temporarily halted I met many students who inspired me by their willingness to pitch in and help. There were final year students who had been training to be teachers who were now plunged in at the deep-end giving education to children who no longer had a school to go to. And I'll never forget how upbeat the five theology students were who I chatted to whilst they were on a well-deserved break. Many people within the camps are suffering from psychological problems and their role was to conduct shelter-to-shelter mental health checks for families and signpost those they came across to the appropriate services. They may well be delayed in becoming pastors but were already living out the Gospel.
Whilst there remains so much to be done I was very proud to have seen, and in some way be a part, of the amazing work that ADRA has done for the people of Haiti. It's easy to get discouraged when you are faced with the still existing extreme needs, but the drops in the ocean are making a difference to thousands of individuals, and for that reason we must continue. As the world shifts its focus to Pakistan and new disasters it is easy to forget the desperate plight of Haiti. My short visit emphasised that ADRA is there not just for the headline crisis, but to provide long term solutions.
