Haiti: One year later

A week before the one year Anniversary of the Haiti earthquake, the American Red Cross continues to maximize usage of donor dollars to help re-build the country. Last year the American Red Cross raised over $475 million. More than half of that has been committed to assisting in the following areas:

• Food
• Water
• Emergency Shelter
• Livelihoods
• Health Services
• Disaster Preparedness

Moving forward, the Red Cross is looking at assisting with long-term recovery especially in terms of permanent housing.

An added challenge to recovery is the cholera outbreak, which the Red Cross has spent $4.5 million on to purchase soap and chlorine tablets to hand out while training individuals in cholera treatment and prevention. This, along with other obstacles, has made progress much slower than initially anticipated, but the Red Cross will be in Haiti until the last donated dollar is spent. For more information on Red Cross work in Haiti, go to www.redcross.org/haiti.