Working in conjunction with AMURT, Voice Of a Child began relief support and fund raising activities immediately after the disaster. AMURT is an international disaster relief organization, with whom our board members have worked for over 30 years. VOC conducts all its disaster relief activities through the experienced staff of AMURT and maintains its membership as AMURT’s affiliates. AMURT has more than 20 years of experience working in Haiti, and over 45 years of disaster relief experience. AMURT’s schools, on-going medical relief work and community building activities have earned it trust and respect of the local Haitian community, government and United Nations.
AMURT coordinators based in Haiti, reached the disaster site the day after events, providing daily mobile medical clinics, hot soup kitchens and the distribution of dry food rations. The first steps involved facilitating the transfer of food, medical services, water, and non-food items from the large aid agencies into the hands of smaller community-based groups who are best positioned to effectively facilitate distribution.
AMURT in partnership with VOC, Kinder Not Hilfe and Catholic Relief Services ran 10 Child-Friendly Spaces in Port-au-Prince from March to October 2010. In absence of functional schools, our centers provided education, and restored the day to day social and motional lives of children. In all, we served over 4,000 children.
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Besides the children’s programs, VOC also funded 2 projects:
(1) Construction of toilets: We noticed a potential and major hygiene crisis and that was that in the absence of toilets people were defecating in the open areas. This problem could have been particularly significant and potentially epidemic, due to the pending rainy season. We immediately funded and completed the construction project for building 34 toilets.
(2) Secondly, we financed adoption of 15 additional children through our partnership with AMURT, which was already running the project in Haiti.
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