INITIAL RELIEF EFFORTS – FIRST RESPONSE
When the earthquake struck Haiti, AMURT-Haiti’s experienced and tested staff members were already on the ground, both in Port-Au-Prince and in the Northwest Arbonite. Building upon its community-based Emergency Management Response Plan, honed in Gonaives in the days and weeks after the 2008 hurricanes, and working to overcome numerous travel, communications and other 
challenges, our team’s response was immediate and impactful. During the first seven days following the disaster, AMURT & AMURTEL assisted more than 15,000 residents, 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. Supplies arrived last Saturday on a truck overland from the Dominican Republic. The initial intervention targeted those most heavily impacted by the earthquake, providing transport of the wounded as well as supplies to hospitals, and assisting residents in the slum areas of Boudon, Cite O’Kay and Cite Jereme.
RECOVERY
AMURT & AMURTEL will continue to align both their immediate and long-term responses through the lens of the human rights-based framework of community empowerment, self-determination, and leadership capacity-building. With its long-term strategic partners, AMURT has begun planning longer-term sustainable programs focusing on nurturing and reinforcing patterns of decentralization, sustainability, and local self-sufficiency so critical to Haiti’s future.
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