Haiti life…

Well, what a place this truly is! The devastation is immense and yet these people have just picked up whatever pieces left of their former lives and have decided to LIVE. How disconcerting it was for us to first witness the hustle and bustle of live with street traders eking out a living on every available footpath, amidst the rubble of collapsed buildings and the rotting garbage. There are so many incredibly unstable buildings, often with massive concrete slabs hanging precariously over tented camps. Everywhere you look, in parks, lay-byes, empty lots, collapsed buildings, in peoples gardens and compounds… there are spontaneous settlements of people. Most have plastic sheeting pulled crudely around frames of anything from wood to in one instance the shell of a car. The grinding poverty that prevailed before this tragedy is truly pervasive. It is quite astounding the total absence of public infrastructure, and this is not just a new problem Haiti was struggling for so long.

GOAL are doing great work in food distribution, Shelter and Water/ sanitation and hygiene programs.

I am in a new house now. Can hardly believe that I am actually missing the first house, which in actuality had so many problems, from mosquitoes and dreadful hygiene practices to blocked drains and marauding Rottweiler puppies, three in all, that belonged to the compound and were seen to make dawn raids on the house, heading off with socks, flip flops and tins from the garbage!! I had made it home, cleaned the place up to acceptable standards and even had the lads living with me rinsing their dishes at night. I was greeted in the new house by a welcoming party of particularly viscous mosquitoes and a family of rats rummaging through the rotting garbage at the back door!!

I really hardly had the heart for it, but given the conditions of the poor people in the camp, I made one last effort and got the bags packed in a box until it could be taken away today. Got the area de-contaminated and all houses now have outside and inside bins with lids, mops, buckets (you would not want to see the state of the mops used previously) and an assortment of cleaning necessities so that our lovely staff can do their jobs. Now I am settle in am getting in to my own routine.

So much work to do with only a week left. I will visit more of the camps in the next few days and we need to identify community workers to train for the Hygiene Promotion

Off to bed now. It is quite lively where we are living, right in the middle of the community. It is nice.
All the best,

Afric

First Few Days in Haiti

No Strings Ireland Director and intensive care nurse Afric McGlade has been seconded to GOAL to work for a month in Haiti. This is the latest from her diary:

We went to the area around the palace today, quite incredible all the collapsed buildings. Very little clearing has been done to date. There are thousands in the camps and refuse is everywhere. Not sure which organisation has responsibility for that area. It is flabbergasting the way people have just picked up their lives and live in immediate proximity to these collapsed buildings. So many have sheets of concrete hanging precariously over the people subsisting below. Street traders cover most of the available footpath space, alongside the rubble of collapsed buildings. a lot of scavenging is evident and these truely innovative people are out with anything from welders to rock breaking hammers to fashion some utensil, tool or shelter. This was truely a city with millions of people a eking out a living in truely awful conditions. The city is built on the side of a mountain with millions of people living in shanty areas that comprises most of the city. Massive irritation drains are evident throughout the city, literally filled to capacity with refuse and decaying matter that assaults the senses. Much of this was here before earthquake. When the rains truely start ( it was raining heavily there now) it will be a catalyst for  another disaster. There must be thousands of bodies within the rubble of collapsed buildings and with so many hundred of thousands of people living in such proximity to these area, it will spread disease rapidly. 
One of my housemates, Mo Mo, from Senegal, has colleagues that he knows from previous missions working in both UNICEF and WHO, so I met the UNICEF guy today and he chairs the WASH cluster meetings. There is a Hygiene sub-cluster meeting on Tue, to do with training and posters for hand washing…etc.. in Creole. I share a house with Mario, Mo Mo and Tom. A new man arrived tonight, a Cork man, very interesting. Spent a lot of time in S.Sudan
I have a nice big room of my own, double bed ( although they want to close this house down and move us to a new place closer to the other houses and where the curfew is ten, not eight like here, so not sure what status will be like then.) Big living area and patio, but two big rottweilers and their 3 pups are roaming the grounds and sometimes the house.It is difficult to stay healthy as the hygiene practices are appalling, but I will work on that!
 I have my net up and tuck in at night with all my wee gadgets; torch, clock, olbas oil, tissues..etc.. Have been sleeping well and now I am going to sleep because I am exhausted. 

Afric

No Strings Ireland Director Afric McGlade arrives in Haiti

Saw a lot more of the city yesterday. So much destruction amidst normality! Some house/buildings completely collapsed to rubble alongside intact ones. People are just getting on with things and eking a living with what they have. They have good survival instincts and the kids are playing and rummaging through the rubble of these precarious buildings. Heading into a few more of the camps today to assess from a health/ hygiene perspective. GOAL are providing latrines and safe areas for kids in the districts where they are distributing food and non-food items. How difficult it is for these people, but they are ingenious in the way they have constructed their temporary dwellings. Until later.
Afric

The Story of Seamus

Like many of life’s most incredible stories, the tale of No Strings
puppet charity has humble beginnings.

When aid worker Johnie McGlade first took beloved puppet Seamus on disaster relief trips to refugee camps in Sudan and Afghanistan he had never dreamed of the fluffy white animal’s life-saving potential.

Entertaining displaced peoples and co-workers with this scruffy rabbit toy, he began to see the impact puppetry could have on communities struggling to survive in the face of conflict or disaster. Engaging with children through the puppet helped them to learn – for the first time they were listening to him through Seamus, absorbing the survival messages he had to tell them.

Johnie said: “It all began in the early 1990s when I was working for an NGO and brought Seamus with me to the field.

“At that time it was just a bit of fun, maybe a source of entertainment for my co-workers.

“I was working in refugee camps in Sudan at that time – I was surrounded by people suffering from severe malnutrition.

“There were some pretty sick kids around, but when you brought Seamus everyone would crowd around him, laughing. He was like a beam of light in an unhappy place.”

Johnie’s simple antics entertaining children with a furry glove puppet led to a chance connection with some of the world’s most famous puppeteers.

He flew to New York to meet the artists who helped create the original Muppet Show characters, Kathy Mullen and Michael Frith, after a photograph of Seamus sparked interest with his flatmate.

“My background is in emergency aid, and Seamus the puppet was just a bit of fun until returned from Afghanistan post 9/11.

“I was working for an organisation distributing bread in the country, and I had found I was able to create links with the children because they would listen to the puppet.

“I was showing pictures to my flatmate back in London and she asked about Seamus.

“Her auntie and uncle were Kathy Mullen and Michael Frith - the people behind some of the world’s most famous puppets – like Animal, Gonzo and Fozzie Bear.

“They had wanted to use their skills to help with international aid for years but didn’t know how. Just a few weeks later, I flew to New York to meet them and we did much better than that – we set up our own NGO.

“I registered No Strings in the UK and took the first project back to Afghanistan to raise landmine awareness.”

Now Kathy and Michael regularly donate months of their time to conceptualise storylines and characters for the puppet films they later direct, hand-stitch unique world-class puppets, and work with other top professional puppeteers to turn these ideas into a vivid and compelling educational tool.

Now No Strings is in its fifth year, with five programmes currently running around the world from the Two Gardens peace-building film in the Philippines to Tsunami awareness in Indonesia and East Timor.

Johnie has just used their creations for a training programme for
puppeteers in East Africa – the resulting HIV project will see
puppet workshops raise awareness of prevention against the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.

Jonnie said: “Sadly, Seamus is in tatters now. My mother put him in the washing machine and he is never been the same since – he is just a ball of wool. I asked Kathy and Michael if they could fix him, but they have given me much, much more.”

The No Strings charity relies on fundraising to bring world-class puppets and life-saving messages to children in disaster-stricken communities across the globe.  Click to donate or find out more.