Taiwan’s government and non-governmental organizations have taken quick action to join international relief operations in the quake-stricken Caribbean country.
“During the two hours after our sonar equipment indicated that we’d found a buried victim, we were focused but anxious at the same time. When the hand of the quake survivor reached out from the rubble to take the hand of one of our rescue team members, all of us were delirious with joy—we almost burst into tears,” recalls Lin Qian-zhi, the leader of the first Taiwanese search and rescue team to arrive in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince after the Caribbean country was hit by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on January 12 this year. “The success was achieved through a team effort. We were also encouraged when other international rescue squads gave us a thumbs up and said ‘Well done!’”
Lin led a team of 23 specialists from the National Fire Agency of the Ministry of the Interior and the fire departments of the Taichung County and Kaohsiung City governments, together with equipment such as sonar life detectors and two sniffer dogs, all of which headed for Haiti on January 13. During its mission, the Taiwanese team saved two United Nations staffers who were buried in the debris of collapsed structures.
Haiti is one of the Republic of China’s (ROC) 23 diplomatic allies as well as one of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nations, with 85 percent of its population of around 9 million subsisting on less than US$2 per day. The January earthquake was Haiti’s largest in 200 years, killed as many as 150,000 people and caused widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes.
Various forms of humanitarian aid from around the world have poured into the shattered country since the quake, with Taiwan among the first nations to lend Haiti a helping hand. In addition to offering an immediate cash donation of US$5 million, ROC government agencies including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of National Defense and the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH) collaborated with several non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including the Red Cross Society of the ROC, World Vision Taiwan and Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps (TRMPC) to carry out rescue and relief work, as well as assist in the resettlement of quake victims and reconstruction projects.
According to tallies released by MOFA, the ROC government and Taiwan’s private sector had extended some US$10 million in humanitarian assistance to Haitian quake victims by late January this year. By late February this year, the Red Cross Society of the ROC and World Vision Taiwan had raised more than NT$88 million (US$2.8 million) and NT$100 million (US$3 million) respectively in cash donations for the Haitian relief cause.
A second Taiwanese rescue squad—consisting of 33 search and rescue professionals, firefighters and military medical workers from the Red Cross Society of the ROC, the Taipei City Fire Department and the Taipei Tri-Service General Hospital respectively—departed for Haiti on January 15, carrying 2,300 kilograms of advanced equipment and medical supplies. After arriving in Haiti, the team helped search for survivors and provided treatment for quake victims.
Taiwan’s International Cooperation and Development Fund has teamed up with Mercy Corps International to launch a cash-for-work program in Haiti. (Courtesy of International Cooperation and Development Fund)
On January 16, the ROC Air Force dispatched a C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft to Haiti that carried 6 tons of relief and medical supplies. The plane made a number of stops at US air bases to refuel before landing on January 24 at San Isidro Air Base in the Dominican Republic, where the supplies were loaded onto trucks for delivery to Port-au-Prince. The C-130’s unprecedented 40,000-kilometer round trip crossed the Pacific Ocean and took 15 days to complete, marking a new milestone in humanitarian cooperation between Taiwan and the United States after the two severed diplomatic ties in 1979. The flight to Haiti was the ROC C-130’s second overseas humanitarian mission, following one in December 2004 in the wake of the devastating tsunami that struck Southeast Asia.
Meanwhile, ROC President Ma Ying-jeou met with Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive on January 28 in the Dominican Republic after attending the January 27 inauguration of Honduran President-elect Porfirio Lobo Sosa to express Taiwan’s condolences and oversee the delivery of 10 tons of relief goods, food and medicine from Taiwan for Haitian quake victims.
The International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF), which was established by MOFA to oversee Taiwan’s overseas development programs, launched an emergency relief scheme in cooperation with World Vision Taiwan to ship 105 tons of relief supplies including tents, food and daily necessities. The ICDF also worked with international aid organizations including Mercy Corps International, which embarked on a job creation program, and Food for the Poor, which distributed 200 tons of rice, as well as with Taiwan-based medical institutions such as TRMPC and others, to send medical missions to Haiti.
On January 19, a 66-member, TRMPC-organized team consisting of physicians, surgeons, gynecologists and obstetricians, orthopedists, pediatricians, pharmacists, nurses, lab technicians and volunteers, along with 2,000 kilograms of medical equipment and supplies, departed from Taiwan for Port-au-Prince. “We were able to recruit the required number of volunteer health professionals less than 24 hours after we sent out the notice,” says Liu Chi-chun, president of TRMPC. “Such a quick, enthusiastic response showed that the humanitarian work we’ve been engaged in for 15 years has won widespread recognition. Plus, we’d been to Haiti and the neighboring Dominican Republic to provide free medical services five times before, so we knew the conditions there and believed that we could help.” Formed in 1995, TRMPC has thus far rendered free medical services in 40-odd countries, in addition to aboriginal villages in remote areas across Taiwan.
The operations of the medical mission in Haiti, Liu continues, went smoothly thanks to the support of the ICDF, the ROC Embassy in the Dominican Republic, Taiwanese businesspeople in the Dominican Republic and the Overseas Engineering and Construction Co. (OECC), which allowed its business complex in Port-au-Prince to be used as a temporary medical station for earthquake victims. The OECC, which is partly owned by the ICDF, is an ROC government-invested group that has implemented many previous Taiwan-Haiti cooperative projects including the construction of roads and bridges.
The medical team organized by Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps treated more than 3,500 quake victims during its 12-day mission in Haiti. (Courtesy of Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps)
Liu says that with the amount of medicine and medical professionals and devices—including ultrasound sensors and electrocardiogram equipment—that the medical team brought to Haiti, his group provided services on par with those of a medium-sized hospital. During the 12-day mission, TRMPC members treated more than 3,500 quake victims and completed nearly 30 operations, including amputations. After providing services from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., some team members even worked night shifts at a hospital emergency room after learning about staffing shortages there.
The Haiti mission was rewarding, but it was also emotionally taxing for the medical professionals involved. “I thought I was mentally prepared before my trip to Haiti, but I was still very disturbed by what I saw, smelled and felt in person,” says Chen Yu-chih, a volunteer doctor with TRMPC. “I kept dreaming about the situations there for several days after I returned to Taiwan. The catastrophe left trauma and torment not only in the minds of the quake survivors, but also the volunteer workers who helped there. When we arrived, it was already one week after the quake, but many victims still suffered from very bad, unattended wounds. There were times we had no choice but to opt for amputations to resolve the critical condition of some patients.”
Great Need
Chen, an orthopedist, says he didn’t hesitate to sign up for the TRMPC mission because he was sure that there was a great need for medical services in Haiti. He can also speak French, which he knew would facilitate communication with local patients, as French is widely spoken in Haiti. Chen gained proficiency in the language while serving in French-speaking Burkina Faso in west Africa for one year under a cooperative project launched by the ICDF.
“Several international medical teams went to Haiti to provide humanitarian aid, and we were gratified to be part of the relief efforts,” Chen says. “It was just that those services were largely short-term rather than organized, long-term care. It’s my hope that the international community can continue to address the medical needs of Haitians. I am willing to make a repeat visit myself to help them out.”
Similarly, Wu Ming-hui, a pharmacist, says she was glad to be a part of the medical team organized by TRMPC and tried to serve as many Haitian quake victims as possible during her stay. Still, after completing the emergency mission and returning to Taiwan, she continues to worry about her Haitian patients, fearing that they will have difficulty obtaining the long-term follow-up care they need.
Members of a Red Cross Society of the ROC rescue squad search for quake survivors in Haiti. (Courtesy of Red Cross Society of the ROC)
The Haiti trip was the 10th overseas mission that Wu has been on with TRMPC over the last few years, and it turned out to be her most unforgettable one to date. “I’d taken part in emergency relief missions several times before, but I’d never seen a living hell like that—many buildings were flattened, bodies were left on the streets unclaimed and homeless victims were wandering helplessly in the streets,” Wu says. “At night, it was like a ghost town because the power was out. Those scenes were depressing. But we managed to stay motivated and worked long hours to take care of quake victims, trying our best to relieve their pain.”
On another front, Wu says the carefulness and thoughtfulness that medical professionals from the United States and elsewhere displayed in attending to patients impressed her a lot. She believes that joining international humanitarian relief missions is valuable because they allow her to help those in need, learn new things and make her appreciate what she has back home in Taiwan.
Chen Charng-ven, president of the Red Cross Society of the ROC, says that in addition to dispatching a search and rescue team and making an immediate donation of US$50,000 for emergency relief, his organization also shipped a variety of relief goods including blankets, instant rice, tents, sleeping bags and daily necessities to Haiti. All these were made possible thanks to the strong sense of compassion and sizeable donations on the part of people in Taiwan for the disaster-stricken Haitians.
Chen says his organization will continue its fundraising drive to collect up to NT$100 million (US$3 million) to assist with post-quake reconstruction work in Haiti. He also proposes that the ROC government, business enterprises and individuals help build a large “Taiwan Village” in Haiti complete with homes, community centers, medical institutes and schools to accommodate 30,000 or more quake survivors.
Disaster Response Capacity
Over roughly the last decade, Chen continues, Taiwan has suffered major natural disasters including earthquakes, typhoons and flooding. These catastrophes have cost the island dearly, but at the same time have gradually cultivated a strong emergency disaster response capability. This capacity not only allows Taiwan to better prepare itself for any domestic disaster, but also gives it the ability to help other nations in times of need.
The Taiwanese search and rescue and medical missions in Haiti have also won international recognition. Media outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Time magazine and CNN in the United States, the BBC in the United Kingdom, the Asahi Shimbun in Japan and the Deutsche Presse-Agentur in Germany all ran stories on Taiwan’s rapid humanitarian assistance to Haiti. For example, a report in the January 21, 2010 issue of Time magazine entitled “For Taiwan, Helping Haiti Offers Rare Moment on World Stage” stated that “Taiwan’s role in helping rebuild Haiti is a good showcase for the nation’s capabilities, blessed, as it is, with a sophisticated pool of trained scientists, engineers and doctors.”
Haitian quake victims use tents from World Vision as temporary shelters. World Vision Taiwan had raised some NT$100 million for earthquake victims in Haiti by late February this year. (Courtesy of World Vision Taiwan)
Likewise, in its immediate relief efforts, World Vision Taiwan raised NT$60 million (US$1.9 million) to finance shipments of daily necessities, family tents, water treatment equipment, cookware and hygiene kits to quake-devastated Haiti. Hank Du, executive director of World Vision Taiwan, says an estimated 3 million people in Haiti were affected by the temblor. World Vision ranked the earthquake as reaching the most critical level in the organization’s emergency response grading system and therefore immediately mobilized the resources of its partner offices around the world to deliver aid.
World Vision established a presence in Haiti long before the January quake, Du says, having operated there for 31 years, during which time some 560 staffers have worked on 20 long-term projects in five rural districts to educate impoverished children as well as improve the infrastructure, healthcare, water resources and farming techniques of local communities. As a result, the organization has helped more than 300,000 Haitians, of whom 51,000 have been children who received financial sponsorship. World Vision Taiwan currently sponsors 7,500 children through four regional programs.
These working experiences, Du continues, enabled the organization to take quick action to render assistance to the quake victims in Haiti. Besides providing local hospitals with medicines and distributing food, water, clothing and blankets to meet the basic needs of quake survivors, World Vision organized a number of mobile clinics to offer treatment and helped transport the seriously injured to the neighboring Dominican Republic for emergency care.
Given that 44 percent of the Haitian populace consists of children who are less than 15 years old, Du says World Vision made a special effort to ensure that children in the disaster areas were given priority access to food, water and help with finding family members. The organization has also set up a number of “child friendly spaces” to help children deal with the psychological trauma they experienced during the quake and its aftermath through games and painting, while also providing them with essentials including food, healthcare and a safe environment.
According to UN statistics, more than 1 million Haitian children were orphaned by the quake. World Vision Taiwan thus plans to increase its efforts to promote a child sponsorship program by calling on supporters to donate NT$1,000 (US$31) to sponsor individual children on a monthly basis, Du adds.
Meanwhile, Alex Shih, director of the ICDF’s Policy and Planning Department, says his organization will provide Haiti with long-term assistance in four areas: housing, healthcare, employment and child care. To do so, the fund will team up with domestic and international NGOs like World Vision Taiwan, the Red Cross Society of the ROC, Mercy Corps International and Food for the Poor. In terms of vocational training, the ICDF’s Technical Mission stationed in Haiti will endeavor to instruct more locals in agricultural techniques, including rice farming, so that they will eventually be able to support themselves financially.
The road to reconstruction in Haiti will be a long one given the enormous scale of destruction caused by the quake. Nevertheless, governments and NGOs in Taiwan and around the world are making a concerted effort to help the Caribbean country get back on its feet.
“We’ll continue to work closely with government authorities and other NGOs to assist Haiti in its rebuilding projects, as well as mount an effort to improve sanitation over the next five years,” Du of World Vision Taiwan says. “In the wake of the quake, we’ve received generous donations of money and relief materials from Taiwanese citizens for the specific purpose of providing humanitarian aid to Haiti. But this is going to be a strenuous and lengthy marathon, and we need the continued support of the Taiwanese public to get to the finish line.”
Write to Kelly Her at kelly@mail.gio.gov.tw