By Kieran McConville, Concern Worldwide US
The background music to this Tuesday morning is the constant drumming of heavy rain on stretched canvas and the freeform melody of droplets landing in pools. I count nine different receptacles placed strategically around the mud floor to catch the leaking water which invades Gurlene's home every time there's a downpour. And in Haiti, it rains a lot.
Home is a bit of a misnomer. After her real home was shaken to bits by the 2010 earthquake, she and thousands of others fled to open ground and cobbled together what temporary shelter they could. Four years later, whilst more than 90% of the 1.5 million people who were displaced by the quake were supported and have now managed to leave the camps that housed them, slow but huge progress, there are still some 145,000 living in camps. Gurlene and her three teenage children are included in this number, living in the Boliman Brandt tent camp in the Saint Martin area of the capital. Around them are dozens of other families, including many female-headed households
There's mud, refuse and sewage all around, no electricity and no proper source of clean water. Yet every morning the residents of Boliman camp emerge to take on another day, children in clean uniforms heading to school, and men and women seeking ways to eke out a living for their families. Gurlene's husband gets occasional work as a taxi driver and day laborer, but the money he makes is barely enough to keep the family going. She was once the main breadwinner, with a small, successful trading business. Everything was destroyed in the earthquake.
Talking to Gurlene, it's easy to understand how the daily struggle with chronic poverty can take its toll. Several times she comes close to tears when discussing life here. But she has hope that things will improve, and earlier this morning she completed a major step along the road out of this place.
At the bottom of the camp, a team from Concern Worldwide is preparing to head back to base. Concern has stayed far beyond the earthquake to help with the long-term impact of that destruction. “We have registered everybody who lives in this camp and are now in the process of helping them to find new homes and build new lives,” says Giulia Bazziga, who manages the “Return to Neighborhoods” program. “Gurlene has found a new home to rent and as soon as we visit to make sure that it meets safety criteria, we will sign a contract with the landlord to pay for one year's rent. We will also give her a grant which she can use to restart her business.” It may sound very straightforward, but nothing in this country is easy: Giulia and her team have had to deal with all sorts of complications, from criminal gangs to rogue landlords. “The process can be exhausting,” she says, “but it's worth it.”
Proof of that can be found in the smiling face of Jesumene Pierre, who lives in a small, neat two-room house not far from Boliman Brandt camp, which she has rented with the assistance of the Return to Neighborhoods team. “It was a big day for me when Concern came to the camp,” she recalls. “We lived there for over three years in a tent – it really was not easy.” She talks about the mud, the theft and the sexual assaults on girls. “Life really is better now. We are more at ease, it's clean here and we can sleep well at night.” She glances at her 17-year-old son, Jean Bertho, who has just finished his homework and is sitting on a small couch watching TV, just like any teenager. The couch is worn and the television is old, but they belong to Jesumene, bought with money from her new business. “My husband is dead,” she tells us, “but we are doing okay. I know that my children will finish school and they will do well in the future.”
The Return to Neighborhoods program has helped to resettle all of the families from the Boliman Brandt camp, each of which received a subsequent unconditional grant to use as they wish (pay for child’s education, invest in a small business, pay for heathcare, etc). The 300 families identified as most poor and vulnerable will now benefit from additional training and regular accompaniment from the Concern team to help them select and start-up/grow a relevant income generation activity, better manage their household budget, and adopt good practices in life skills areas such as nutrition and hygiene . Since this piece was written, Gurlene and her family have moved into a new home and Boliman Brandt camp has been closed.