Relief Food for Haiti
Haiti is the least developed country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest countries in the world with an estimated 80% of the population living in abject poverty.
Four hours north of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince is the city of Laraque with a population of 9000 – the majority of its inhabitants being children. Food shortages due to drought or flooding has left the community in chronic hunger and malnutrition making it difficult for many families to eat more than once per day and in harsher times, only once every two days. A feeding program will be set up to target 60 of the poorest families in the community to provide them with enough rice to combat malnutrition.
How you can help
$22.50 will provide rice for 30 people for one day.
Make cheques payable to Hungry for Life International and mail to The Rice Raiser, PO Box 2514, Abbotsford, B.C. V2T 6R3
2007 CAMPAIGN RESULTS
The community of Laraque
This was the area where the pre-campaign distribution in November took place:
- relief food consisting of rice and beans was provided to about 80 families
The community of Dumay
- 304 families received relief food of about 3.3 kg. of rice.
Plus
- enough food (rice and beans) was purchased to provide 300 school children with a meal a day at their school for one month.
Thank you for supporting this project and the 2007 Rice Raiser Campaign.
A journal entry by Ashley – Thurs. Aug. 23, 2007
“This afternoon we observed a food distribution at the school in Dumay. Willem didn’t want us to be involved because of the shear chaos that can erupt. Near the beginning there was a small line of older people, but in just minutes we could see many people coming down from the mountains and the village. It was very overwhelming.They were so eager to receive this food that they held on so tight to each other so that there would be no cutting in line. It totaled around 304 families that were fed. This may not be the best way in teaching the village how to equip themselves, but they will have some food for the next week.
It just brings me the question ‘why’? Why them and not me? There were kids my age and younger standing in that line. So just because they were born in a different area, they start at a disadvantage? There were probably people, if given an education, that would be much smarter than me and just overall better people. So that is just a bit of what’s on my mind right now.”
Pre-Campaign Food Distribution
At the end of November 2006, the Rice Raiser staff accompanied Hungry for Life Partner, Tim Visser, to the Laraque project to participate in a pre-campaign food distribution. Pastor Ric Strangway was along with us and helped in the food distribution.
Pastor Ric, Frank, Tim and some young helpers at Laraque food distribution
Bagging the rice and beans into family sized portions.
We purchased bags of rice and beans from Haiti’s capital city, Port-Au-Prince and drove to the neighbouring village of Laraque where we planned to divide up the bulk bags into family size portions and spend the night. It was evening and dark by the time we arrived at our destination so we bagged the rice and beans by the light of a single bulb and generator. When the gas for the generator ran out, we used the headlights of the truck. We packaged up about 80 family portions.
In the morning, we drove to Laraque and distributed the rice and beans to the people. The amount each family received should last them for a week or possibly almost two weeks if they stretch it out and have other things to add to it.
We were informed that a month prior to our trip to this village, a medical team had been visited and had taken a boy who was very sick with malnutrition to the hospital. While we were giving out the food, the father of that little boy came up and thanked us for bringing the much needed rice and beans as he knew he didn’t have enough food for his family and he was afraid his little boy who was now out of the hospital would get sick again.
We were also told that it was “No small thing that we were doing because most of these parents find feeding their family a daily challenge. Everyday is a struggle and providing this food was like giving these parents a once in a life time week long holiday from worrying about how their family was going to eat.” Our host told us that this was a wonderful gift for these families.
The people kept coming and we learned that we could have taken much, much more, but it still would not have been enough as the needs are so huge. You see, just down the road was another village with as great of, if not greater needs.
This trip helped us to understand that there are many villages all over the world where people live without enough food. The majority are not heard of or seen by the world. They live in their day to day survival state without much hope of change. What a privilege to know that we can help and we can give hope.
We discovered that we can give food and we can help children receive an education at the same time. For a lot of families, they cannot afford to have their children go to school because they need their child’s help to provide food or to watch over the youngest children while the parents work in the fields. In many villages children are provided with a meal at their school. This eases the concern of parents for one meal and it also allows the children an education, something most of these parents never had. Therein lies hope for the children of this generation and for the future, through the promise of food, they can get an education.
Learning about villages like Laraque is crucial for us to be able to help. As we understand the tremendous need and as we respond through our joint efforts in giving, we do have the power to change lives. We really can make a huge difference all over the world.
A tremendous thanks to our partners, Hungry For Life International, for arranging this trip and for advancing the Rice Raiser Campaign the funds to purchase the rice and beans to do this pre-campaign food distribution. You can now see the process that goes into distributing the food that your donations help to purchase and you can see some of the people you have already helped by viewing the Haiti Food Distribution Video here on our website.
It doesn’t take a lot from any single person, but just a little from a lot of people. We are very hopeful for a great response during the Rice Raiser Campaign so we can help many more people who struggle with hunger here in Haiti and in our other project countries as well.
More photos from the distribution:
Women waiting for their family portion of rice and beans
Woman guarding her rice and beans
Woman receives her rice and beans
Giving rice out the back door
Giving rice out of the truck
Lots of people need food
Haitian boy carrying rice on his head
Other photos of the children in Laraque
