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NEWS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE

recycling bin tent where people slept rubble damaged school billboard sponsored by COMIVAD

A Message From HCDP Director Carline Murphy about her daughter Marie Jamie

1/27/2010

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 is a day that marks Haiti and its people for generations to come. As it was reported in the Register Star, my 19 year old daughter, Marie Jamie "MJ" Murphy, was in Haiti to deliver Brita water filter replacements, to make a presentation on health and to set up a recycling bin for the students at Ecole Mixte Volonte de Dieu in Tabarre when the quake hit.

Right after MJ called me to give an update, the earthquake struck. I was not able to reach her. On the television news I saw so many bodies, so much rubble. I did not know what to think.

MJ walked for three hours on foot through, as she describes, a “sea of cadavers”. She walked from Tabarre to Port-au-Prince and then traveled on the back of a motorbike to Gressier to check on her relatives as well as other families HCDP served. Under makeshift tents, MJ and the families slept side by side. The earthquake has made many people destitute.

As she lay in the tent, the sounds from the day - people trapped under their crumbled homes crying, praying to be rescued, “hunted my dreams,” she said. She witnessed the devastation, experienced the aftershocks. It was terrifiying and brought on feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness.

Despite the devastation and the loss MJ witnessed, MJ remained strong. She took part in the evacuation of the children who were in the school yard during the quake. Not one of the children was lost to the quake.

The earthquake brought on great losses to the people HCDP serves. The homes of our families have been flattened, a few HCDP staff/volunteers are still missing, three members of our family are still under the rubble, and bodies of three others have been found. The school is severely damaged.

Many efforts on a large scale are on the way to help the country, but remember it is the individual Haitian and their relatives who need your support the most. If you have a Haitian community in your area, or a person of Haitian descent in your church, place of work or in your family, your direct contribution will surely make a difference. The rebuilding effort will be long and enduring. Some organizations may take advantage of the situation for their benefit. If over 10,000 NGOs functioning in a country for over 30 to 50 years were not able to improve the lives of the Haitian people, the effectiveness of these organizations should be reviewed and the need for some many of them should be limited.

HCDP’s award winning proposal on a waste management and environmental recycling program for Haiti and in the schools is a program that will ensure that Haiti’s environment will never be degraded with garbage again, and that students and their families will learn to sort out their recyclables from the waste at its source, recyclables will be used to create work of art and for other practical every day use, food waste will be composted properly and used as fertilizers to nourish Haiti’s soil for agriculture. To harness solar energy to provide electricity in the homes and public places.

Donate to HCDP's Earthquake Relief Fund

HCDP is raising funds to send a container of supplies to the community we work with. We need your support.


Thank you to all of those who have made contributions directly for my family, and to those who have reached out to help HCDP members and staff here and in Haiti. With this direct "people to people" contributions, we have been able to wire money to our families and community in Haiti. Your support has supplied neccessaryitems. I would like to particularly thank the Presbyterian Church of Hudson and the congregation, as well as the Columbia County Council on the Arts and community.

Haitian Community Development Project
PO Box 35 Niverville, NY 12130 * (518)784-4395 * info@hcdpinc.org


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