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SOLIDARITY HAITI :

SOLIDARITY AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE

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Message from AVSF (France):

The tragedy, which affects Haiti, touches particularly our association, which has been operational there since more than 15 years in the domain of rural and agricultural development, supporting local stakeholders (farmer organisations, NGO), and in particular some among us who have lived there for several years and love this island and its people.

After the first hours of daze and difficult communication over the past week with our team there, mainly based in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, currently the two hardest-hit towns, we could now confirm that Cécile Bérut, our Country Coordinator, and our French and Haitian colleagues escaped from the worst and are all safe, even if most of them lost their house. Our office is still partly operational. Our immediate preoccupation is to ensure the continuation and safety of the local team in the coming days, and a personal and professional reinstallation in proper conditions. From the latest news, our cooperation partners are all safe and contacts maintained. The South-East areas, where AVSF develop several rural and agricultural development programmes, are directly affected (around Jacmel). All areas will be indirectly affected, through the arrival of refugees and a current massive migration from the capital to the province, which will disrupt the local stability and economy and soon crucial questions such as access to food and job creation will be likely.

Despite the gravity of the events, AVSF will not leave Haiti. On the contrary, urgency is not our job, but we are convinced that our action is even more relevant today as it will enable us to support initiatives that have already carried out by all our partners in Haiti for the reconstruction and the development of the island in the long run. When rescue and humanitarian aid are coming in, it seems very important for us to remind that the urgency in Haiti is also to define the support of France and Europe in the long term and to help the Haitians to rebuild their country. If the Haitian State is even more weakened today, there are in this country highly valuable men and women who animate an intelligent and active civil society in which the international community should rely on to optimally address the country needs and build a project for the future. For AVSF, the urgency is so to support from now the initiatives of this civil society, including collectivities, to rebuild and develop this country, in a coordinated, coherent and perennial way.

From the request of our team in Haiti and of our Haitian partners, private donors, employees and members of AVSF, the association decided to launch quickly a solidarity action. AVSF thus decided to rally in favour of the rural communities and families affected by the quake in the South-East of Haiti, around the town of Jacmel. It will not be sanitarian urgency as it is not our job, but support for the rehabilitation and reconstruction, that have to be complementarily implemented from now (it is one of the lessons learnt from the last disasters, as the tsunami in Sri Lanka): It will consist in supporting farmers and their families who often lost their house and few goods they had, and supporting the re-establishment of damaged agricultural installations (irrigation canals, storage facilities, etc.).

AVSF will work in partnership with CROSE, coordination of Haitian associations that intervene on the whole South-East department with strong professional skills and with whom AVSF has worked since many years now. CROSE has already started a diagnosis on the damage in urban and rural areas. You can know more by visiting our website and by clicking on the following link: http://www.avsf.org/fr/article.php?rub_id=107&art_id=1778

I thank you in advance for the support and the diffusion you will give to this call for solidarity around you and in your networks, as well as for the support you will bring to this action.

In Europe, the donations can be done on the IBAN attached.

AVSF in France was rewarded with the "Charter Comity – Trustful Donation", which guarantees the quality and the reliability of the management and allocation of the donations given to the association, regularly controlled by the Charter Comity.

Besides, you will find on our website (in French) more information about our current programmes of cooperation in Haiti and the ongoing action.

On behalf of our colleagues in Haiti and of all our partners, I thank you in advance for your solidarity.

Truly Yours,

Frédéric Apollin
Director of operations
(33) 1.42.94.72.04
www.avsf.org