2010 Haiti earthquake - Haiti Observer Blog

According to a report released Thursday by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, The American Red Cross Spent almost $125 million or 25 Percent of donated fund after the 2010 Haiti earthquake on its own internal expenses. This is far more than the organization had previously disclosed. Red Cross had reported in the past that only 9 percent of donated money were used to cover international expenses. The following is a partial list of some of the abuses reported by the report released by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley:

In 2010, the American Red Cross issued a check for $4.3 million to its sister organization the International Federation of the Red Cross. The purpose is disaster preparedness.

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Nouvo akizasyon te pibliye pa depatman Jistis nan Etazini nan yon kolaborasyon ak lapolis Swis. Kèk ofisyèl FIFA tankou Ansyen FIFA egzekitif Jack Warner, Jeffrey Webb, Alfredo Hawit ak Juan Angel Napout yo akize yo pou dwèt longue Siperyè. Moun sa yo akize pou vòlè $ 750,000 dedye pou moun ki te viktim tranbleman tè Ayiti an.

Jack Warner detounen $750,000 ke FIFA ak foutbòl Asosyasyon Koreyen te bay pou viktim yo. Pandan ke yo deja arete Alfredo Hawit ak Juan Angel NapoutSe Aranjman, yo ape travay pou ekstradisyon Jack Warner soti nan Trinidad pou Etazini.

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Little Haiti in Miami will continue to be a reference for the Haitian community. This connection will be more obvious in the near future as the Miami Mountains Foundation plans to transform a Little Haiti median with its "Ayiti, Land of High Mountains" public art display.

Miami-Dade County just approved the funding for a project to transform an underused road median in Little Haiti area on NE second Avenue with vibrant public art demonstrating Haiti as a land of high mountains. This public art display will be one more reason to make Little Haiti a tourist destination, will be there on a permanent basis

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One of the 4,368 documents released from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's personal email server shows an email from her daughter Chelsea Clinton addressed to "Dad" and "Mom" explaining her concerns about the Haitian relief efforts.

Chelsea went on to say that: "If we do not quickly change the organization, management, accountability and delivery paradigm on the ground, we could quite conceivably confront tens of thousands of children's deaths by diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and other water-related diseases in the near future"

The email is comprised of a seven page letter where she took her time to demonstrate the inability of the United nations to manage the recovery effort. The date this email was written is unknown; however, following the 2010 earthquake, Chelsea Clinton spent four days in Haiti working as a part of the relief effort.

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As per the BBC report dated Tuesday, June 9 2015, the former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner is being investigated over the disappearance of money intended for victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The former FIFA President visited Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and pledged $750,000 from football's world governing body and the South Korean Football Association to support the reconstruction program in the country. FIFA contributed $250,000 and $500,000 was paid by the South Korean Football Association by the courtesy of one of their patrons, South Korean businessman Chung Mong-Joon. The Haitian authority claims that they have received only $60,000 from Mr. Warner, as the then head of CONCACAF. A team of U.S investigators have found that the fund was ultimately transferred to a personal account controlled by Mr. Warner himself; and whereabouts of the earthquake fund is still unknown. The source has also indicated that there are about 75 bank accounts, directly or indirectly connected to Mr. Warner, but none of them clearly indicates any location of the fund.

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When the news of the ascension of Bishop Chibly Langlois of Les Cayes as the first Haitian Cardinal reached Haiti on Sunday 12 January, the Haitian people and the local Catholic Church were both surprised and happy. The Haitians got their first Cardinal exactly on the same day when four years ago a terrible earthquake took hundreds of thousands lives in Haiti. Bishop Chibly Langlois is the president of the Haitian bishops' who is respected by Haitians for his immense service in the post earthquake era in Haiti.

Haiti is the place where most of the poorest of the poor live in western hemisphere. Many of us do not remember that this is the place in America where the Cross of Jesus Christ was first placed. On 6 December, 1492, Christopher Columbus along with his other European companions when arrived on this island, to bring the land under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church, his first act was to plant a cross on the beach at Môle St. Nichola and establish the first Spanish colony on the island.

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The Haitian Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe on 10th January, just before the fourth anniversary of the massive earthquake in Haiti, has submitted a progress report on rebuilding of the country by his government. The Haitian Prime Minister while addressing a group of journalists on this occasion was accompanied by senior government officials. He described an outline of the country's rebuilding efforts on different areas like construction, housing, education and tourism since the devastating quake.

The Prime Minister through a visual representation demonstrated how the affected people living in settlements were rehabilitated in over 5,000 newly constructed homes. The journalists were also informed about the different aspects on country's economic progress like influx of over 70,000 tourists in last year, distribution of seed kits to the farmers and blooming of Haitian economy during the process of reconstruction. Following the talk, in a brief interview to the Associated Press, the Prime Minister Lamothe expressed his satisfaction over the whole process considering the enormous initial challenges and lack of resources.

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January 12 will mark the fourth anniversary of Haiti earthquake where an estimated three million people were affected. The Death toll was estimated between 220,000 and 316,000 and the Haitian government estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000commercial buildings were either collapsed or severely damaged. On Friday, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe delivered a progress report as we are approaching the fourth anniversary of the earthquake and estimated that the rebuilding effort has gone from very well to enormously well.

Is this your opinion as well? Do you think the rebuilding effort so far has gone not well at all, to some how well, very well or enormously well?

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The young Haitian-American Victoria Duval pulled quite an upset Yesterday (August 27, 2013) at the U.S. Open.

She defeated the 2011 champion Samantha Stosur in the US Open first round tennis tournament. Ranked at No.296, Duval scored a 5-7 6-4 6-4 win against the 11th- Australian. This is actually, her first grand slam victory.

This victory by the 17 year old Haitian-American Victoria Duval over the 2011 champion Samantha Stosur in the US Open is quite remarkable but it gets even more interesting. She had two major ordeals that she already coped with. She experienced the terror of being held hostage by a kidnap gang and almost losing her father in the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

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After the 2010 earthquake that shook Haiti and brought it down to rubbles, $13 billion was pledge by philanthropists, international institutions and foreign governments. Yet another $9 + billion funds were collected in private and public donations for reconstruction of Haiti or humanitarian aid. That sounds impressive but unfortunately, other than serving the construction of Korean sweatshops and luxury hotels for the foreigners, the collected $22+ billion aid barely left any footprints in Haiti.

Thousands and thousands of Haitians still live in tents and hunger is playing is dirty game while clean water is luxury commodity that can be accessed by only a handful. It was found that 94% of the aid money collected eventually ended up with the civilian and military entities of the donors, which include international NGOs, private contractors and U.N. Agencies. The Haitian government received barely 1% of the relief funds accumulated.

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