It has been almost 4 months since the devastating earthquake hit my beautiful small island of ayiti (Haiti) and it may seem to some that not much has been done. With a death toll soon to reach 300,000 and all infrastructure gone, the people of Haiti and people like me are concerned and want to see immediate changes. Disaster specialists say the slow pace of clearing the rubble and decomposing bodies beneath the debris from last month's earthquake in Haiti has left residents vulnerable to the spread of diseases
such as typhoid and cholera. With the rainy season fast approaching, one expert even warns that there will be more dead people in the next four to six weeks than during the earthquake itself. As a public health major this is one of my main concerns, something as simple and avoidable as cholera can be avoided with the right treatment and providing necessary education. countries across the globe are pitching in, many people believe that France owes the country years of reparations. France has vowed to give over $400million of aid to Haiti over the next 2 years to rebuild, President Nicholas Sarkozy announced his plan during a historical visit to Haiti. American aid is said to end in June and G7 has pledge to cancel their bilateral debts with Haiti and urges other nations to do the same. Hundreds of tent cities have been set up, camps of internally displaced people who have lost their homes. Food distribution points dot the city, run primarily by the UN, with support from US troops. As pledges of billions of dollars of international aid and investment are made, Avi Lewis travels to Port-au-Prince and to the Plateau Central and finds that debates over the vision of a new Haiti are already underway.At a conference at UN HQ in New York City, international donors pledged more than $5bn over two years and a total of $9.9bn over three years and beyond, far exceeding expectations. But there's scepticism in Haiti that the money will actually reach those who need it most. The conditions in the squalid, over-crowded camps in the capital have been made even worse by rains. The tone at the UN donors conference, however, was more optimistic, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling the effort a "wholesale national renewal" for Haiti. The environment is also another major concern that has not been talked about much and many believe the reason why the country was so devastated. Deforestation is huge and an alternative must be in order to to avoid other natural disasters. So with all this said let see how things turn out in a couple of years, but one thing that i want to stress is that when the media is gone and there are no more stories do know that the suffrage has not stopped, people all over the country need help! Money is only half of the problem, distribution, government then becomes the main issues.
