We have all of us been shocked by the terrible television pictures of the destruction following the earthquake in Haiti. The images of people roaming the streets in shock with their homes lying in ruins around them and even the Presidential palace unable to withstand the force of nature will stay with us for a long time.
Spain has played a leading role in the search and rescue operation with teams from here being among the first to arrive with special dogs trained to find people under the rubble and find people they did. Now, those teams have come home, leaving behind groups such as ‘Bomberos sin fronteras’ and ‘Cruz Roja’ who will continue the work of helping the survivors, finding and burying the bodies and helping the country to get back on its feet.
The country of Haiti has had a blood soaked history with the infamous father and son leaders ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier using state money for their own purposes, basing themselves on Voodoo gods and having a group called the Tonton Macoute who would kidnap people in the night and torture them should they disagree with the Duvaliers. Many thousands were killed...some say more even than have been killed by the earthquake.
The people of Haiti have suffered so much and now they are suffering again. Fortunately, this time the world is working together to help, with stars like George Clooney organising a huge fundraiser already and Simon Cowell putting together a record.
Even on a very local level, money is being raised. In the hospital in Torrevieja, staff have ‘adopted’ little cow money boxes which they have to ‘feed’ and look after over the next couple of weeks. The money from each cow will then go to a particular charity chosen by that department. The regional branch of Caritas, the Catholic charity have a special bank account for Haiti which is CAM 2090-0132-75-0040283637 , make sure that you mark it for ‘Emergencia-Haití’. Maybe you could do something to?
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/Hide comments
Show/Hide comment form
