Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Chaos eases over food in Haiti
2010-02-01 08:26
Port-Au-Prince - The 79-year-old woman with a 25kg bag of rice perched on her head gingerly descended concrete steps on Sunday and passed it off to her daughter-in-law - who quickly disappeared behind the faded leopard-print sheets that are the walls of their makeshift home on the crowded turf of Haiti's National Stadium.
That personal victory for Rosedithe Menelas and her hungry family was a leap forward as well for the UN and aid groups that have struggled to help two million people who need food aid after the earthquake on January 12.
Under a new targeted approach to aid, Menelas and thousands of other women across Haiti's capital no longer have to battle with men at food handouts that in recent days have been chaotic and dangerous scrums.
"Every time they give out food there's too much trouble," said Menelas, collapsing into a small wooden chair as two grandchildren quickly scrambled into her lap. "Today, we finally got something."
UN officials said they are still far short of reaching all of the quake victims estimated to need food.
Primary caregivers
The UN World Food Programme and its partners, including World Vision, borrowed an approach that has worked in other disaster zones. The agencies fanned out across Port-Au-Prince, distributing coupons to be redeemed for bags of rice at 16 sites. The coupons were given mainly to women, the elderly and the disabled.
Men could redeem coupons for women who were busy taking care of children or who otherwise could not make it.
"Our experience around the world is that food is more likely to be equitably shared in the household if it is given to women," WFP spokesperson Marcus Prior said at the stadium, now a sprawling encampment of families left homeless by the quake.
Officials targeted women because they are primary caregivers in most households and are less likely to be aggressive in aid lines.
Many Haitians agreed.
Read more at:
http://www.news24.com/Content/World...-02-2010-08-26/Chaos_eases_over_food_in_Haiti
2010-02-01 08:26
Port-Au-Prince - The 79-year-old woman with a 25kg bag of rice perched on her head gingerly descended concrete steps on Sunday and passed it off to her daughter-in-law - who quickly disappeared behind the faded leopard-print sheets that are the walls of their makeshift home on the crowded turf of Haiti's National Stadium.
That personal victory for Rosedithe Menelas and her hungry family was a leap forward as well for the UN and aid groups that have struggled to help two million people who need food aid after the earthquake on January 12.
Under a new targeted approach to aid, Menelas and thousands of other women across Haiti's capital no longer have to battle with men at food handouts that in recent days have been chaotic and dangerous scrums.
"Every time they give out food there's too much trouble," said Menelas, collapsing into a small wooden chair as two grandchildren quickly scrambled into her lap. "Today, we finally got something."
UN officials said they are still far short of reaching all of the quake victims estimated to need food.
Primary caregivers
The UN World Food Programme and its partners, including World Vision, borrowed an approach that has worked in other disaster zones. The agencies fanned out across Port-Au-Prince, distributing coupons to be redeemed for bags of rice at 16 sites. The coupons were given mainly to women, the elderly and the disabled.
Men could redeem coupons for women who were busy taking care of children or who otherwise could not make it.
"Our experience around the world is that food is more likely to be equitably shared in the household if it is given to women," WFP spokesperson Marcus Prior said at the stadium, now a sprawling encampment of families left homeless by the quake.
Officials targeted women because they are primary caregivers in most households and are less likely to be aggressive in aid lines.
Many Haitians agreed.
Read more at:
http://www.news24.com/Content/World...-02-2010-08-26/Chaos_eases_over_food_in_Haiti