Earthquake Haiti: Press Release 22
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
By: Petra Ipp

Baby Jim Malte and a "master plan" Malteser International's response two months after the quake

Porte-au-Prince/Léogâne/Cologne. On 12 March it will be two months ago that the 60 second-quake in Haiti claimed more than 200,000 lives, destroyed whole towns and left one million people homeless. Children - injured or orphaned - are in the focus of Malteser International’s assistance. Teams of Malteser International, the relief service of the Order of Malta, for worldwide humanitarian aid, were among the first to arrive on the ground after the quake. Since then, they have been able to provide medical aid to more than 7,000 survivors of the catastrophe - first in Port-au-Prince, later west of the capital in Léogâne and Darbonne. Through local partners, the teams have also distributed food, soap, mattresses, sheets and further relief items to more than 1,000 survivors in Port-au-Prince and Léogâne and 90 children in a completely destroyed orphanage in Léogâne. In Petit Guave, Malteser International in cooperation with Arche Nova assures the supply of drinking water for 700 families. In Milot in the north of Haiti that was spared by the quake, Malteser International each day distributes thousand food rations to earthquake patients, their relatives and volunteers at the hospital Sacré Cœur that has been supported by the Order of Malta for several years already.

 

Despite the daily confrontation with suffering and traumata, the Malteser International team with about 12 international doctors, nurses, logisticians and administrators and numerous local volunteers again and again experiences glimmers of hope: When a young mother recently gave birth to her child in the health centre in Darbonne, she spontaneously named it Jim Malte in gratitude to the team of Malteser International. (Photo for download: www.malteser.de/90.Downloads/Jim_Malte.jpg  - Photo: Westfälische Nachrichten/Jürgen Peperhowe).

 

The associations and organisations of the worldwide Order of Malta that are working in Haiti recently met in Miami to coordinate their disaster response and to develop a “master plan” for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country. “Basic health care through health centres and mobile medical teams, vaccination campaigns, psychosocial care, access to drinking water, sanitation and - of course - poverty reduction will be focus points of our long-term commitment”, Ingo Radtke, Malteser International Secretary General, reports. “Thereby we do not only work for the people in Haiti, but above all with them. It’s our aim to pool all relief efforts of the Order of Malta and to integrate our relief measures into Haitian structures to foster the long-term reconstruction.”

 

Attention editors: Ingo Radtke, Secretary General of Malteser International, is available for interviews. Contact: +49 (0) 221 9822-155.

 

Malteser International is the worldwide relief agency of the Sovereign Order of Malta for humanitarian aid. The organisation provides aid in about 200 projects in more than 20 countries without distinction of religion, race or political persuasion. Christian values and the humanitarian principles of impartiality and independence are the foundation of its work. For further information: www.malteser-international.org and www.orderofmalta.org

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