Support Haiti
How To Help Haiti Following the Earthquake
On Saturday, August 14, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, about 78 miles west of the capital Port-au-Prince. At least 1,400 people have died, over 6,000 injured, and more than 7,000 have lost their homes. This comes after last month’s destabilizing crisis when President Moise was assassinated, and in between two tropical storms (Fred and Grace) passing over the island that could cause mudslides and make rescue efforts more difficult.
Here’s how you can help.
Donate to locally-led organizations
Historically, large-scale international aid organizations have led humanitarian relief efforts responding to natural disasters (and other types of humanitarian crises). And, the donations follow.
However, local organizations play a critical role in crisis response/emergency relief. Their knowledge of local customs, culture, and systems means that they understand local needs and how to respond effectively in a time of crisis. Locally-led organizations are more likely to be trusted by their community and can easily and quickly maneuver into hard-to-reach areas. They were there long before international aid organizations and they will be there long after.
Despite this, direct funding to local organizations hovers at about 3% of annual humanitarian assistance funding. Having learned from the colossal mistakes made by global relief organizations following the 2010 earthquake (from multimillion-dollar projects that benefited no one to a cholera outbreak attributed to aid workers), individual donors must look for more opportunities to support locally-led, grassroots Haitian organizations that better know the needs and priorities of their communities.
We recommend the following organizations.
While not all of these organizations were founded by Haitians, each has existing capacity on the ground in Haiti and a successful track record of providing assistance and relief in partnership with local communities.
When a crisis hits, it can be hard to figure out who the most effective local organizations are. We also recommend donating to trusted international grantmaking organizations that redistribute funds to local groups in the form of grants. We like AJWS, Global Fund for Women, Global Fund for Children, Grassroots International, MADRE, Mama Cash, Thousand Currents, and Urgent Action Funds, among others. Check with them to see if they have grantee-partners in the country in crisis where you want to donate.
Send money not goods
Following a disaster, it is usually best to give cash, not goods (think: food, clothing, supplies). Although well-intentioned, sending goods can do more harm than good.
The best way to help is to make monetary donations to locally-led organizations already operational on the ground. Monetary donations ensure that organizations can buy exactly what they need to respond to the emergency during a moment when there is no time to waste.
When donating goods, you can never be sure what communities need most. Particularly when responding to an overseas emergency where cultural preferences may be different from your own. Additionally, nonprofit organizations are often able to make purchases in bulk and tax-free. It is much more cost-effective for you to give them money to buy in bulk and locally than it is for you to buy a product that must then be shipped to the community in crisis (especially considering the burden of shipping costs and customs fees). Buying locally has the added benefit of bolstering the local economy. It also ensures that shipping routes are not clogged with unneeded items, interfering with large-scale, coordinated relief efforts to deliver harder-to-get supplies.
Learn about the history of Haiti
It’s not a coincidence that Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. In 1804, following a successful slave revolt from its colonizer (France), Haiti became the first post-colonial, Black republic in the world. It’s been suffering the backlash from that courageous move ever since.
For years, powerful slave-holding nations refused to recognize Haiti as independent for fear of stoking the flames of revolution. Though rich in natural resources (it had been France’s most profitable colony), once free, Haiti had few trading partners and was unable to accumulate any wealth. So, twenty years later, when France sent warships to intimidate Haiti into compensating former French colonists for their losses, Haiti had no allies or resources to defend itself and had little recourse but to agree to pay the “indemnity.” The sum (which included a provision for future trade discounts) was equivalent to over US $21 billion in today’s terms, an unfeasible amount to “repay” that made it all but impossible for Haiti to invest in itself.
The country has since endured political and economic turmoil. It has survived a U.S. occupation from 1915-1934, a series of internal coups and presidential assassinations, a devastating earthquake in 2010 which left more than 300,000 dead, and a cholera outbreak in 2016 that killed another 10,000 people and sickened at least 800,000 others. The southern peninsula, where Saturday’s earthquake hit, is also still recovering from Hurricane Matthew which devastated the region in 2016.
Read
How to Not Repeat the Mistakes of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and where to donate
We Owe Haiti a Debt We Can’t Repay
Haiti’s Forgotten Asset: It’s Diaspora
An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President
Watch
Listen
Support ongoing development past this crisis
It is important to give immediately following an emergency to help save lives and relieve suffering. It’s equally important to help build resilient communities that can prevent and mitigate future emergencies, lift people out of poverty, and support people to thrive, not just survive. These two approaches are commonly referred to as humanitarian and development aid.
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid (aka emergency relief, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance) provides immediate emergency assistance to victims and survivors of conflict, famine, and natural disasters worldwide. It happens in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. It often involves international humanitarian aid organizations that are quickly deployed to support local efforts. Sometimes these groups will build their own makeshift infrastructure (think: a field clinic built by Doctors Without Borders) instead of relying on local resources. The benefits of this approach can be that aid groups can act quickly and often rely on highly-trained experts. Critics suggest that humanitarian aid takes a top-down, outsider approach that does not take advantage of local knowledge, can recreate the wheel by ignoring existing local infrastructure, and can reinforce patterns of power and oppression.
There is a slow and growing recognition of the need to support local, community-based organizations to respond to emergency situations.
Development aid
Development aid (aka international development, development assistance) is the long-term, ongoing work to support low-and middle-income countries’ economic, environmental, social, cultural, and political development outside of an emergency. While development aid can also be top-down and reinforce patterns of power and oppression, it tends to focus on supporting and building up local capacity.
If you can afford to do so, consider making recurring donations to locally-led organizations focused on development throughout the year in addition to a one-time donation in the aftermath of the earthquake.
The terms low-income, middle-income, developing, least developed, emerging market, and third-world countries are all terms used to describe countries that are low on the Human Development Index and have weaker economies compared to high-income (aka developed) countries. Collectively, countries that fit in this category are often referred to as the Global South or the developing world. None of these terms is perfect, and each can be problematic in its own way. Some recommend using the term “formally colonized countries” to highlight the root cause of why so many countries struggle to develop today. We tend to use the terms low- and middle-income countries, developing countries, and the Global South. We never use the term third-world country.
The world is experiencing multiple humanitarian crises. If you are looking for ways to support Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria, Central American countries, among many others, look for locally-led organizations with a track record of success, donate cash not goods, and think about ways that you can invest in their long-term development.
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Originally published August 17, 2021.
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