Haiti Earthquake--Response Strategy Talking Points

Project KID has been tracking the situation in Haiti and is making plans for an initial response phase. (Check back here for more details in coming days.)

We believe that the PlayCare Model is fully adaptable to the circumstances on the ground now:

• In 2009 over 3.4 million children, ages 0-14 lived in Haiti. That is over 38% of the total Haitian population.

• With as many as 200,000 Haitians projected dead from the earthquake, thousands and thousands of young Haitian children are now left as known orphans, virtual orphans whose parents cannot be found, and children whose parents may be alive but are among Haiti’s traumatized population, most of whom are struggling to obtain the most basic needs for safety, food and water.

• In the hours after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Project KID saw the need for uninjured children to be planned for and cared for in the earliest stage of disaster response. Project KID called this Phase 1 Response, Emergency Child Care.

• Haiti is in dire need of Phase 1 Response, Emergency Child Care.

• In the absence of a meaningful and scalable plan to care for the many young children that no longer have parents, the number of physically and emotionally injured or dead will needlessly increase.

• In the absence of a meaningful, rapidly deployable and scalable plan for abandoned babies and young children, first responders including highly skilled search and rescue personnel, trained medical experts, remaining governmental officials, and the military are faced with caring for these children rather than doing their jobs.

• Project KID cared for over 5,600 children in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This was done with almost no funding by assessing and effectively using the available disaster supplies pouring in to set up safe PlayCare sites throughout the affected region. This model, which was effectively tested in 2005 and in disaster exercises since, is absolutely effective for Haiti at this point in time.

• The purpose of the Project KID PlayCare model is to hold children safe in the earliest stages of a disaster and until better provisions and resources for long-term recovery can arrive.