Children

In any humanitarian emergency it is always the most vulnerable of all - the children - who suffer the most. Sadly, there are those out there who would exploit even this appalling human tragedy, and seek to traffic in children already traumatised beyond belief by their experiences. Fortunately such people are few in number, but there are many more who would act with good intentions but a naive understanding of the situation: the world press has reported in recent days on the US church group who were caught taking a busload of Haitian children out of the country. I believe these people were acting from genuine intent and desired only to help, but it cannot possibly help these children - even those who were genuine orphans - to be taken so far from their communities at such a time. There are several excellent NGOs working specifically with children active in Haiti - Save the Children for example - who have real expertise in helping children through such circumstances. It is better to allow professionals to deal with these issues than to dive in and make matters worse.
One of the reasons I chose to work for Mercy Corps was their excellent record in this area - they have a fantastic programme called Comfort for Kids, which originated in the US in the aftermath of 9/11 but has been used in Peru & China following earthquakes there. Mercy Corps recently announced a partnership with Haiti's First Lady, Elisabeth Delacourt Préval, to implement Comfort for Kids trainings for adult caregivers. The First Lady and UNICEF will organize “safe spaces” in camps to run arts, sports and music activities for children, while Mercy Corps will run simultaneous sessions — in French and Creole — to educate parents and caregivers about child symptoms of trauma and how they can be addressed. If you want to help the children of Haiti I would urge anyone to support this or similar programmes, rather than seeking to take children away from all they know. I hope to be able to tell you more about this programme in the coming weeks. The image for this piece is from a Mercy Corps colleague, Cassandra Nelson