Edline Cothiere, a nurse with one of CARE Haiti's local partners, explains how to use water purification packets that CARE is distributing. ©Evelyn Hockstein/CARE International
Blondine Jean-Baptiste wielded a large kitchen spoon like a magic wand.
And indeed, it was magic – the filthy, brown water was turning sparkling clear before her, as the sludge gathered into a clump at the bottom of the white, 20-litre plastic bucket. Her colleague Edline Cothière read aloud a simple instructions from an information sheet, in Haitian Creole.
The two nurses are volunteering at the ruins of the Adventist Auditorium in central Port-au-Prince, where some 600 homeless and injured people have gathered. The local Community Civil Protection Committee is doing its best to see to their needs.
A crowd, mostly women, watched – relieved at the prospect that the limited supply of water in a cistern on the ground would be safe to drink.
Dr. Franck Geneus, CARE Haiti’s health program coordinator, watched the women working. Minutes before, he had given them a crash course in water purification, using the very simple method promoted by CARE: small packets of powder, each of which can purify 10 litres of water.
“CARE staff train local volunteers, so they in turn can teach others and distribute the packets according to a careful inventory of families at the site – to be sure it reaches those most in need,” he explained. “It’s the quickest way to reach the most people.”
Safe water is crucial for every survivor of the horrific quake Jan. 12– but especially for pregnant women, new mothers, and small children, he said. “We are concerned that women may stop breastfeeding because they do not have enough food or water themselves. That poses a huge risk to newborns.”
Even in the best of times, expectant mothers in Haiti are at huge risk – 670 of 100,000 die in the course of pregnancy and childbirth, more than 60 times the rate in industrialised countries. Now, with urgent treatment of trauma cases taking top priority, prenatal care, and even safe delivery, is a luxury that few women here can find.
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