Sophia receives here safe deliviery kit from CARE staff in Haiti. © Evelyn Hockstein / CARE

Loetitia Raymond, a CARE Communications Officer, reported from Haiti following the devastating earthquake on 12th January 2010.

Next to the line of homeless people who came to collect their water bucket and hygiene kit, a few women also waited to receive basic hygiene items specifically geared to women. In this camp of nearly 250 families, a dozen women are pregnant.

Yesterday, we passed by the camps to identify them before the distribution, as usual, and we separated the pregnant women, elderly and those living with disabilities so they could go ahead of the others. Except today these expectant mothers will receive something else – a safe delivery kit for the big day.

Despite her young age, Sophia Robert has the spirit of an old soul who has lived 1,000 years. She is just 21 years old, but has the wisdom of one who has seen and suffered much.

Since the earthquake, she has lived with her mother, sheltered under a tent with a couple of friends and their two children. The father of her child is absent; he lives in Miami as a worker. She has little news. Sometimes he sends a bit of money, $20 from time to time – definitely not every month. She doesn’t seem to take offence; these remittances are a gift, not a duty.

“When they arrive it’s a bonus, I go out immediately to shop for food”, explains the young woman. She doesn’t depend on this man for anything, this man who left as soon as he arrived.

“In any case, we never spoke of getting married, he’s not obligated to help me. He did the basics, the most important - he gave me money to pay my tuition to start my studies”, she said. In the sixth month of pregnancy, Sophia enrolled as a student studying Administrative Science. The earthquake destroyed her university, and she doesn’t know when courses will recommence but she wants to start her studies again as soon as possible.

She is due to give birth in about 15 days, and like all the estimated 37,000 pregnant women in and around Port-au-Prince, she doesn’t know where she will go to give birth. It is for Sophia and the other women that CARE has decided to distribute a kit to ensure new mothers have a minimum of hygiene when they give birth. In the packet that the nurses distribute, the women find gloves, a towel, soap, sterile razor and thread to tie off the umbilical cord.

Sarita Michel and Djina Guillet are the two nurses who explain to the women how to use the kit. Before the earthquake, they worked on an HIV/AIDS project that CARE run for several years. Their role was to do awareness training, inform the school networks, community networks, partner institutions, hospitals and medical centres to make changes in their practices and attitudes. The women crowded around the two nurses listen religiously. The normal chatter of women has been replaced by an attentive silence.

“I’m happy to have this with me, it’s reassuring”, said Nadia Saint Fleur, another young woman of 21 years. Like Sophia, she will raise her child alone. The father is a mason and doesn’t live with her. He disappeared when she told him she was pregnant.

This doesn’t seem to bother her; her situation is sadly common because there are many women like her who are facing their pregnancies alone. She knows how to get by. She doesn’t have an income, no family to support her, so she lives through the generosity of others, asking passers-by for money to buy a bit of soap to wash with.

“When I need something, I go into the road to look for it, I ask people, I ask neighbours. For food, if a neighbour gives me something then I can eat – if not, don’t eat.”

Viola Cambronne is expecting her second child. The father died before her eyes during the earthquake. She was hanging the laundry outside when the house collapsed. Not a tear, not the slightest bit of emotion crossed her face. It is as if life was stopped on 12th January, and after that nothing would ever be of much importance. Her face lit up just enough to tell me that his parents are alive.

“Thankfully, they are there, we are together. Thanks to them, thanks to my other child who is still alive, and my new baby I haven’t cried too much”. These were the only words she used to speak of her husband’s death.

Of the eight women I met, about half will raise their children alone. The future mothers leave with the safe delivery kit that CARE gave them. These few items will certainly enable them to give birth with a certain amount of safety and dignity.

However, for the 15 percent of these women who will face complications during their pregnancy, a clean towel and surgical gloves won’t do much. The CARE nurses explain to them that they must go to a hospital or medical centre if they start bleeding or develop a fever.

They leave greatly assured, and if in this bag they have but gloves, soap and a bit of fabric, it gives them a bit of peace of mind before they give birth.

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