SOS’s experience in community outreach and organizing social activities will help in reaching out to these more remote areas to distribute needed supplies/aids to alleviate the situation. 

Situation of the Southern peninsula :

The southern peninsula was severely impacted by the earthquake. A lot of aids have poured into the major towns, and not so much to the more remote areas. SOS’s experience in community outreach and organizing social activities will help in reaching out to these more remote areas to distribute needed supplies/aids to alleviate the situation. 

SOS as an organization with a proven track record of handling difficult situations has also put together a star approach to help displaced people currently living in "camps" and other victims of the earthquake.

Management of the camps :

• Access
• Identify
• Engage
• Organize
• Act

Our initial plan of action is to visit the camps and accomplish the following:

• Assess/Evaluate the prevailing conditions
• Identify the most pressing needs of the residents (displaced people)
• Engage and help Organize the displaced people
• Act to address the issues

Proper management of the camps is imperative. It ensures an orderly dispatching of supplies and an equal distribution of aid. It is also important to engage the residents - displaced people- in volunteering to keep the camps running. The goal is to promote self-management so that the camps are ran in an orderly fashion regardless of the situation.   

There must be a coordination of effort between the volunteers, the local organizations and the public sector to manage expectations. This approach will help mitigate the risk of corruption and rioting that are possibilities in the current context. Furthermore, it will also help reduce the dependency behavior that has a negative impact on cooperation in these situations.

Our strategy will focus on providing support to the management of the camps. It involves three important factors (as illustrated below):

• Create a security team to ensure the safety of the camp,
• Create a health team to address sanitation and cleaning issues, and
• Create a coordination committee to organize/manage the camps. This includes cooking, food distribution and coordinating the activities in the camps.

This triangular representation is inclusive for it requires participation and full cooperation of the residents of the camps in the process. Through this approach, we can help people organized and self-manage. Past experiences have shown that relying on local organizations or public institutions to manage emergency situations does not always have a positive outcome. 

Ensuring security in the camps is one of the most important components of the process that needs to be addressed properly and solved promptly. The residents of the camps will volunteer to secure the area by engaging everyone to give a helping hand and keep an eye on everything.

Sanitation is another important component of the process that requires prompt attention for it is part of public health. Given the current state of affairs, keeping the camps clean is a must to mitigate the risk of propagation of transmissible diseases. We believe that the residents of the camps should be empowered and given the basic skills on how to keep the area clean and practice good hygiene.

Creating an organizing team is the last piece of our triangular approach to managing the camps.  The team will be responsible to keep food distribution organized and orderly. A member of the team will serve as a point of contact for local organizations and governmental entities.  Each camp will also have a spokesperson to give updates upon request.

We strongly believe that the triangular model described above can be replicated in the future in time of crisis.

Our affiliate organizations in Haiti will act in coordination with other local organizations and public institutions to distribute aid to the victims of the most impacted areas.  Our members will target the specific needs of the victims to help bring viable solutions to the problems.

With our current resources and your help, we plan to visit as many towns and communities affected by this earthquake as possible.  We have been operating in the region for five years and have proven through our work that we get things done.  We are a flagship organization and need your support to continue to grow and fulfill our mission.