12 January 2012 - Rebuilding Haiti after the earthquake

Since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, Save the Children has reached 1.2 million people through medical clinics and cholera treatment centers and enabled 40,000 people to gain long-term access to clean water.

We have also worked hard to ensure children receive an education. This has included constructing 229 classrooms and training over 1,200 teachers. So far, this has enabled 30,000 children to get to school – many for the first time.

Another important piece of our work has been reuniting children with their families after the earthquake and supporting communities in their efforts to protect children threatened by violence, abuse, and exploitation.

However, there are still approximately 500,000 people living in makeshift tents and many children living in conditions where they are extremely vulnerable to hurricanes and outbreaks of diseases. Only six months from the next hurricane season, a long-term solution needs to be found before another emergency occurs.

Helping people prepare for future disasters, is crucial to ensure that Haiti’s children can survive their childhoods and develop to their fullest potential and in addition to continuing momentum with the work we are already doing, this is Save the Children’s next challenge.

The situation

A devastating earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. More than 220,000 people were killed and 2.3 million others were displaced in one of the worse natural disasters the world has ever seen.

In October 2010, humanitarian efforts were further challenged by a cholera epidemic which continues today and has claimed over 6,700 lives according to the United Nations.