Devasting Earthquake in Haiti Requires Everyone to Respond: The Darkest Night

The lights are out. A devasting 7.0 earthquake hit the island nation of Haiti where over 9 million people live. Preliminary reports are that the capital city Port au Prince has severe damage and loss of life. BRAC's partner there, Fonkoze, is the largest provider of microfinance in the country.

Just minutes ago, I confirmed that Anne Hastings, the head of Fonokoze, and its staff in Port au Prince survived the earthquake. Unfortunately their head office sustained structural damage in the quake as did other major concrete buildings including many government buildings such as the palace, the Ministry of Commerce, the UN offices, Montana Hotel. If the largest and strongest buildings in Haiti have collapsed just imagine the situation in the slums and squatter settlements in the city. I shudder to think of the tragedy that will unfold in the days ahead. Please support Fonkoze respond and rebuild at http://www.fonkoze.org/ and through Fonkoze USA.

Another of our partners, Paul Farmer's Partners in Health reports that his sites and staff are ok as they are located north of the capital city. They are still collecting information on their staff in Port au Prince. Donations can be made at http://act.pih.org/earthquake

BRAC USA is committed to working together with groups on the ground to respond to this tragedy. We have been working in Haiti for several years to assist extremely poor families find a way out of project. We call it the Graduation Project as after a couple of years, they 'graduate' into microfinance. We were there recently and blogged about our trip on the Huffington Post. I think Haitians have an incredible resiliency. They will survive.

But this may be their darkest night.

Please do what you can to help.
Susan