MaximsNewsNetwork: HAITI BUILDING WOODEN SHELTERS for RAINY SEASON (U.N. MINUSTAH)

MaximsNewsNetwork: 09 February, 2010 - U.N. MINUSTAH - Port-au-Prince, Haiti - With the rainy season approaching in Haiti, aid groups are turning away from tents and encouraging long term housing like wooden shelters.
The United Nations (UN) is racing against time to bring in hazard-resistant tents for Haitis earthquake victims before the rainy season.

The UN says some 250,000 of the 1 million people in need of shelter have received tents or plastic sheets, but the main concern now is to bring in sufficient hazard-resistant, hurricane-proof shelter, a task made all the more difficult because the port was severely damaged by the quake and air transportation would be enormously costly.
But for now, the IOM (International Organization for Migration) is providing the basics to aid agencies to distribute to quake survivors.

SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Taylor, media relations, International Organization for Migration:
Plastic sheeting, tool-kits, hygiene kits, pots, and pans. The basics you need to set up a shelter and to have a sort of a life. This is going out now on the lorries and being distributed by as many as 50, 60 different agencies.

In the Turgeau neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, over 1,400 families received kits containing Jeri cans, basic hygiene kits and plastic tarpaulins.

And the demand is great.

SOUNDBITE (Creole) Marie Michelle Charles, surviver:
"I sleep on the ground, in the street. I am pregnant with twins and sleep on the floor."

SOUNDBITE (Creole) elderly woman, survivor:
"I came to take a few things. A shelter. Because I live in the open air."

Although there is an urgent need to get some kind of hazard resistant shelter for the survivors before the rainy season, just getting a roof over their head remains a big challenge.

SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Taylor, media relation International Organization for Migration:
There is a very urgent need to make sure that by the time the rainy season starts, maybe end of February, maybe in March, we are doing everything we can to make sure that at least people can have some kind of roof over their heads.

OCHA says that more than 1.2 million people live in spontaneous settlements and more than 460,000 people have left Port-au-Prince for outlying departments. It stresses the need to increase aid going to these areas to help the resident rural population support the displaced persons. ................................................................................­.............................. ( UNITED NATIONS STABILIZATION MISSION IN HAITI: MINUSTAH ) ................................................................................­................................ MaximsNewsNetwork:
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• Mark Taylor
• tarpaulins
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