HELP

January 12th 2011 marked the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake that reduced much of Haiti to rubble and left hundreds of thousands of people without homes. As many as 230,000 people lost their life as a consequence of the earthquake and a year on many people still live in camps of tents made from tarpaulins, learn in make shift schools and continue to be at risk from contaminated water supplies that cause the reported cholera outbreak.

In February 2010 a group of locals banded together and at short notice arranged a concert at Jersey's Fort Regent to raise funds to 'Help Haiti'. Although the fundraiser fell short of it's target of £25,000, the concert and associated activities still managed to raise over £18,500.00. To help with the immediate humanitarian need £6,000 was donated to the Bailiffs Disaster response, which in turn was sent to the Red Cross. Due to the sheer scale of the damage in Haiti, the balance was earmarked for a longer-term project that would help somehow in the rebuilding of community over time. A number of projects were considered and eventually a group called All Hands Volunteers www.hands.org were selected.

All Hands is a charity that makes it possible for every day people who feel overwhelmingly that they'd like to help, to actually get involved. They fund an array of different types of projects that are nearly always instigated by volunteers but are always started and finished by them. All Hands has carried out disaster response projects in America, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Peru and the Philippines. As they had already been working in Haiti following the 2008 hurricane, they were well placed to react to the earthquake.

The organization established a number of projects that included safe demolition of damaged buildings and began to build transitional schoolhouses where the original schools had been destroyed or where unsafe.

To date US$15,000 (just under £10,000) has been donated to the All Hands Volunteer organization as a deposit to fund the building of a transitional schoolhouse to be constructed in Leogane (the epicenter of the quake) and the work of raising the balance required begins today. A series of music and art related fundraisers will be announced next month.

Work on the 'Jersey school' should commence early in 2011 and the organizers would like to hear from any individuals who might be interested in volunteering, companies and businesses who would be willing to sponsor those volunteers and anyone willing to donate toward the effort. The living conditions are challenging, but All Hands are very well organized and the work is rewarding.

At the end of last year one of our group went to Haiti and volunteered with All Hands to see first hand the work they were doing and worked along side local volunteers and others from around the world on finishing one such transitional school and begun the foundations on another. At that time there were 87 volunteers from around the world working on projects ranging from mud clearing, demolition, bio-sand filters, composting toilets, distribution of cleaning equipment, education, orphanage support and school builds. The original target of building 7 schools is almost complete and this has now been extended to 30 schools.

The design of these transitional schools (which are both earthquake and hurricane proof) includes shutters that have usually been artistically painted by the volunteers, and we are delighted to announce that prominent Jersey Artists Nick Romeril, Jason Butler and Kevin Pallot have agreed to design & paint these to personalize the school and a plaque will denote that the school as a gift from the people of Jersey.

The organizers of the Help Haiti concert are now establishing a charitable Trust which will be known as ' the HELP Trust' to continue the work of trying to raise funds for the completion of the transitional school build in Leogane and other such projects.

The ambition of the HELP Trust will be to raise funds to support directly or to fund NGO's or charitable organizations involved with disaster response and emergency situations and other urgent charitable and humanitarian causes that may arise in any country in the world (including JERSEY). As such the organization will operate a continued fund raising schedule in order to attempt to maintain a balance ready to assist at short notice as well as being poised to react to sudden disasters.

The primary (but not necessarily exclusive) method of fund raising will be through music and art related activities, concerts, exhibitions, sale of artworks donated, donations in aid of related efforts etc.

HELP hopes to encourage local individuals and businesses to engage with the concept of volunteering. In the case of a business or employer this might be to encourage that person or company to facilitate a member of staff volunteering by allowing the time off or funding travel to a project. In a more general sense it might be to make people aware of projects and how they can volunteer.

Help will encourage the Islands youth and school population to actively engage in fundraising through Art & Music and to empower them to develop their own fundraising and volunteering activities under the guidance and with the support of the Trustees and where applicable to encourage them to volunteer themselves.

People wishing to volunteer or make a donation can do so by contacting:
haitijerseylou@gmail.com

Donations from corporate sponsors are welcome.

Links:

All hands volunteers website
http://hands.org/

Learn about the work All Hands have done
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake
http://vimeo.com/16195538

See a Transitional Schoolhouse just like the one we're funding from Jersey
http://vimeo.com/16468966

Link to All Hands Haiti photo stream, press use is welcome.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hodrorg/

General information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake