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FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY CAMP DISTRIBUTES TENTS FOR HEALTH CLINICS, SHELTERS FOR ORPHANS & ELDERLY VICTIMS OF HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE

DONATIONS SOUGHT FOR TENTS AND SOLAR RADIOS

By Margaret Thompson, FIRE

Health clinics to deliver babies and treat HIV/AIDS and other illnesses and injuries, and shelters for orphans and elderly are just a few of the uses for tents distributed by a feminist international solidarity camp established by FIRE – Feminist International Radio Endeavour, and women’s organizations from Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In a broadcast on January 29th dedicated to the memory of the three Haitian feminist leaders who were killed in the earthquake on January 12, FIRE put out a call for more donations to buy more tents and solar-powered hand-crank radios.

 

“Tents are urgently needed here because they are no longer available in the Dominican Republic.,” declared María Suárez Toro of FIRE.  “We have to bring them to Haiti from elsewhere.”  Suárez was speaking on the FIRE broadcast from the Feminist International Solidarity Camp "Myriam Merlet, Anne Maria Coriolan and Magalie Marcelin,” named after the three Haitian feminist activists killed in the quake.  The camp has a resource distribution center, a health clinic for women and children, and a communications center for media coverage including live internet transmissions by FIRE in Spanish, English and French (Creole) (for details go to www.radiofeminista.net) . International organizations and women’s movements have long recognized that women experience deep-seated inequality and marginalization –especially in the poorest ountries, such as Haiti – and their needs are made invisible and almost never met.

FIRE has organized transport of more than 20 large tents so far, which have been distributed to create health clinics and shelters for HIV/AIDS patients, elderly, orphans and women and families.  Three tents were donated to the internationally renowned Dr. Jean W. Pape for a laboratory and health clinic now serving over 5,000 persons with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses and injuries.  Pape, a Haitian, is well known in his home country and worldwide for his groundbreaking HIV/AIDS research and for his years of work in healthcare in Haiti, where an already extreme poverty rate was greatly increased as a result of the devastating earthquake.

Other tents donated by the international solidarity camp were used to create a health clinic for delivery of babies and care for women and children in Léogâne, which was the epicenter of the earthquake on January 12th.  Another group of 40 elderly persons who had evacuated their nursing home before the quake due to unsafe conditions, were living in the open when the earthquake hit, and so survived.  This group along with another 350+ elders have also received some of the tents from the feminist international solidarity camp.

PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING $110 FOR AN 8-PERSON TENT ($90 PLUS SHIPPING) OR $45 ($30 PLUS SHIPPING) FOR A SOLAR-POWERED HAND-CRANK RADIO TO THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY CAMP TO BE DISTRIBUTED TO MORE GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS IN HAITI.  CONTACT FIRE AT Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo. .

For more information, go to FIRE’s webpage in Spanish and English at:  www.radiofeminista.net.