by Rick Perera.

I love watching the humming machine of the Haiti relief effort in action.  CARE has more than doubled our local staff since the Jan. 12 earthquake, and the well-oiled supply chain is cranking along.  Our huge new warehouse buzzes with workers loading and unloading, trucks rolling in and out.  It’s a sight to see.

Pierre Bayard, inhabitant of “CARE Village” in Port-au-Prince, is fed up with being fed (photo: CARE/Perera)

Yesterday I visited our largest-yet distribution of non-food items – a massive and well-run operation.  At the seaside district of Village Gaston, overflowing with makeshift shelters, nine trucks arrived at 4:30 a.m.

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by Thomas Schwarz.

Every year, there is a „Teletón” in Chile, a big TV-show with loads of artists, celebrities and Chileans, who donate money. During a normal year this money would be donated for needy children and their parents. Critically ill people and the disabled could afford treatments which would be otherwise beyond their reach.

But this weekend the Teletón was all about the recent earthquake. True to the motto “Chileans help Chileans” the event raised more than 30 billion Chilean Pesos. That is just short of 60 million US-Dollars. (more…)

by Thomas Schwarz.

I spent yesterday morning going around Santiago de Chile with Roswitha. She has told me of a home for the elderly that has been ravaged by the earthquake. It is lead by Franciscans since the 90s and more than 150 years old.

The first floor can not be used any more, due to the effects of the quake. Some of the 60 inhabitants – all of them women – have to sleep in the corridors and the sisters moved out of their quarters to make room for the elderly. (more…)

by Rick Perera.

We’re watching from Haiti with shock and sadness as the news comes from Chile: another merciless earthquake, more powerful than ever. So soon after the devastation here in and around Port-au-Prince. (Was that only a few weeks ago? It feels like an eternity.)

Haitians understand all too well what the people of Chile are enduring. The desperate search for missing loved ones … sleepless nights in the street outside unstable houses … lack of communication to the outside world … the fear of what the future holds. The terror does not subside easily. (more…)

by Thomas Schwarz

I was sitting down with Michael Raczynski, who is called „Don Miguel“ here in Chile. We were talking about all the things coming up in the next couple of days: his trip to the south of Chile with my colleague Axel Rottländer; the logistical question of where, when and what to buy. Axel is part of the emergency response team of CARE Germany-Luxembourg and an expert in managing disasters like the recent earthquakes here in Chile or Haiti.

And there is Roswitha sitting with us. At 72, she has already worked for the Fundacion Alemana para el Desarrollo, CARE’s partner in Chile, for 24 years. Tomorrow, she and I will visit a home for the elderly which was heavily damaged during the earthquake. Afterwards, we will visit an orphanage for HIV-affected children. (more…)