A view from the cargo door of an MD-11 freighter being unloaded on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince.
\nSOUTHWESTERN HAITI \u2014 When Hurricane Matthew came ashore on this island nation in early October, Dr. Anke Brugmann was running an orphanage in the village of Beaumont, in Grand\u2019Anse, a municipality the Haitians call a \u201cdepartment.\u201d In the chaos that followed, the only practicing doctor in the area packed his bags and left the country, and Dr. Brugmann\u2019s position changed from overseeing an orphanage to the sole doctor for an estimated population of 30,000 \u2013 in one of the hardest-hit areas of Haiti. Almost a month later, she finally got medical assistance from a six-person medical team flown in from the Ireland.
\nThe team came from Disaster Tech Lab, touching down in two donated Bell Helicopters in early November, working in conjunction with Airlink, a Washington, D.C.-based rapid-response humanitarian relief organization that links airlines with pre-qualified nonprofits to move resources to disaster zones around the world. For this mission, I accompanied the crews for a couple of days, representing Air Cargo World.
\nMakeshift medial and housing in Beaumont, Haiti.
\n\u201cHaiti is in the business of being poor,\u201d is something I heard within minutes of landing, and my view during the descent into Port-au-Prince was all the evidence I needed to know that statement was true. However, despite the dire conditions in the capital, it\u2019s out on Haiti\u2019s southern peninsula, where Beaumont is located, that the scope of the country\u2019s poverty can be fully comprehended. The ravaged area visited by Airlink and Bell had water sources so polluted following the Category 4 storm that they exacerbated an already existing cholera outbreak that began after Haiti\u2019s devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake, and has killed nearly 10,000 since.
\nMuch of this suffering, however, is going unrecognized. As Haiti\u2019s northern neighbor comes to grips with the surprising results of its recent Presidential election, the chances of the Caribbean country\u2019s predicament returning to American headlines are lower than ever, as aid groups struggle to get the kind of relief supplies that the country desperately needs.
\nAt the same time, the economic impact of goods-based aid has also forced nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Airlink helicopter team, to seriously reevaluate the impact of their efforts. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned that food aid was \u201cdiscouraging food production by local farmers.\u201d Historically, material assistance that NGOs brought into developing countries has depressed local commerce and undercut domestic economic growth that is critical for long-term recovery. In Haiti, this is especially pronounced, and part of the reason that Airlink and other nonprofits, such as LIFT and the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), are so intent on cutting logistics costs for aid deliveries to facilitate other forms of aid.
\nSource: aircargoworld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A view from the cargo door of an MD-11 freighter being unloaded on the tarmac at Port-au-Prince. SOUTHWESTERN HAITI \u2014 When Hurricane Matthew came ashore on this island nation in early October, Dr. Anke Brugmann was running an orphanage in the village of Beaumont, in Grand\u2019Anse, a municipality the Haitians call a \u201cdepartment.\u201d In the[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2022,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-2021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-airport-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}