New Food Distribution Program for Haiti

Feeding orphan children is not easy, in fact when things like Hurricanes hit it is downright hard. That’s why continuing to improve food distribution in Haiti has been particularly important.

Some facts on Haiti:

• 80% of the people live off of less than $2 per day, 56% on less than $1
• It s estimated that 1 in 4 people are considered starving there
• Haiti was once a major exporter of rice and sugar, but foreign food subsidies destroyed the market
• 2008, four hurricanes (one of the many factors effecting food distribution) ravaged the island, impacting millions, and ruining crops that still have not recovered

The Global Orphan Project’s model for building self-sustaining orphan villages has included funding those villages to purchase food supplies on their own. “This is the single highest cost item in orphan care, representing anywhere from 50% to 80% of the total child care cost”, according our Operations Officer, Alan Dietrich. Our village Pastors have traditionally acquired all of their food from local markets and been subject to wavering pricing and inconsistent sources.

So in September, 2009 we set in place an improved strategy for food distribution in Haiti by building and/or borrowing food depots’ in three major regions; Les Cayes, Gonaives and Port Au Prince. These depots’ not only distribute food weekly but also store supplies for the next storm. Additionally, we have acquired Feed My Starving Children s vitafood, which will provide one meal per day for our orphans and meets or exceeds most of the US RDA and World Health Organization’s nutritional standards. Curious what all kinds of nutrients these children are getting, check out the spreadsheet below. In the future, we ll be helping with training our cooks as well as agricultural and livestock development and continuing to add and tweak the program.

There is much to be done, and some of the simplest things become very challenging in Haiti, but the result is more than worth it. To see these precious ones beginning to thrive as we reach out to more and more that is definitely worth it!