01-16-10 - The incomprehensible human loss and utter devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti moves many of us to want to help in the relief effort. Among the many agencies soliciting donations for the Haitian relief effort, including the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced this morning at the White House, two seem particularly worthy of consideration: Doctors Without Borders, which continues to provide medical care for the survivors of the earthquake, and Habitat for Humanity International, which is working to rebuild and provide shelter for the thousands left homeless by the disaster.

This morning ccSCOOP received this communication from the Columbia County Council on the Arts, which brings the Haitian disaster close to home and provides a very local way for us to help.

EARTHQUAKE’S IMPACT ON OUR LOCAL HAITIAN COMMUNITY

HOW WE CAN HELP              

As many of our members and friends are aware, Carline Murphy worked at CCCA as our arts-in-education coordinator until last year. Carline has always kept close ties with her family members still in Haiti, and she has led the effort to organize our local Haitian community. She founded the Haitian Community Development Project, which strives to improve the lives of people in her native country. Last year Carline won an international award among not-for-profit organizations for her idea to bring specially designed incinerators to Haiti to help with local sanitation.              

Carline has at last been notified that her daughter ”Mary J” is safe. Mary J had traveled to Haiti just after Christmas with other Tufts University students to bring some relief supplies, and she was not heard from for several days after the quake. Though Carline received this wonderful news about her daughter, her relief is tempered by other news. Five of her brothers and sisters in Haiti, along with thirteen nieces and nephews, are missing, as is her father.

Azouke Legbe, an active CCCA member and musician, also received terrible news. Two of his sisters and five of their children have all been killed.              

Carline reports that the major relief agencies will indeed deliver aid, but it is more generalized, and many international aid sources target their aid for the areas where their own nationals are clustered.

A tireless organizer, Carline is working to fill a 40-foot container with needed supplies and to have it delivered directly to a location where her own relatives, and relatives of our local Haitian neighbors, will get it. She has asked that friends send monetary donations to her not-for-profit agency, the Haitian Community Development Project, P.O. Box 35, Niverville, NY 12130. Carline herself monitors this mailbox.