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 Six months after the earthquake, the head of a Scottish charity has returned to Haiti to find the most notable progress is being made by ordinary people working on a small scale.
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, the founder of Mary’s Meals, was in Port-au-Prince, where his organisation provides daily school meals for thousands of hungry children.
"Life in Port au Prince is very much as it was in January," he says, "it is going on almost normally, except in the midst of ruins and rubble there are clusters of tents everywhere - between buildings, in the central reservations on the roads and underneath petrol station canopies."
"It has been raining heavily, so in amongst the tents there is mud and squalor. In some places it is incredibly dangerous, with bits of masonry hanging off and rubble on the pavements. People are still very frightened - even in places where the buildings haven't fallen down, they are choosing not to go in."
While Magnus reported little evidence of rebuilding on a large scale in the capital, in the heart of Cite Soleil, a giant slum known before the earthquake for deprivation and lawlessness, he met teams of local people who were working by hand to rebuild their communities and the schools where Mary’s Meals operates.
"Our projects in Cite Soleil are a hive of activity," he says. "At one school there was a team of local people filling cement mixers. The quake had caused protrusions in the playground, so the team had had to hack them away and make a smooth new playground area. There are barefoot kids everywhere, walking around like inspectors, looking at everything that is going on."
The schools in Cite Soleil have reopened, with some classes taking place in makeshift buildings while the main structures are repaired. Groups of Haitian women work together to prepare a daily meal of rice and stew for the children – in some cases their only guaranteed source of nutrition.
"The meal that is being provided for these children ensures that they get something to eat every day, and enables and encourages them to come to school," explains Magnus. "That gives them a sense of routine and stability amid the chaos, and we know that education is their best chance of escaping the poverty trap."
While Mary’s Meals’ main focus remains school feeding, in the aftermath of the earthquake it has extended its programme to provide meals for other vulnerable people, in particularly the elderly, who can find it difficult to access other aid.
"Mary’s Meals is providing a daily sit-down meal for elderly people in school during the week, and take home rations at the weekend," explained Magnus. "I joined them one day and it was something of an occasion with lots of singing and dancing.
"A lot of elderly people have been left unsupported because their families have moved away since the earthquake - they really need this support and we intend to continue to give it for the foreseeable future. If it wasn't for Mary's Meals, I don't think the children, or the elderly people would be getting fed."
The progress made in Haiti so far has only been possible thanks to the generosity of schools, community groups and volunteer fundraisers from across Scotland.
Efforts ranged from contributions at the Lord Provost of Glasgow’s Burns supper, to Dumbarton policeman Willie Crowe’s 100-man sponsored leg wax, school ‘Hats for Haiti’ days and a dinner dance on Orkney. Volunteers organised collections from Dundee to Oban to the Celtic Connections festival.
"We want to thank the people of Scotland for their generosity to those facing hardship in Haiti," said Abeer Macintyre, Mary’s Meals’ lead fundraiser. "Their goodwill helped us in the days after the earthquake, and now it is helping us to make a long term contribution to children’s future."
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