A 'Thank You' From Compassion

After hearing of the terrible earthquake in Haiti last month we took a collection for the work of the charity Compassion who do a lot of work in the country. We received reply from the CEO of Compassion UK this week, and as I found it both inspiring and challenging I thought it would be good to share.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your incredible generosity in response to Compassion's Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I can't fully express what a vital difference it is already making.

Haiti has a special place in my heart as I've visited there many times over my 10 years at Compassion. Before this disaster, Haiti was the most desperately poor place I've ever been to; now it's unimaginable. Currently, funds are being used for the disbursement of critical medical supplies, food, water and other relief items. The second and more difficult phase will be to begin rebuilding shattered lives, but the task is immense. Our in-country staff are still trying to assess how many of our children and their families have perished or been injured. In the wake of the earthquake many people have fled to make-shift tent cities and camps, making this assessment a very difficult task. 38 of our projects run by our local church partners have either been destroyed or severely damaged, with many staff either injured or unaccounted for.

Compassion's Haiti staff are of course victims too. I learnt yesterday about Rejouir Reteau. a driver/messenger at our Port au Prince office. Rejouir's hope for the future was his daughter who he had scrimped and saved for to send to university. She was to become a doctor with a world of opportunity Rejouir never knew. She was studying at university the day of the quake and was trapped and crushed in the rubble. Rejouir rushed to save her. He heard her cries for "daddy" from under the rubble and he answered., "I'm coming baby". For two days, he and others dug fervently through rubble with their bare hands, in the process pulling out six others alive. Rose Esther's cries to her daddy gradually became weaker and eventually stopped; she perished.

Don't let anyone tell you this was simply a natural disaster, because what happened in Haiti is much worse than that. It was a human disaster; a consequence of the injustice of poverty. In 1994 an earthquake of similar magnitude struck Los Angeles, a city 10 times the size of Port au Prince. Sixty people perished that day; 230,000 died in Haiti so far. The difference? Inadequate building codes and standards, and the absence of lifting equipment and medical provision. All the consequence of poverty and neglect.

Haiti is already out of the headlines but we, The Church, must do more to end the injustice of extreme poverty. I don't think governments are going to or it would have happened already. We must ensure Rose Esther and the other tens of thousands who perished in Haiti were the start of a cause to see the end of such injustice.

I'm sorry this isn't a very up-beat thank you. We are of course so grateful and we'll continue to work tirelessly for our brothers and sisters in Haiti. But let's do more; let's conspire to end such injustice. We're working on something we're calling the 'compassion conspiracy'. If you'd like to hear more when we've fully shaped this, let me know.

Warmest greetings and my heartfelt thanks,

Ian Hamilton

CEO/Compassion UK

If you'd like to give to Compassion's ongoing work in Haiti then you can do so via their appeal page on the website.

Jez

Posted by: Jez Cromie on Wednesday Feb 24th, 2010

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