“The Church has dozens and dozens of reconstruction projects, but the technical preparatory stages are long and difficult,” he said.
Archbishop Auza was among the first residents to convey news of the disaster to international media in 2010. Two years after, he sees the recovery efforts lacking direction and momentum.
“The reconstruction in Haiti was and is particularly difficult and expensive because everything is imported, even the sand,” he noted.
In a further complication, an international commission that had been helping with the rebuilding lost its mandate on Oct. 21. Now, Archbishop Auza said, “there is no longer a structure or an institution that guides or directs the efforts.”
“Parliament has yet to address the issue, and the question is not in the legislative program. The issues of management on who manages the funds, and especially who gets the contracts, are very hot these days.”
Under these circumstances, Catholic Relief Services' new president says communities must be empowered to deal with their own local needs.
Carolyn Woo, who became the organization's president and CEO on Jan. 1, recently visited Haiti together with her predecessor Ken Hackett and Catholic Relief Services board chairman Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas.
In a report on their visit, Woo and Hackett said they were “impressed with what has been accomplished” in Haiti, “and equally struck by the amount of work still to do.”
They explained that Catholic Relief Services' strategy of local self-empowerment was necessary “to get this recovery right for Haiti,” and have “ordinary Haitians – who had lost so much – leading their own reconstruction in dignified and sustainable ways.”
Some of these ways include organizing local cleaning and building crews, making loans and grants to entrepreneurs, and providing small-scale technology that can be easily used by individuals.
Woo says Catholic Relief Services “doesn't pretend we can solve the myriad problems in Haiti” but is committed to “working with communities – not for them,” as they forge their own future.
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