Topic: Crisis Response

The rain in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro began late on Wednesday, January 12th, and in a few hours had left over 650 dead and thousands homeless in eight counties.

CARE has provided urgently needed food and emergency supplies to 6,000 people in flood-ravaged Sri Lanka and we are rapidly scaling up our response.

January 12, 2010 starts out like any other day at the beginning of the year: streets are full of children on their way to school, people going to work, street vendors, cars that fight over each inch of the road. We cross each other without seeing one another: too busy, too distracted.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (January 11, 2011) – When the earth shook in Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, a humanitarian catastrophe without precedent followed. The earthquake hit Haiti in the heart, claiming more than 220,000 lives and destroying over 188,000 buildings. And like any country that suffers such a mega-disaster, Haiti was a place in great need.

If a writer was looking to name the protagonist of a story set in post-quake Haiti, he or she could not have chosen better. Max Charitable is part of CARE’s health team in Léogâne, a town west of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince that suffered major damage from the January 12 earthquake. And the 46 year-old community worker wears his last name quite well.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (November 22, 2010) – As the cholera epidemic in Haiti continues to spread with lethal speed, CARE International stresses the need for a joint and long-term effort by the Haitian government and international partners to tackle the lack of water infrastructure and poor hygiene standards throughout the country.

The sun is shining, dogs are barking, and the wind is blowing. This could be a normal day in Gonaïves. But it’s not. Streets are empty, kids are not in school and mothers are concerned. As I was with a Community Volunteers team, we were training women on how to purify the water they sell with chlorox that CARE is providing them. A woman showed up. Wearing a mask, she was scared to approach me, scared to touch anyone else.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (November 11, 2010) – Haiti’s government reports a sharp increase in the number of Haitians killed and hospitalized by an outbreak of cholera. According to Haiti’s Ministry of Health, 11,125 people have been hospitalized with cholera as of November 9. 724 people are reported dead.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (November 8, 2010) – Hurricane Tomas passed immediately west of Haiti Friday, bringing hurricane-force winds and several inches of rain to a country where more than 1.2 million remain without permanent shelter since January's devastating earthquake. Haiti is also in the midst of a cholera outbreak that has left 544 dead and 8,138 hospitalized.