Haiti Earthquake Relief Donor Advised Fund (DAF)

Haiti Earthquake Relief Donor Advised Fund
...update at July 21, 2010
(Update from PRID Barry Rassin)

The Account Holders of the Haiti Earthquake Relief Donor Advised Fund at The Rotary Foundation are working hard at coordinating requests for projects, gathering necessary additional information, and allocating dollars to start projects. The review of every project includes coordination and consultation with local Rotarians as well as with The Haiti Task Force and District 7020.

In our continuing desire to maintain transparency we report the following information:

-- 40 Requests have been received
-- 1 has been completed - $30,000 for immunization in Leogane (DAF #6)
-- 9 have been approved to proceed
-- 2 have been withdrawn
-- 2 need further minor clarification
-- 26 need additional information and forms

The nine (9) Approved projects as of July 20, 2010:

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DAF #1 – Ecole St. Famille in Les Cayes
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Rebuilding of the school for about 300 children. DAF will fund $50,000, District 7020 will fund $20,000, SOS will fund $20,000. Total project is $122,392. Balance needed is $32,392. Rotary Club of Les Cayes in District 7020 is the sponsor.

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DAF #2 – Prosthetics using the Jaipur Limb
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The details of the project are still being developed, but the DAF committee supports the need to provide prosthetics.

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DAF #4 – Providing for a medical clinic in Kenscoff for women and children
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The final budget is being completed. DAF will fund $40,000 of the $80,000 project. The balance is funded by District 6990, the clubs in the Upper Keys of Florida.

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DAF #5 – The College Catherine Flon in Carrefour – Rebuilding the College
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The DAF will fund $100,000 of the $400,000 project. The balance of the funding is pending. District 7570 is the sponsor district.

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DAF #8 – Midwives in Henche
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A vehicle is being provided to get the Midwives to the patients as needed. The DAF will fund $10,000 of the $60,000 project. The RC of Western Henrico of 7600 is the sponsor club.

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DAF #13 – Containers and shipping
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Rotary in Canada has gathered school supplies and furniture, and the DAF has agreed to fund $21,000 to purchase the containers and ship them to Haiti. London, Ontario, and District 6330 are the sponsors.

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DAF #17 – Ecole Normal des Cayes – Rebuilding of the school for 400 children
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The DAF will fund $60,000 of the $120,092 project. We need other clubs and districts to support this project to complete the funding gap. The Rotary Club of Les Cayes is the sponsor.

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DAF #37 – Training Midwives
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This project will provide training to 50 individuals to develop their skills as midwives. The DAF will fund all $34,540 for the training. The Rotary Club of Pignon is the sponsor.

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DAF #39 – The Good Samaritan School in Ile a Vache
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This project is to rebuild the school for 200 students. The DAF will fund $51,000 and the Rotary Club of Tortola will fund the balance of $52,000. The Rotary Club of Tortola in District 7020 is the sponsor club.

So far we are involved in projects worth almost $1 million.

In many of the next phase of projects, we will need additional funding sources so ask all clubs and districts to continue to look at projects with us to help us get the children back to school by October.

NOTE: See the map below in more detail. Follow the link at the top right of the screen under FORMS AND LINKS - (8) DAF Project Update, July 21, 2010. The entire posting is available for download and printing.

June 7, 2010 - Haiti Action Summary

June 7, 2010 - Extraordinary Day
Extraordinary Trip
Extraordinary Meeting
Extraordinary Achievements
...written and distributed by PDG Dick McCombe

I wanted to provide a very brief synopsis of our Extraordinary Day today spent in Port au Prince Haiti with our Haiti Task Force. I needed to do so because you have not heard from me in some time. In addition, this was one of the most successful Rotary Days I believe I have ever experienced and want to share it.

The primary purpose of the trip was to have the Donor Advised Fund (DAF) Account Holders go to Haiti to meet the Task Force. The DAF Account Holders are made up of the following Rotarians

-- Rotary Vice President and current Board member Eric Adamson
-- PRID Bob Stuart
-- PRID Barry Rassin
-- RIDE John Smarge

They wanted to listen to, and understand, the needs as defined and expressed by the Rotary Clubs of Haiti and the Haiti leadership Team. They also wanted to understand from the senior people in the Haitian Government, responsible for Education in Haiti, what their plans were and what recommendations they had.

The Account Holders also wanted to reach a consensus on our direction forward based on these discussions.

In addition, it was an opportunity for them to establish the criteria and procedural requirements that will need to be met to receive funding.

There was a VERY productive meeting on that, and PRID Barry Rassin will elaborate in much more detail. A Special Thank you again to Barry for his commitment to our great District.

In addition to that, we were dealing with three other major issues:

(1) Firstly the current status of the Rotary NGO in Haiti, ROTAH,
(2) Secondly The Jaipur Limb Project, and
(3) Thirdly the status and release information on the containers we shipped.

(1) Current status of the Rotary NGO in Haiti, ROTAH. On the First item I must say I am absolutely ecstatic about the news on ROTAH. I was presented with a copy of the document signed by the Prime Minister, etc., as proof that the process has been completed. Within days, the official published certificate will be in hand, and published in Haiti.

This was an enormous undertaking that has taken us three years and through some of the most difficult challenges and obstacles you can imagine. But we believed in it, and it is a reality today.

I want to recognize, and thank, DGN Guy Theodore, Dr. Claude Surena, and PDG Amos Durosier for everything they have done. This approval was in the true sense of the word “raised from the rubble” after the earthquake and it would not have been possible without the persistence of these fine Rotarians. THANK YOU!!!!

(2) Jaipur Limb Project. The second item was the Jaipur Limb project. We have agreed that we would undertake this as one of our primary earthquake relief responses, and are now moving forward with the consensus of all the Haitian clubs and leaders to proceed.

We believe a modified version which includes a mobile clinic will be the best one, and we will immediately begin to define the scope of the project with the new conditions applied. It is likely that the DAF would provide some seed funding for this as well, if it is required, although we do not believe that to be the case.

(3) The containers we shipped. The third item was the status of the relief containers and the release of them. Again we have very good news here. For those who do not know, PDG Amos Durosier heads up the Anti-Corruption unit of the Haitian government. His involvement with the top levels of the Haitian government is daily, so he knows them all personally and well. The release documents have been signed off by the Ministry of Interior and Planning Department (I think I have that right), and will be delivered to the Minister of Finance today as we fly back to
Nassau or tomorrow.

PDG Amos has already presented this to the Minister of Finance, and he assured Amos that he will sign off on it as soon as it touches his desk. He also said he would be sure to ask for it so it reached his desk immediately.

For those of you who know Haiti, we have done the equivalent of moving a mountain here. We went the legitimate process all above board and got it done. A very special congratulations to all the fellow Haitian Rotarians who made this possible, and there were many.

Going forward, our NGO status with ROTAH takes all of the challenges we have had with this shipment off the table, as the shipment goes Directly to Customs with our Status Certificate.

When we left, we felt the Task Force was untied and organized and fully up to the challenges ahead.

We are in flight on the way back to Nassau, (3 1/2 hours each way) and I think I can say that I speak for everyone on the plane. It was a GREAT DAY !!!!

Many more details to follow, but as always,our Supreme Rotarian PRID Barry Rassin will be putting out a comprehensive summary covering everything.

Thanks to Vance Johnson our pilot, and Odyssey for their great support.

PDG Dick

March 30, 2010 - Haiti Action Summary

Another Mini update March 30, 2010
...written and distributed by PDG Dick McCombe

I have been remiss in not updating all of you on the continued progress with our Haiti Relief effort. As I mentioned in the last update, our mid-term focus was going to be

-- schools
-- to complete the consolidation of relief supplies on the way to Haiti
-- to help facilitate that exercise through our Charter from Nassau.

This charter is leaving with 68 20’-Containers or equivalents on it FULL of Rotary supplied or coordinated Relief supplies.

Many Districts and Clubs have continued to send relief goods to be consolidated and shipped through our shipper in the US. Thanks to Larry Labadie and Phil Lustig, this has gone well state side.

There has been one disappointment with this exercise but I believe it has been resolved. The ship was to have left 3 weeks ago, but due to the following, it has been delayed and leaves next week.

The first obstacle was that we needed to get approval from the Bahamian Government to transship the ship load of containers through the Bahamas. This was necessary because some of the containers (23) were being filled in Nassau from Relief Supplies sourced in and through Nassau, which meant that they had to be off-loaded
here.

This approval process took a bit over a week. When approval had been received, it took an additional week for ACL to coordinate the container movement to Nassau. The approval unfortunately came after the ship was scheduled for another Humanitarian trip to Haiti that had delays in the offloading. What does that mean? We are running very late!!!!!

We have containers of medical supplies, tents, Xtra Large School tents, building materials for school desks and benches, ambulances, buses, trucks, hospital beds, awnings, beds and mats, clothing, some food and water items, prepackaged meals, and much much more. When the containers arrive in Haiti, they will be distributed to the selected communities that they have been packed for by Chatelain Cargo, a fellow Haitian Rotarian, so we are confident that that exercise will be swift.

On arrival in the communities, the Rotarians will erect the tents and begin to make space for the expanded population of students while local labour will assemble the desks and chairs and get paid for doing so. This should help with the kids in school and add some local employment.

At our Haiti Task Force meeting in Miami, we had asked the Rotary Clubs through the Assistant Governors to submit their needs lists so we could allocate additional resources depending on the latest needs identified. Unfortunately we are still waiting for submissions from some Club Presidents, and have others that are requests for well beyond what our funding capabilities are. We are working through this but it is taking some time.

Once we have all the information consolidated, we will try to make it available to all clubs in Zones 33 and 34.

We are anxiously awaiting the final draft of the PDNA and the scheduled review of the document by all parties. Unfortunately this information has also been hard to come by in any reliable form, so we are standing by for the information and ready to move when we get it.

Finally, the rainy season has begun, and the challenges in Haiti for Shelter and Health issues will only grow exponentially, so pray hard and hope what we do achieve will make a difference to those that need it most.

PDG Dick