A Vancouver-based relief agency is preparing to send a seven-person team to Haiti, including three nurses.
The goal is to establish the groundwork for long-term rebuilding projects, said Joe Anfuso, founder and president of Forward Edge International.
But the Jan. 27 trip also will be a good opportunity to bring some medical professionals with experience in disaster relief to the earthquake ravaged nation.
“As long as we’re going, we want to bring health care professionals,” Anfuso said.
“One nurse has extensive disaster experience. She was in El Salvador within 24 hours of an earthquake there,” Anfuso said.
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The group also will bring medical supplies.
“Right now, things are totally chaotic. We’re going in 12 days, so the situation will be more organized than it is now,” Anfuso said Friday morning in his office near Pleasant Valley.
o Forward Edge International (www.forwardedge.org) is collecting donations that will be matched dollar for dollar by other donors; it also is compiling a list of volunteers who would be available to do reconstruction work in Haiti.
o Local branches of Chase Bank are accepting donations for a Vancouver-based nonprofit that supports Haitian relief projects. Donations can be made in the name of “Haiti Foundation of Hope.”
o A human milk bank based at Portland’s Adventist Medical Center is seeking breast milk donations for babies in Haiti. Call 1-866-998-4550.
Four members of the team will undertake what Anfuso calls “a scouting trip.” They will work with groups in Haiti to establish long-term partnerships.
“We rely on locals,” Anfuso said. “The people need to have ownership.”
With its Haitian partners, Forward Edge International will identify project sites and create a support system that can accommodate volunteers.
o Forward Edge International (www.forwardedge.org) is collecting donations that will be matched dollar for dollar by other donors; it also is compiling a list of volunteers who would be available to do reconstruction work in Haiti.
o Local branches of Chase Bank are accepting donations for a Vancouver-based nonprofit that supports Haitian relief projects. Donations can be made in the name of "Haiti Foundation of Hope."
o A human milk bank based at Portland's Adventist Medical Center is seeking breast milk donations for babies in Haiti. Call 1-866-998-4550.
“We anticipate sending hundreds — if not thousands — of volunteers to Haiti,” Anfuso said. “We anticipate being there for years.”
Anfuso calls Forward Edge International a “phase II” organization, which goes to work after the first responders have moved on to other disasters.
“It’s about long-term recovery,” Anfuso said. “We’re still involved in the Gulf Coast.”
Since Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005, “we’ve sent 3,000 volunteers there.”
That’s what the organization is good at, said Bob Craddock, program director of mission teams.
“Our skill set is organizing,” Craddock said. “We’re about mobilizing volunteers, so they can use their skills.”
Craddock also hopes to be part of a much bigger relief effort involving many agencies.
“Last night, I talked with World Vision,” a relief agency based in Federal Way, Craddock said. “One of our hopes is that walls will be down between organizations. The only way things can get done is if organizations partner together.”
But Haiti — the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere — shapes up as a huge challenge.
“It’s the lack of infrastructure,” Anfuso said. “I was in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. Colombo is a fairly developed city. Haiti had poor roads already.”
Craddock offered an example of the problem. He talked Thursday night with a woman who ran an orphanage outside the capital of Port-au-Prince.
“They can’t be reached,” Craddock said. “She asked, ‘Do you have a helicopter?’”
He had to tell her, “I don’t.”
“We’re not a large organization,” Anfuso said. “We focus on the manageable. We can’t rebuild Haiti, but we can make a difference — one family at a time, one community at a time.”
Tom Vogt: 360-735-4558 or tom.vogt@columbian.com.
