Global Red Cross Network

Global Red Cross network is an organization that is helping the Haitians recover from the January earthquake in the largest single country response in its history (American red cross, 2010).

As rubble fills many side streets in Haiti's capital. Tents and tarps cover nearly every open space, and land ownership is still unresolved, leaving few places to build the thousands of much needed transitional shelters, threats of crime and infectious disease outbreaks are prevalent. All this has made the Red Cross to be the selected organization with a focus on Earthquake relief in Haiti.

According to Redcross (2010) 'the Red Cross is focusing its recovery efforts in areas like  Port-au-Prince, Jacmel, Leogane, and some rural communities with their key programs being offering emergency relief, providing transitional and permanent housing, providing water and sanitation facilities, providing health and hygiene education, offering livelihood and host family grants and also providing disaster preparedness and disaster reduction training'. The challenges facing Haitian families together with government, NGOs and the Red Cross are enormous raging from resolving land ownership and removing rubble to the threat of potential hurricanes.

According to Haiti Assistance Program's CEO,  American Red Cross, 2010 'during the six months that he made trips to Haiti, he was left with a mixture of hope and despair since there was tremendous progress on recovery of Haitians but also there was an immense need that still remained to be done. He could see people walking through the streets in despair and shock but he said he now saw them living in tarps or tents.'

Many Haitians have more reliable supplies of food, clean water, sanitation and better health (American Red Cross, 2010). This has been made possible because of the American Red Cross which has spent and signed agreements to spend $183.5 million to meet the most pressing needs of the earthquake survivors. The money has been realized through donors and this is making the Haitians receive its immediate relief and long-term support and training to help them recover and build (Red Cross 2010).

In conclusion the crisis in Haiti is not over and the recovery process will be long and difficult. People must rebuild their homes, economy, health systems, schools and transport system. All this cannot be effected by Red Cross as the total budget is an estimated $12 billion which is needed to rebuild Haiti. This requires the collective efforts of governments and the humanitarian groups around the world. In many cases, providing assistance post earthquake will mean building what did not exist before January 12 (American Red Cross, 2010)