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Project C.U.R.E. Sets Up For Long Haul In Haiti

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Jan 25, 2010 2:36 pm US/Mountain

Project C.U.R.E. Sets Up For Long Haul In Haiti

Good Question: When does the need go long term?

Written by Alan Gionet

Reporting
Alan Gionet
DENVER (CBS4) ― "Sometimes you're packing and you're not quite sure who you're packing for," said one of the volunteers in the chilly, cavernous warehouse where Project C.U.R.E. sorts through medical supplies.

The temperature was about 45 inside, hearts were warmer.

"We're going to be helping for a long time," said another. "This is just the beginning."

Project C.U.R.E. is more of a long-term than a short-term aid organization. It delivers containers filled with sorted medical supplies to more than 100 impoverished countries.

"If you make the commitment to be long term you're going to be there. If you make the commitment to be there short term you have to decide we're leaving today," said Dr. Doug Jackson, Project C.U.R.E. President and CEO.

Jackson figures they'll be in Haiti for a while and Project C.U.R.E. is planning. When Turkey was hit by a major earthquake in 1999, they worked to restore hospitals for four years.

"You know we always talk about relief and development in the same breath like it's the same thing and it's not," said Jackson.

As the days and weeks pass, the shape of aid will change.

"At that point people will start to transition out. There won't be a day, some people will leave and go to the next crisis -- and there will be another crisis."

That's how international aid organizations become fragmented. Haiti's needs are so great, and so long term, only certain types of organizations will stick with it and often beyond the work of foreign governments. The ones that leave, leave with work behind them.

"They may have exhausted their resources or they may feel like we've got everything done that we've been here to do."

Right now people are getting hospital treatment in hastily-constructed hospitals in the open air and in tents. But Project C.U.R.E. can't ship much yet.

"Everything that we typically send, we send in a 40-foot cargo container, it's an ocean freight, the size of a semi-truck trailer. Well the cranes don't work and the road into the port doesn't work, so nobody's off-loading ships, so you can't move the large volume of things that you could before. So now we're doing it all on aircraft which is horrendously expensive," Jackson said.

That simply makes no sense with the weight and size of much hospital equipment sent by Project C.U.R.E.

Project C.U.R.E. already had a container filled with medical equipment and supplies on its way to Haiti when the earthquake hit. Since there was nowhere for it to go, it is sitting the Bahamas, waiting.

The hundreds of millions of dollars of aid that will pour into Haiti will go to temporary solutions for now, because they have to. The government is working with international organizations to construct tent cities. Given Haiti's poverty, there's a real fear that people may never be able to leave them -- much in the same way that people provided with trailer homes after Hurricane Katrina stayed there longer than planned -- and that was in the richest country in the world.

Additional Resources

CBS4 is teaming up with King Soopers and American Furniture Warehouse to help with disaster relief efforts in Haiti. (More)

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