A staff member with Doctors Without Borders offers an insider’s view of the organization’s medical relief work in Haiti and how your thoughts and prayers are helping those in need.

In the days and weeks after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, beyond donating money, many of us felt helpless. What was most needed, of course, were doctors to help the wounded. Tonic spoke with Toronto-based staff member Isabelle Jeanson at the Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical relief group Doctors Without Borders/Médecins sans frontières (MSF) about daily life on the ground. Here’s her first-person account, as told to Tonic writer Darragh Worland.

Our plane touched down in Port-au Prince on Jan. 14 at 4:50 p.m. – exactly 48 hours after the earthquake. It had taken us 24 hours to travel the short distance from Toronto to Haiti, and we had no idea of what lay ahead. We couldn’t really absorb the full extent of the damage on the drive from the airport to the city, because the quake had wiped out all power and it was already dark.

One of our offices in a house that we rent in a neighborhood called Pétionville was surprisingly unaffected, so that became our base. The staff there had felt the building shake, but there was no damage to the structure. Our hospitals were all damaged, but the offices themselves weren’t as affected.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we saw how bad it was. You see the images on TV and in photos, but you cannot understand the destruction until you are there. It was like a war zone; like a bomb had gone off. Concrete buildings just completely collapsed or were twisted in half. There would be one building reduced to rubble standing next to another that was barely damaged at all. The damage was absolutely nonsensical.

In one neighborhood called Carrefour, medical personnel had set up makeshift tarps on the street outside of a hospital that had been destroyed. A lot of them were students who weren’t even qualified to be doctors. Everywhere there were people with horrendous wounds. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life, because you wouldn’t see that kind of thing on TV. They were lacking supplies, they didn’t even have alcohol, but they were suturing wounds and doing the best they could to help.

I had arrived with three logistics people with us and two nurses, both Americans who had been with Doctors Without Borders for 20 years. We already had about 200 ex-pat staff on the ground, about 80 to 100 of which were doctors, with the other half being logistics and administrative staff. They were all affected by the earthquake. We lost about eight to ten national staff ourselves, people we knew and worked with on a regular basis.

This was a unique kind of emergency for us. We’ve never been so personally affected, where we ourselves were victims. It was a double whammy and that made it hard for us to continue with our work. We had a memorial service in Port-au-Prince while I was there. It was especially hard for me because I have been working with Haiti for three years and I’d already visited twice. I never imagined anything like this could happen.

We set up tents outside the office where we slept in sleeping bags on mattresses that we had in storage laid out on the floor. There were 15-20 of us all sharing the one bathroom in the office. On the worst nights, we’d get maybe four hours of sleep; on the best it was closer to six. But you just have to get up. It doesn’t matter how tired you are. Knowing there are people out there who need you, you just go, go, go, mostly running on adrenaline.

Doctors Without Borders has what we call “hospital kits” – huge, huge containers full of tents and equipment that can be assembled on the ground into temporary hospitals, which are really a series of interconnected tents. Each tent is about the size of a small house. The walls are blown up with air, so they smell just like a new inflatable raft. Then all the wiring and plumbing is installed. Even though I have worked with MSF for almost eight years now, it’s still mind-boggling to me that we can put this stuff together. At best, it takes a full 48 hours to get it all up and ready.

The biggest problem is finding appropriate terrain to set up and this was especially hard in Haiti. We need a flat surface, about the size of a football field. Luckily, that’s exactly what we found: a football field behind a school that hadn’t been claimed by any of the other groups or militaries. We don’t have nearly the resources of the military, but we’re really good at adapting to any situation. We bring in our own generators for power; we ship in water; and we have the technology to purify water.

My job as an emergency press officer is to act as a buffer between the media and the teams but, in Haiti, I also acted as an ear for dozens of the wounded. It was very frustrating for me. I wish I could have done something more. I wish I was a doctor. I found the best thing I could do was to walk around the wards and let people talk, which they seemed to appreciate. Just to let people know that you care is extremely important. It’s the solidarity and the compassion that is comforting on some level. I met so many people that I’m still thinking about today.

There was one girl in particular, a 19-year-old named Sinthia Chéri. She had a terrible wound on her thigh. She had been trapped under a piece of concrete for a long time, so the tissue had begun to necrotize. In a case like that, the doctors first have to remove all the dead tissue, which leaves a gaping wound too big to close. The wound is then bandaged and monitored, cleaned out regularly. We saw a lot of this kind of injury in Haiti.

Sinthia was special. She was so outgoing. Even though she was in a lot of pain, she wanted to hang out on her bed, talk about clothes and just be a regular teenager. Her optimism was amazing to me. I never guessed that she had such a tragic story, until a doctor who had seen us talking told me that Sinthia had lost her baby in the quake. She had given birth on Jan. 4. After the quake, they had nowhere to go. The two of them were sleeping in the streets, where it gets really cold at night.

I think the baby died of cold, about a week later, but I didn’t question her too much. When I asked her about it and why she hadn’t told me, she didn’t want to talk about it at first. She didn’t want to dwell on it. She was really sad. I’ve been worried about her, because the day before I left, she started to develop a fever. I’ve sent emails to find out how she’s doing, but I haven’t heard anything yet.

Now that I’m home, all I want to do is go back. Some of our staff will be there for months. The most immediate needs are shelter reconstruction and an economic boost. After the people regain their health, they need a place to live and work. When I was there, a lot of young men approached us and asked us for work. We were hiring staff, but there were huge lines of people applying for one job. The people are desperate to make some kind of income. Most people don’t have the money to rebuild their house, so they are at a loss of how to find a new home. For now, they live in temporary shelters, with bed sheets attached to sticks and trees. Others sleep on sidewalks or in the streets. Cars have to be careful at night not to run people over.

Doctors Without Borders has the supplies to provide care, but the health care system in Haiti is not working. Some people will need long-term care in rehabilitative hospitals and plastic surgery, especially burn victims. But for all those who cannot donate, words of solidarity are incredibly comforting. Finding bloggers and sending comments of support or participating in online forums, chat rooms and Twitter to send messages of solidarity can also contribute in their own way.

I have never had the chance to say this to anyone, but the response from the public was outstanding. When you’re working on the ground, that kind of solidarity is absolutely inspiring. The responses on our blog brought tears to my eyes. People wrote heartfelt, sincere words of encouragement, like “hang in there” and “you can do it.” That kind of stuff is so helpful on the ground. That is huge, absolutely massive to get that kind of feedback from people.

To donate, go to Doctors Without Borders.

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A micro-credit program and banking system for more than 200,000 women in Haiti has come to the rescue of the overall economy in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

At a time when Haitian commercial banks remain closed, Fonkoze, the Haitian branch of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, mobilized over one weekend to get funds to its members in rural towns as well as Port-au-Prince.

Between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m., last Saturday, January 23, Fonkoze brought in two million dollars in cash from their U.S. bank and distributed it by helicopters to regional offices in the most remote parts of the country.

That got money flowing again. The cash came from Haitians working abroad who had sent funds — called remittances — to their relatives.

Also known as Haiti’s, “Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor,” Fonkoze found a way to get money to its members through the 34 of its 41 branch offices still open after the earthquake. It had a lot of help in high places: the U.S. Secretary of State, top Treasury and Defense Department officials, the Federal Reserve, the Agency for International Development, the United Nations, the Inter-American Development Bank and more.

The operation read like a cloak-and-dagger saga. Anne Hastings, the CEO of Fonkoze Financial Services, was point person on shaping the unorthodox solution. It involved many conference calls to Washington, New York and Miami, as well as intricate strategies with managers on the ground in Haiti who would get the money to the women.

By Friday, January 22, the plan was ready. Remittances from U.S.-based Haitians deposited in Fonkoze’s accounts at City National Bank of New Jersey were sent to JP Morgan Chase in Miami, converted into cash — and packed in office supply boxes. An armored vehicle then transferred the boxes to Homestead Air Force Base.

A C-17 plane, diverted from Langley Air Force Base, landed at Homestead at 3 a.m. Saturday, took on the camouflaged cargo of cash, and flew to Haiti, where the major airport at Port-au-Prince has been under U.S. military control since the earthquake.

Once there, Hastings and two other Fonkoze executives inspected the cash cargo — and called the Pentagon to say so far, so good. Under a military escort, the Fonkoze vehicle loaded with the boxes of cash awaited the two helicopters that could fly the money to 10 designated drop-off locations.

Fonkoze’s Jean-Guy Noel rode with the helicopters as they began deliveries before dawn. Seven hours later, all the cash had been delivered and the helicopters were back in Port-au-Prince. By early afternoon, the cash had been distributed to the 34 Fonkoze branches. Almost immediately, the Fonkoze managers began giving Fonkoze members cash from their relatives, a financial lifeline at a time when the formal banking system is in shambles and remittances sent through it from overseas Haitians remain locked up.

Jennifer Harris, a member of the policy staff of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a memo to Pentagon officials released by Fonkoze, spelled out the implications of the combined State-Defense operation.

“Fonkoze has by far the deepest reach into the country’s rural poor, a remittance network that would take years to recreate from scratch. As people continue to migrate from Port-au-Prince, Fonkoze’s branch network will become even more essential,” she said. “Perhaps most important, unlike the commercial banks, Fonkoze has re-opened many of its branches and has continued to pay out remittances using its cash on hand.”

In essence, she said, the unconventional operation “may well have stabilized the banking system for the country’s most vulnerable population.”

Fonkoze has been operating in Haiti for 15 years. Ninety-nine percent of its members are women. By midweek, it expects all but three of its branches to be open. In the heavily damaged capital city, Fonkoze managers set up shop at a makeshift office in the courtyard next to its damaged headquarters—as hundreds of Haitians lined up to get the money due them.

In addition to micro-lending programs, Fonkoze sponsors major literacy, health care and micro-insurance programs. Its remittances and savings accounts serve more than 200,000 people, making it a significant part of the country’s financial system. Relatives of Fonkoze members working abroad use its conduits to send back money — “that taxi driver in New York City who wants to send fifty dollars to his mother,” says Leigh Carter, Fonkoze USA fundraiser — amounting to $57.7 million last year.

It also serves as a vendor for three other remittance services that still operate after the earthquake: MoneyGram, CAM and Unitransfer. The process is a lifeline for a country where, in 2007, 79 percent of Haitians lived on less than $2 a day and 55 percent lived on half that.

Fonkoze’s micro-lending program has four different levels. The first step is for the poorest of the poor and may involve home repairs and health care, as well as building the confidence of the women as they plan to start a micro-enterprise. Next the women may qualify for small loans — perhaps only $25 — with a short repayment period, while they enroll in literacy classes. In Haiti, more than 50 percent of people are illiterate.

The third level is the core: a “solidarity” group in which friends take out loans together, then morph into credit centers of 30 to 40 women. These women can start out borrowing $75, but if they prosper they can borrow up to $1,300 for six months.

The fourth level focuses on business development. Some women in this group borrow up to $25,000 and are being nurtured to become part of the formal economy, creating jobs in rural areas where there are few employment opportunities.

It isn’t the first time that a micro-lending network of mostly women has taken a lead role in helping rebuild a country’s economy after a natural disaster. In Poland, after a devastating flood in the mid-1990s, the U.S.-backed Fundusz Mikro became the conduit for credit to small businesses, ultimately funneling more than $10 million to rebuild when the central government proved inept and also tone-deaf to the challenge.

Leigh Carter, who broke several vertebrae in her back getting out of the Fonkoze headquarters building during the earthquake and was airlifted out days later, is back at work in Washington. She says multinational economic and financial leaders already are talking to Fonkoze about ways to use their extensive network of micro-lending programs for programs to rebuild the Haitian economic base.

“People are coming to us saying ‘you need to expand your capacity,’” she said.

But first things first: the immediate priority had to be getting cash to its members, throughout Haiti, from their friends and relatives abroad, which in itself expands members ability to survive and rebuild.

Fonkoze has had strong success working with microfinance programs to improve lives of suffering women and their families. This program, Chemen Lavi Miyo, which means “Pathway to a Better Life” in Haitian creole, is testing a new approach to helping those living in extreme poverty to transition into a sustainable way of life. This highly structured and intensive program combines livelihoods and basic support with training and financial management so that at the end of just 18 months, participants will be equipped with the skills and a business plan to move themselves out of poverty. “What we want to demonstrate,” says Anne Hastings, director of the program, is that there is a “proven, replicable, methodology for accompanying people as they struggle to make their way out of these conditions into a …decent standard of living.” Fonkoze is now leading microfinance programs that will help rebuild Port-au-Prince since the devastating 10 January, 2010 earthquake that hit the capital and outlying areas.

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For more information on this topic:

• “A graduation pathway for Haiti’s poorest – Lessons learnt from Fonkoze,” Karishma Huda and Anton Simanowitz – The Mastercard Foundation, 29 September, 2009
• “The Haiti Earthquake: How microfinance is helping,” – CGAP – Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, World Bank Publications, 27 January, 2010
• “Reimagining Microfinance,” Alex Counts, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Stanford Graduate School of Business, 13 May, 2008
• “Gender and Microlending – Diveristy of Experience,” – Critical Half / Annual Journal 2004, Women for Women International

Journalist Peggy Simpson worked 17 years for the Associated Press, in Texas and Washington, D.C.; covered economics and politics for the Hearst Newspapers, served as Washington bureau chief for Ms. magazine and reported on East Europe as a freelancer during the 1990s. She has taught at Indiana University, George Washington University and the American Studies Center at Warsaw University. She currently is a freelance writer in Washington D.C.

This Women News Network news feature on Haiti is brought to you through a WNN partnership with the WMC – Women’s Media Center. Additional media materials for this article has been provided by Women News Network – WNN