Washington (BWA)--Baptist World Aid (BWAid), the relief and development arm of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), has spent almost US$680,000 for critical help to Haitians over the one year period since the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010.
The 7.0 earthquake killed an estimated 230,000, maimed and injured hundreds of thousands more, and left more than one million Haitians homeless, most of whom are still living under tents and in other temporary shelters.
BWAid spent money on emergency relief, medical supplies and medical care in the immediate aftermath of the quake, and increased its grants for medical assistance after the outbreak of cholera in the northern Caribbean country in October last year.
In addition, BWAid is expending resources to help resuscitate Delmas 19, a depressed area in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, which was particularly devastated by the quake. A complex is being built on land owned by the Haitian Baptist Convention (HBC), one of two BWA member bodies through which the BWA is doing its relief work. The complex includes a school that will accommodate 250 students, and an orphanage.
Other partners in the revitalization of Delmas 19 are the HBC, Hungarian Baptist Aid, and the Virginia Baptist Mission Board from the United States.
Funds have also been provided by BWAid for the construction of houses, rebuilding of a school at the House of Hope Orphanage at Gressier, near Port-au-Prince, and to help to rebuild the female dormitory at the Northern Haiti Christian University, a school owned and run by the HBC, in Limbč, in northern Haiti.
BWAid is working in partnership with the HBC and Baptist Haiti Mission, another BWA member body, in an educational campaign about cholera, the digging of wells, and in water treatment in at least 11 communities across Haiti, (http://haiti.ngoaidmap.org/organizations/15).
The BWA expects to spend close to an additional one million dollars on relief, reconstruction, and development costs as it continues its long term commitment to Haiti.
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