Fears for Haiti friends

BY GEMMA REDDELL

For most people the images coming out of earthquake-ravaged Haiti are shocking, but for Stanmore Bay resident Kent Fearon it's heartbreaking.

Kent, 24, made several trips to Haiti in 2009, helping build a school and nurse an orphanage in a poor state into a functioning facility.

But the magnitude seven earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince on January 13 has devastated the area the orphanage was in.

Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere with 85 percent of the population living in poverty, is facing widespread destruction as people try to rescue loved ones from crumbled buildings and doctors try to help the critically ill with next to no facilities.

The death toll has been estimated at anywhere between 10,000 and 100,000, with three million of the nine million population severely affected.

At the time of print, Kent hadn't been able to contact the Chricha orphanage in Port-au-Prince.

He fears for the safety of owner David and the orphanage's 70 children.

"The two people we worked with most are Franzto, who runs a kids' programme and is a translator, and David who runs the orphanage," Kent says.

"We know Franzto is all right, but we can't get hold of David - all we know is the area the orphanage is in was totally flattened.

"We don't know if any of the children survived."

Two of Kent's associates, Cole Brown and Vaden Earle, have travelled to Haiti in search of David and the children.

A nearby six-storey building called St Joseph's, which houses guests and looks after boys - teaching them dance and drama - was their accommodation while in Port-au-Prince.

"We know that has collapsed, but amazingly all of the children were outside at the time and they all survived," Kent says.

Kent was leading a Hero Holiday in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, an organisation that gives Canadian teenagers an opportunity to experience poverty and help the less fortunate.

"There are a lot of Haitian refugees there that we worked with, and we just fell in love with the people and their culture and decided to visit Haiti.

"It's just two extremes," says Kent.

"You go to the Dominican Republic and you think it's poor, and you struggle to conceive how they live, and then you go to Haiti and it makes the republic look all right.

"The poverty there is just extreme."

Kent and Cole raised $12,000 for the Chricha orphanage, which bought a month's worth of food for the 70 kids and the staff, and paid the rent for a year.

"We took the children to the beach each time we went," Kent says. "They live only two kilometres away but had never seen the ocean."

He says building structure in Haiti is terrible.

"They use concrete blocks and they mix the concrete without using measures, so some batches are weaker than others.

"They're just not educated in construction."

He says the Port-au-Prince mayor said recently that 60 percent of buildings were unstable.

"I would say it's more than that. We helped with a few buildings but I can guarantee they won't be standing now."

Work commitments restrict Kent from trying to get to Haiti now, but he is planning to return in June.

To make a donation for earthquake relief work contact World Vision on 0800-800-776, go to www.worldvision.org.nz, or Red Cross New Zealand on 0800-733-276 or visit www.redcross.org.nz.

- © Fairfax NZ News