Upcoming Fundraiser for ICA work in Haiti.

Haiti Relief Efforts Continue.

Thank you to Kate for her partnership in International Crisis Aid's ongoing commitment to restoring life for hundreds of orphans in Leogane, Haiti.  Please enjoy her comments, video, and photos below:  

Pat - I wanted to send you a quick note thanking you for introducing us to the orphanage in Leogane and letting us take some pictures during the distribution. The work you're doing is vital and we're glad IRD has had
a chance to contribute. I made a short video about the distribution here:

I've also attached a photo from the distribution and would love to consider doing additional distributions with you. I know you had mentioned visiting another school that hasn't yet been visited by you guys; we would love to accompany you and be able to do a distribution there. Let us know if this is possible!

-Kate

ICA President Pat Bradley provides relief to orphans in Leogane, Haiti.

Staff Journals from Ethiopia

Enjoy a little taste of the recent journey to Ethiopia from one of Jennifer Jones' trip journals: 

Thursday, February 25, 2010. It’s 10:30pm now and I only just arrived to my room. My laptop had charging problems so yet again, I was unable to complete my overview of Wednesday. How I will do them both now I don’t know. So much has occurred and every detail has significance. 

On Wednesday we had another water well dedication in the morning, the feeding program and then another water well dedication. It was a long day, as are most. The location of the second new water well was beyond the one from Tuesday. You cannot imagine the drive to get there. The roads are marked primarily by foot traffic, deep ruts and rocks. It is so rough we have to drive approximately 15 miles per hour. There are times that our bus has only a few inches of room on either side to fit through the narrow path. The horn is blown every three to five minutes to move people and animals from the only path the bus can fit. The same was true of the afternoon dedication. 

The morning well was near a very small area of water. It was so small, I wouldn’t even call it a pond. The water was dirty muck. There was a little girl of maybe eight years old collecting water in small bottles. Less than three meters from her, cows were drinking and grazing in the same water. 

The afternoon well was closer to the main road, but we still had to get out and walk a distance to reach it as the bus couldn’t make it. This time the location was overlooking an even smaller stream of stagnant water. The stream lay beneath very steep walls with tiny paths marked by the bare feet of women and children who have collected water here for years. At some points of passage, the path was only one foot wide with crumbling steep terrain to one side and the drop off to the stream to the next. Navigation was tricky. Especially while holding a very heavy bag and an expensive video camera. 

To imagine that these people are forced to use this to collect water multiple times a day is overwhelming. When it rains, many fall and are injured badly. Others are attacked by wild animals as they have nowhere to run and are trapped at the bottom of a deep valley. But they must risk this every day. 

I wouldn’t even put my hand or foot into this water. But they drink it, cook with it, clean their clothes and bodies in it, just as cattle do the same. Many contract water-born diseases and get very sick just from the water. Thousands have died over the years of water-born diseases from these water sources, yet it is has been the only source for them until today. 

The joy the people have for what we have given them is beyond description. They sing, dance, clap and cheer. They praise God continuously. They attempt to shake our hands in the way to show honor to someone. Now, they can drink freely and without fear for they have clean water from their new water wells. 

As the well was dedicated, children began collecting water for their families. Initially, they were very timid, moving slowly. The next thing we knew, they were having a water fight. They had the biggest smiles you have ever seen. It was a reminder that “kids are kids” no matter what country they are from. 

To end one of the dedications, we all sat in a circle on top of branches of leaves that the locals had only then cut down for us to sit on. We had soda and bread with the elders. And they spoke to us, sharing the history, the journey and the new hope they have. 

We dedicated three water wells on this trip. We actually dug five this month. And we have done 15 all together over the past two years. But Angacha needs a total of 85 wells to provide 100% clean water coverage for the people. 

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Before and After Photos of Orphanage in Leogane, Haiti.

Orphanage before the earthquake in Leogane, Haiti.

Orphanage following the earthquake in Leogane, Haiti.

ICA President Pat Bradley Returns from Haiti

Post-Dispatch Reporters with Pat Bradley on Extra Edition

ICA Haiti Report from News Channel 5

Aid leader, Marine join to help Haitians -- Post Dispatch Article

 

January 22, 2010 - Haitians stand at a distance and look at food and water guarded by Marines near Leogane, Haiti, where authorities were still trying to decide the best way to distribute the goods. (J.B. Forbes/P-D)

By Phillip O'Connor

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LEOGANE, Haiti — Pat Bradley stood on a rocky beach and stared at tons of packaged food and fresh water. Just a few miles away, people were starving. 

He wandered past pallet after pallet, stacked head high with precious commodities, enough to help thousands. He knew that more aid would be pouring ashore in coming days. He shook his head in disbelief.

"How are we going to get this out?" he said.

Beside him walked a frustrated U.S. Marine.

For more than a week, Gunnery Sgt. Joshua Wruble and his men had been upset by how slow the United Nations had been in distributing American relief supplies to Haitians in desperate need. The Marines felt helpless. They were ordered not to hand out the food themselves. Instead, the aid was to be delivered under the auspices of the U.N., part of an effort to help build the organization's credibility among the Haitian people.

To Wruble and the 140 other men of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, part of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, the delays just didn't seem right.

He removed his ever-present wraparound sunglasses. The clean skin behind them stood in sharp contrast against the rest of his sun-baked, dirt-caked face; the 33-year-old Fort Lauderdale native looked like a raccoon. The tough-talking Gunny stared at all the goods with nowhere to go, then turned to Bradley. In an unfamiliar, almost pleading voice, he asked, "Can you do it, Pat?"

Bradley had been through so much since he had arrived two weeks before. He had pulled off what he considered one small miracle, bringing aid to a destroyed orphanage that no one had reached. Could he do it again, except bigger this time?

CRISIS AID

Bradley, 55, of Oakville, has responded to humanitarian disasters around the world since he established International Crisis Aid in St. Louis eight years ago. After a few frustrating days trying to get into Haiti, he finally arrived in Port-au-Prince late on the night of Jan. 19. Then, he had difficulty reaching an area that hadn't been reached by other relief crews — his specialty.

Finally, he made it to Leogane, a district of 200,000 people about 18 miles down the coast from Port-au-Prince. Aid and relief workers had poured into the capital city, but Leogane remained largely ignored, despite being the epicenter of the quake. Government officials estimated as much as 90 percent of the structures in Leogane were destroyed, and tens of thousands perished.

Far off a main road, Bradley discovered an orphanage. Its three-story dormitory and sanctuary had collapsed, and 85 hungry children were forced to sleep on open ground. He promised to help but had no idea where he would get the food, water and building materials the orphans so desperately needed.

Meanwhile, Wruble was facing his own frustrations.

Kilo Company had flown from Navy ships into Leogane on Jan. 19 aboard CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters. Their orders were to support the U.N. in water and food distribution. The infantry unit set up a landing zone in a cow pasture and dubbed it Mongoose. 

Almost immediately, helicopters began ferrying in humanitarian supplies from the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and amphibious assault ship Bataan. But it would be nearly 30 hours before the first U.N. truck showed up, even though the U.N. base was less than a mile away. It would be an additional 24 hours before the second arrived. Soon, aid was piling up at the landing zone.

Morale only got worse when Marines began to hear rumors that U.N. officials were selling the aid on the black market and showing favoritism to certain groups at distribution sites.

"For all the power the United States Marine Corps brings to bear, we remained unable to get the supplies to the people who needed it most," Wruble said. "For the first time in my 16 years, I began to question our ability to accomplish our assigned mission."

The Marines were three days in when fate intervened in the form of Bradley and Dennis Russell, a suburban Atlanta pastor who had teamed with Bradley to make the trip. Bradley and Russell arrived at the landing zone in search of food, water and material to shelter the children at the orphanage.

A partnership was formed. The Marines gave Bradley the food and water he needed for the orphanage. In turn, for more than a week, Bradley and Russell went to the landing zone three or four times a day. They loaded rented trucks, then distributed the food to orphanages and villages. 

During the next eight days, the pair delivered 38,000 gallons of purified and bottled water and 5,506 cases of food, enough to feed 66,000 people. In the same time frame, the U.N., with armed Sri Lankan soldiers to provide security, managed to distribute only 632 cases of food from the landing zone.

The Marines quickly assigned the pair a nickname: "Two men and a truck."

Meanwhile, Bradley's mission was taking shape back at the orphanage. It began when the Marines and the U.N. supplied food, water, powered milk and blankets. After Bradley met several times with Canadian officials, medics from Canada showed up to treat the children. Soon after, Canadian sailors from the destroyer Athabaskan arrived by bus. They cleared trash and debris from the site, and built three wood-framed dormitories.

"It is hard work, it is hot work and it is very rewarding work," Lt. Commander Terry Moore said.

A few days later, a Canadian Army engineer showed up and surveyed the scene. Not long after, heavy equipment arrived to haul away the rubble of the collapsed buildings. 

"God is good," Bradley said

BIGGER CHALLENGE

After the success at the landing zone, Kilo Company pulled out of the area and relocated along the beach, where its amphibious vehicles could ferry more supplies to the island. As Bradley and Wruble surveyed the scene, they knew they faced a larger version of the backlog at the landing zone.

Using the same strategy as before, Bradley and Russell took on the challenge. They began delivering hundreds of pallets of food to orphanages and villages. Within three days, the pair had emptied the vast majority of the inventory — 8,224 cases, enough to feed almost 100,000 people. By then, the Marines were told that they could begin directly distributing supplies to locals. 

"Had it not been for Pat and Dennis, the Marines' success in this area would have been significantly reduced," Wruble said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador, American military commanders as well as the U.N. and U.S. Agency for International Development officials in charge of Haiti met with Bradley and the Marines in a tent not far from Landing Zone Mongoose. The officials were impressed by how quickly the Marines had covered so much ground and maintained control. They also singled out the work of Bradley's group.

His partnership with the Marines served as a blueprint for distribution in the devastated region. By making smaller-scale, planned deliveries, Bradley had been able to avoid the violence breaking out at some large distribution sites operated by the U.N. and others. And he had done it without armed security or razor wire to hold back crowds.

"They figured out doing it the way we were was the most effective way," Bradley said.

As the meeting broke up, Air Force General Duncan McNabb, head of U.S. Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, approached Bradley and slipped a half-dollar size coin into his hand. Commanders often present such custom-minted coins for a job well done.

"Without God's hand none of this would have come about the way it's come about," Bradley said. "To get the amount of people fed in that short of a time period, I don't know how to describe it other than God is blessing this work."

APPRECIATION

Exhausted yet exhilarated, Bradley said Americans should know that the Haitians are grateful for the aid they are receiving. They aren't looking for handouts, but for help restarting their lives. 

"They're not going to be able to do it on their own and not without a significant amount of help," he said before heading back to St. Louis. He arrived home Saturday.

Wruble has encouraged Bradley and Russell to keep working in Haiti, so they could set an example for other humanitarian groups. He even teased Bradley about joining the Corps. 

"Our ability to bring the resources ashore and provide the necessary security, coupled with your complete devotion to an efficient, honest and timely distribution has saved thousands of lives," Wruble said in a letter to Bradley.

How had Bradley done it ? How was it possible? With only two workers and a handful of Haitians. Wruble could offer only one explanation.

"Nothing short of a miracle."

VIEW ARTICLE ON POST-DISPATCH SITE HERE. 

Watch ICA on the News!

Pat arrived in St. Louis at 2:15 pm today.  We had a press conference with a great turnout.

If you are in St. Louis, watch the news tonight at 5pm, 6pm, 9pm and/or 10pm for an interview with Pat.  Stations present were:

KTVI TV 2 (FOX)                www.myfoxstl.com

KMOV TV 4 (CBS)             www.kmov.com

KSDK TV 5 (NBC)               www.ksdk.com

You should also be able to watch the stories on their websites later tonight.