Help women and girls in Haiti by supporting our Member Association in Haiti, PROFAMIL, and Dominican Republic, PROFAMILIA, to continue providing their critical, lifesaving services.
Women's and girls' needs in disaster situations are often overlooked.
Your money will go directly to our medical teams who are already based in the most affected areas of Haiti and are doing incredible work with limited resources.
There are an estimated 37,000 pregnant women among those directly affected, according to the United Nations Population Fund, 7000 of whom will give birth soon.
Hospitals struggle to meet the needs of the thousands of wounded; maternity wards have given way to surgeries and pregnant women are forced to give birth in unsanitary conditions.
PROFAMIL and PROFAMILIA are struggling to fill the gaps and reach these women to ensure they can deliver safely.
Women in emergency situations
The particular vulnerability of women and girls in emergency and crisis situations is frequently neglected during initial efforts to provide food, water and shelter.
IPPF will focus its efforts on providing basic emergency health services to the wounded and injured, while also prioritizing the special needs of women and girls.
In the aftermath of a disaster or conflict, pregnancy-related deaths and incidences of rape and sexual violence soar.
It is a sad reality that in the aftermath of a disaster, women and girls are extremely vulnerable to sexual coercion and violence.
In Haiti the breakdown of law and order and growing civil unrest places women and girls at significantly increased risk.
Young people, especially girls and young women, become more vulnerable to HIV infection and sexual exploitation.
Many women lose access to family planning services, exposing them to unwanted pregnancy, and in cases of rape, access to emergency contraception and counselling.
PROFAMILIA: much needed medical teams
PROFAMILIA, our Member Association in neighbouring Dominican Republic, has diverted its mobile clinics – operating from minibuses – to cross the border to Haiti.
They are providing a range of emergency and basic health services, helping to provide everyday hygiene supplies, including sanitary towels and soap; also essential, but often forgotten in emergencies.
They are setting up a presence in 5 areas, including Jacmel, that have yet to receive much-needed international assistance.
They have also transferred a Mobile Health Unit to the Haitian border, to serve the numerous refugees fleeing the country.
Mobile clinics will remain in these areas for several days. PROFAMILIA is establishing a broader ‘task force’ with the intention of deploying medical services inside Haiti to the most critically affected areas and populations for a period of one month.
PROFAMIL: at the heart of the response
IPPF’s Haitian Member Association, PROFAMIL, is based in the communities most affected by the earthquake and able to give help immediately.
For more than 20 years PROFAMIL has provided specialist women’s health care and primary health care to the communities it serves, and is trusted by those communities.
In the earthquake’s aftermath, PROFAMIL’s network of health centres and community volunteers is desperately struggling to provide essential basic and primary health care, alongside maternity and reproductive health services, ensuring the needs of women are being met.
PROFAMIL has been severely affected by the disaster. Two of its clinics, in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel, have been destroyed; its Executive Director has been medically evacuated due to the severity of his wounds and numerous staff and volunteers remain unaccounted for.
The commitment of PROFAMIL’s staff to the health and welfare of fellow Haitians is commendable.
Despite all the obstacles they are salvaging what medical equipment and supplies they can from the destroyed clinics.
They are resuming mobile services to provide essential basic health care and reproductive health care to the many thousands of homeless and displaced people gathered under the tented camps.
Each roaming team consists of a community promoter and auxiliary nurse. The Port-au-Prince Youth Clinic, which was not affected, will serve as a static clinic to be up and running by mid-February.
Meanwhile, PROFAMIL has established 2 tents near highly populated tent cities in Port-au-Prince and 2 in Jacmel for static service provision. Those services have already begun in Port-au-Prince and are set to begin next week in Jacmel.
PROFAMIL is working with the International Rescue Committee to coordinate how they can respond to the sadly anticipated increase in sexual violence.
They are also investigating the provision of emergency contraception.
IPPF/Western Hemisphere Region and both PROFAMIL and PROFAMILIA have already highlighted that securing sufficient supplies for emergency obstetric care and other sexual and reproductive health supplies needs immediate attention and funding if it is not to become a major problem.
IPPF’s ongoing response
While IPPF is not a disaster relief organization, its Member Associations – PROFAMIL in Haiti and PROFAMILIA in the Dominican Republic – have a critical on the ground capacity to provide key services as the response moves to assist in some basic traumatic care and especially to help fulfill sexual and reproductive health needs now and in the coming months.
In addition, with communications in Haiti still difficult, IPPF's Western Hemisphere Region has played a strong co-ordinating role in connecting PROFAMIL to key information on the ground and internationally.
With staff, equipment and supplies already in place IPPF’s Member Associations in Haiti, PROFAMIL, and the Dominican Republic, PROFAMILIA, have already done important work.
PROFAMIL medical teams continue to concentrate on organizing and coordinating their work on the ground, to expand their emergency work in coordination with other emergency services.
Medical teams are working in the tented camps where many of those made homeless by the earthquake are gathering.
Tented medical facilities in central Port-au-Prince and other severely affected areas are planned, offering essential basic and primary health care and specialist maternity and sexual and reproductive health services.
We now need your support so that our vital work can continue in the next critical phase of the emergency, particularly addressing the needs of women and girls: most badly affected in times of crisis, and too often overlooked.
Please be generous and donate to help save lives.
Please share this link with your friends and family, as any contribution - large or small, will go a long way in supporting PROFAMIL and PROFAMILIA’s recovery efforts.
Thank you for your support in this emergency.
Further info about sexual violence in Haiti.
___________________________________
Please note: there is a small chance that we may raise more money than is needed for this cause. If this happens your donation will be used in our emergency and disaster relief fund, allowing us to respond quickly to disasters worldwide.