26 March 2010

Port-au-Prince, Haiti: UNV volunteer Mariana Nissen is a Communications Officer with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Haiti. The main focus of her current work is to give visibility to the cash-for-work programme, which hires people to remove building rubble from the streets, clear sites for re-settlement and repair surface water drainage.

This provides cash for Haitians, allowing them to purchase goods and services, thus having a positive impact on the local economy whilst directly benefiting families. “It is important to put people back to work because they lost everything in the earthquake: family members, property, business and jobs,” explains Mariana.

“My work helps call the world’s attention to how the cash-for-work scheme is helping re-build a future for Haitians,” says Mariana. “And for this work to continue and expand, we need growing support from governments,” she adds. “The rainy season is coming and we can already foresee another disaster, so people cannot forget what happened here”.

A Brazilian national, she arrived in Haiti as a UNV volunteer at the beginning of January, only days before the earthquake struck. Since the tremor, she has helped campaign to gather support for the cash-for-work programme. One of her tasks was to organize a visit by the President of Brazil to one of UNDP’s cash-for-work projects, as well as to bring North American celebrities to Haiti to promote the scheme.

Mariana thinks that a lot of the media publicity after the quake was not really accurate. “People were starving, which is why they took food from supermarkets, but contrary to what was said, there was not a great deal of violence,” she remarks. “Providing the facts about what is happening in Haiti is necessary, and part of my job.”

“One week after the tremor, we visited Carrefour-Feuilles, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince, where about 50 percent of the buildings were completely destroyed. It looked like a war scenario, with people living in improvised camps using any material they could find – sheets, pieces of wood and plastic,” she recalls.

UNDP was already starting to recruit people to participate in the first cash-for-work scheme after the quake. “I realized that we were contributing to a major cause when people standing in the queue expressed their gratitude for this prompt initiative,” Mariana explains.

With the cash-for-work programme Haitians are helping clean the roads, making it easier for humanitarian aid to arrive. Moreover, in Carrefour-Feuilles, recycled paper and sawdust collected from the rubble are used to fabricate briquettes, long-burning fuel bricks that can be used as a substitute for coal.

The scheme helps Haitians get back on their feet, earning an income as they help their families and the country to recover from the disaster. “I have the opportunity to transmit this message to the rest of the world, using all the proper communication channels to get the information out and make sure Haitians are not abandoned,” Mariana concludes.