Stuart Clark reports from Haiti

Thursday promises to be an emotional day in Haiti as the country commemorates the second anniversary of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake, which killed 230,000 of its people and left a further 1.5 million of them homeless.
The government wasn’t exactly running smoothly before the disaster, but went into total meltdown after it. With no army, an undermanned police force and precious little in the way of other emergency services, it’s been left to relief agencies to stick a Band-Aid on the country’s gaping wound.
Haitians probably thought things couldn’t get any worse, but they did in October 2010 when an outbreak of cholera accounted for another 6,992-plus people being put into what by necessity have often been mass graves.
You’d forgive a country for giving up after all that, but Haitians have dealt with adversity numerous times before and took positive action last year by voting in Michel Martelly, a former pop singer and close friend of Wyclef Jean’s, as President.
Untainted by previous political scandals, Martelly is only new in the job but seems to have bolstered both the people and the international aid community who feel they finally have somebody they can do business with.
I’m currently in Port-Au-Prince with Concern Worldwide, the Irish charity which was on the ground here well-before the ‘quake struck and with over 400 local staff, many of whom will be mourning their own loved ones this week, are acutely aware of the rebuilding, both physical and social, that needs to be done.
If there are open spaces in Port-Au-Prince which aren’t covered in tents or makeshift shacks, I’ve yet to see them. Being an old-school Catholic country, Haitian families tend to be large and blindly respectful of a church that’s playing no visible role in relief efforts.
Nothing can prepare you for the scrum of humanity around the Haitian parliament, a mini-White House that collapsed in more ways than one on Tuesday January 12, 2010. It’s where frustrated locals – and there are a lot of them – protest on an almost daily basis. Usually, it’s the government that’s the object of their ire but there’s also been a lot of anger directed at the multinational United Nations peacekeeping force. Whether justified or not, Haitians blame Nepalese troops for starting 2010’s cholera outbreak and were scandalised when a group of Uruguayan soldiers allegedly raped an 18 year-old man and posted footage of it onto YouTube.
It doesn’t take much for peaceful protests to turn violent – we had to cancel a visit to the city-centre yesterday after shots were fired and bystanders injured.
Gun crime is commonplace in Port-Au-Prince with a young woman, Sherly Phillipe, we met today telling us how only last Saturday her 24 year-old brother was shot in the neck when a group of men stole his motorbike. He survived but doctors aren’t certain whether he’ll ever walk again.
It’s not all bad news though, with thousands of families moving from violent, unregulated camps into ones overseen by the likes of Concern Worldwide, which while cramped have clean drinking-water, toilets and in some cases showers. More than 500,000 Haitians are still displaced, a figure that Concern are working overtime to bring down with their 'Return To Neighborhood' scheme. Under it, people are given the money to move into basic rented accommodation for a year, and a grant to start their own small business.
It’s a model that’s been adopted by the government and other relief organisations.
Concern have also set up maintained camps where, following negotiations with landowners, families are given their own prefab houses which they’re allowed to remain in for up to three years. What happens after that remains uncertain

Some of the stories you hear are truly heartbreaking – mother of seven Isema Cadeus told me how shortly after the earthquake her then ten year-old daughter was gang-raped in an unregulated camp.
“I was devastated,” she states. “She lost her reputation. Everyone was calling her names. We were shamed.”
Hearing of the family’s plight, Concern moved her into their Tabarra Issa camp where now installed in her own prefab Isema says, “My daughter and other children finally feel safe. We can go to sleep at night knowing bad things won’t happen.”
Living a few doors down from the Cadeus family is 24 year-old mum-to-be Miselane Dieujuste. Both of her parents were killed during the earthquake, leaving her to look after her two young brothers and sister. Again, she told us how thanks to Concern she’s been able to move into safe accommodation and start her own business selling underwear.
For Concern to keep helping the likes of Isema and Miselane they need foreign governments to maintain and hopefully increase the amount of aid they’re giving Haiti.
I’m no expert, but it’s clear from the time I’ve spent with Concern that the money already donated is changing thousands of lives for the better.
We’ll have a full report on my Haiti trip in the January 28 edition of Hot Press. In the meantime, you can follow @stuartclark66 on Twitter for regular updates. For a gallery of related photographs, click here.