I am waking up to battering rain. Irma is coming closer. Packing winds of 185mph, Irma is the most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record. Exceeding current storm category measures (above 5), Irma is far stronger than Hurricane Matthew, a category 4 hurricane that brought devastation to Haiti just one year ago. Irma is barreling across… Read more →←
Author: Cornelia Walther
Seven hours on the road, or rather on a rocky trail that renders one grateful for a solid back and stomach, to Pestel. All along our way to the town, one of the areas where a significant increase in diarrhea cases has been registered over the past week, we pass destroyed houses and trees. People in front of their homes, stranded. Some… Read more →←
Hurricane Matthew has passed. The rain has stopped. Yet the trail of the hurricane is deep and will take months, if not years, to close. Schools are still closed but shops and the airport are open. In Port-au-Prince life is slowly getting back on track. The situation is dramatically different in the departments of South, Nippes and… Read more →←
It is Sunday, 2 PM. I am in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, waiting. Together with 10 million people. Waiting for the impact of yet another burden on the already heavily loaded shoulders of this amazing country. 50 years ago, on 29 September 1966, Hurricane Ines struck Haiti. Categorized as a class 4 – like Matthew, the hurricane on its way –… Read more →←
“We are lacking positive role models when it comes to reducing violence,” explains Jacmel’s school inspector with a frown. “As people grow up being beaten during their own childhood, they consider corporal punishment of children as a normal step of becoming an adult.” After two days in Jacmel, located in Haiti’s South East… Read more →←
After recently spending 24 hours in Gonaives, Artibonite department, the link between water and health is once again engraved in my mind. The day – spent on the ground with UNICEF partner Action Against Hunger (ACF) in and around the commune of St Michel d’Attalye – illustrated the direct connection between safe water and cholera,… Read more →←
Jacmel, in Haiti’s South East and its surroundings are a picture of Caribbean beauty, with white beaches, azure-blue ocean, and dazzling sunshine. On the other hand and in the midst of this tropical treasure, children and their families struggle every single day to make ends meet. I was recently in Jacmel to visit the Cine Institute, a… Read more →←
I recently returned to the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince, from a three-day trip to the South East of Haiti, which included six hours of hiking and 10 hours on the road. The reason for this trip to Port Salut was to inaugurate the last of 15 schools, concluding an endeavor that started in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake.… Read more →←
Child participation is something that is talked about a lot, but in reality is seldom put into practice. This gap between theory and action is found everywhere, but it’s particularly striking in a number of Africa countries, where the concept of ‘rights and duties’ is still fairly new. To change the status quo, in DRC and Burundi… Read more →←
15 children, 11 provinces, 3 days: the countdown to Bujumbura is on in the DRC. This past weekend in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, the National Hope Forum was held, bringing together the 15 children selected by the 11 provinces in the DRC. From Friday morning to Sunday night, these children aged 12 to 17 years learnt and discussed… Read more →←
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