Earthquake in Haiti

Most people are familiar with the earthquake in Haiti that happened in 2010. This earthquake was 7.0 in magnitude and killed THOUSANDS of people. A lot of damages were done to infrastructures as well, including the National Palace.

Picture that I took of the National Palace

Tent Cities

When I first heard about it, I didn't really know too much about it. I just knew that 1. There was an earthquake and 2. Many people were hurt by it. In 2011, I had the chance to go to the city of  Leogane for a mission trip. I didn't even know that Leogane was one of the main areas that was hit by the earthquake. My first time driving through the city, I saw a lot of garbage all over the streets, the smell of the city was HORRID, and there were people living in Tent Cities. Even though the city was MUCH cleaner than before, you could see that a lot of work still had to be done.

Driving through the city. 

 Since I saw the effects of the Earthquake first hand, I saw how as an emergency response health professional, it is important to have people help with things such as disaster relief. Since there was a lot of damage done to the buildings of Haiti, there was a lot of debris and pollution. These factors are both detrimental to the health of the Haitian civilians, as well as the environment. That is why people from disaster relief teams or just plain volunteers come and help not only clean up, but reconstruct.

Helping to Reconstruct a church.

  Mental Health is also very important. That is why you need people to come in and console others, especially the children because many of them lost loved ones to the earthquake.

Me with the BEAUTIFUL Haitian children <3