New drive to help Haiti

THE Barbados rescue drive to assist impoverished Haiti is being revived by a non-governmental organisation, United Caribbean Trust.The faith-based organisation shipped a 40-foot container to the tiny Caribbean nation, which was devastated in January by a massive earthquake that claimed the lives of more than 200 000 people.The container was stocked with food supplies, clothes, mattresses, tarpaulins, foam, a wheelchair, refrigerator, and stove.The leaders of United Caribbean Trust, chairman Jenny Tryhane and vice-chairman Greta St. Hill, know first-hand about the catastrophe. They were there.“Both Greta and I were at an orphanage in Haiti when the earthquake occurred. Everything was destroyed around us, but God spared our lives and we were able to come back to Barbados and get more help for Haiti.“Haiti has really come off the news, but the people there are suffering probably more than during the earthquake because now it is raining and millions of them are living in tent cities and those tents are really just sheets, not even tarpaulins,” Tryhane said.That’s why linen, blankets and 250 tarpaulins are in the container headed to Port-au-Prince.Tryhane said she will make the trip to Haiti in the next few weeks and will visit six orphanages distributing foodstuff and clothing “to children that are desperately in need”.She said her organisation still required financial support.“We continue to need financial support now because we already have received the things to put in the container but it is going to cost money to distribute the supplies in Haiti,” she added.The supplies will be going as far north as Cap Haitian and as far  south as Lescayes.