Volunteers in Canada wrap supplies for shipment to Haiti

January 21, 2010: In the past week, a large community of individual donors, corporations and government officials have joined with SOS Children's Villages to get desperately needed supplies into Haiti. Supplies are moving in by air and by truck as we work to help as many orphans and families as possible. Hundreds of families assemble outside the SOS Children’s Village in Santo every morning to receive food, medicine, and most importantly, water.

An Air Transat Airbus filled with humanitarian aid volunteers, food, and supplies flew from Montreal to Haiti this morning. The shipment included medications, first aid supplies, power generators, tents, and over 4000 lbs. of food and clothing. The destination of the shipment is SOS Children’s Village Santo, near Port-au-Prince.

A truck arrives at SOS Children's Villages Santo

The initial emergency relief shipment from SOS Children’s Villages with ten tons of medical supplies, food, water and shelter materials arrived safely in Santo this week.

A second truck loaded with construction supplies, medicines, water and food left from the Dominican Republic headed for Haiti this morning. This shipment will be used to supply the SOS Children’s Village in Santo as well as the community centers which will resume operations in the near future. The construction materials are meant to help build a large operations camp with housing for volunteers and other facilities designed to provide services to children in temporary care.

Celigny Darius is the director of SOS Children's Villages Haiti

Staff from SOS Children’s Villages have been participating in meetings with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the UN, and Haitian officials to coordinate the emergency response. The focus is on facilitating the identification of the children in need to perform a quick admission process to SOS Villages.

The needs are still great. We are doing everything we can to help the people of Haiti. For those of you who have already donated, the people of Haiti thank you. If you have not donated, please Support SOS Children’s Villages now.