Imagine Katrina hitting New Orleans not once, not twice, or even three times.  Imagine just as one storm flits away, people are dying and starving, levies are bursting, the city is in utter chaos.  Then it gets hit again, and again, and again.  This is the situation facing Haiti today, and Haiti has even fewer resources and options than New Orleans did when it was hit by Katrina.

We are not hearing enough about Haiti, and what we are hearing only skims the surface of what needs to be discussed. Haiti has been bombarded by storms, several in just the last few weeks.  The country has been so deforested in the last five decades that there are no root systems to hold the ground together.  Water sits on the soil creating a muddy disaster area.  There is no ground in which to grow crops, there are virtually no trees, there is no fuel to heat or cook with, the country is nearly under water, and its cities are cut off from the rest of the world.  We need to help, not just the problem today, but the global problems the country faces.

Immediately, people are suffering. They need food, clothes, and shelter from the elements.  Then we need to help them with their long term problems.  The country needs to be properly reforested.  There needs to be an alternative fuel plan so citizens do not have to continue using the remaining forests as a fuel source. Food security needs to be created and developed by addressing unfair trade practices and creating jobs.

For more information on this global problem, see this article in Wikipedia and another that gives some detail on the complexity of Haiti’s problems.