During our earliest days here in Port-au-Prince we met a group of community leaders who run an orphanage called Hands Together to Defend the Children (HTDC).
The building which housed the orphanage was destroyed by the earthquake and, ever since, the group has faced huge challenges. Having finished a project to provide immediate relief from flooding at the orphanage we are now fundraising to provide safe housing for the children.
In the first phase of this project we worked with our partner organsiation here in Haiti, GrassRoots United, to engage ten community volunteers and ten international volunteers to dig a large drain outside the orphanage’s front doors and erect a shade structure to give the children more room to play. The drain has eliminated the flooding problem the orphanage had endured.
By stopping the flooding we have also reduced the health risks the children were facing. As there is little proper sanitation in the area, the mud also contained human waste. Many of the children at the orphanage lack shoes, so walking through the mud put them at high risk of contracting a waste borne illness. The standing water also provided a breeding ground for mosquitoes, putting the children at risk of contracting malaria or dengue fever.
The orphanage is also severely overcrowded, with 47 children living in one tent and two small rooms, so EDV has teamed up with Give Love to provide an extra tent on a nearby property.
In the long term we are tackling the challenges affecting this group by providing a larger rented property and then moving the orphanage into a permanent structure which will be owned by the women who run the group.
Check out a one page project synopsis of our drainage work here.
View more pictures of this project here.
We’re fundraising intensively for the second phase of our long-term project plan for Hands Together to Defend the Children Orphanage (HTDC). 
