The Haiti Earthquake happened just after the successful HES training – and a number of the HES and FERST participants were quickly deployed.
In February 2010, IFRC deployed a large assessment team to better understand recovery needs and to provide the basis for the early recovery planning. The multi-disciplinary team included all technical sectors and a number of specialists in cross-cutting issues.
I was deployed as the sector team leader for Economic Recovery, Food Security and Livelihoods, and took two of the HES participants with me to complete the team. We visited large and small spontaneous and planned camps, people living in and around their damaged property in urban areas, as well as moving to rural areas affected by the earthquake and those that received and hosted displaced people. We also undertook limited market assessments in rural and urban areas.
The process explored people’s coping strategies, the factors that were encouraging and discouraging migration, and set out some preliminary response options for the sector, including several cash and market based options.