Balance Requested from ACT Alliance: US$ 353,873

Geneva, 28 September 2007

Dear Colleagues,

On 19 August 2007, Hurricane Dean, a powerful category-5 storm hit the Caribbean and made landfall in the islands of Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Haiti, before it reached the coasts of Honduras, Belize and Mexico. Torrential rain and strong winds created large-scale devastation.

In Haiti, according to data collected by the national Direction for Civil Protection and OCHA, fourteen persons died, 57 were wounded, a total of 2,183 houses were destroyed and 6,376 were severely damaged. Nearly nine thousands families are directly affected and more than nine thousand persons are living in temporary shelters, many of them under basic conditions. The damages happened mostly in the coastline area and concern housing, road infrastructure, and fishery. The population faces great losses of crops and cattle mainly in the mountainous regions.

The three communes of Torbeck, Chantal and Camp Perrin in the Southern Department have been severely hit. About 3,850 persons were directly affected, of which 1,987 women, and 1,077 school children aged between 7 and 15; about 650 street merchants have lost their goods. The population suffered a loss of a large part of the harvest and about 1,600 livestock. The people living in shelters cannot fend for themselves, as they have lost all their belongings.

ACT is a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide.

The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.

ACT member Christian Aid (CAID) together with its local partner KORAL aims at directly assisting more than 3,000 affected individuals in these communes. It plans to provide (i) grants and advice on management to 500 merchants to restart their business, (ii) seeds and tools to 2,500 small holder farmers together with some extension on sustainable farming techniques, (iii) distribute 22 pigs, 50 goats, 10 cows and 1,500 high bred chicken together with technical support to improve animal raising, (iv) distribute material to rehabilitate houses, and (v) facilitation on risk management and disaster preparedness to anticipate the impact of future disasters.

Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe (DKH) plans to respond to the disaster to mitigate the impact on the affected population. DKH envisages (i) distributing material to repair houses and shelters, seeds to affected farmers and grants to women merchants and fishermen to promote income generation, school kits and cash grants for children from affected families. DKH also plan to facilitate workshops to improve the population's preparedness for future disasters.

In Jamaica, the devastation to homes, livelihoods, electricity and water supply systems is considerable. Christian Aid and seven implementing partner staff carried out a rapid needs assessment in St. Thomas, Clarendon, St. Catherine and the inner city of Kingston. Apart from immediate needs to provide food, bedding, household items, roofing and building materials, water and water purifiers, books and learning materials for children, it was found necessary to support the communities with short-term livelihood measures through cash for work program to clear the debris and fallen trees Christian Aid together with her implementing partners Women's Resource Outreach Centre (WROC) and Children First is planning to support 1,435 families with immediate relief activities and another ,1,000 families with livelihood assistance and rehabilitation support. Both implementation partners will distribute (i) non-food items, such as mattresses, tarpaulins, blankets, school kits, hygiene kits, disinfectants, baby kits; supplying school uniforms and shoes to children, (ii) food packages , Children First will provide also shelter materials and WROC services will also assist chicken farmers to restart their production, cash-crop farmers with seedlings and help to build up organisational capacity of the communities to cope with later disasters. This component of the appeal was preceded by a RRF.

Project Completion Date:

Christian Aid: - 31 March 2008

Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe: - 31 January 2008

Christian Aid Jamaica - 31 March 2008