A Somewhat Perfect Plan

It has been said, and I concur, that you should not let the hopes of a perfect plan keep you from acting upon a good plan. To this end we, (Assist International for whom I happily toil during the day. www.assistinternational.org ) and our partners, (Most of whom shall remain anonymous for the purpose of this Blog) are moving forward with our short, mid and long term plans to help Haiti get back on her feet.

Immediately following the earthquake we sent into Haiti a five “person” team, all of which were men, but I've heard it is improper to say, “a five man team” even though they were all men. (Why is that?)

Out of that trip the Early Assessment Team (EAT; kind of a curios acronym for five, “people” of the male gender, who go into places where there is really very little to eat, but then I digress) has hatched a short term, midterm and long term plan.

In the short we are funding one large, Creole and French speaking, brother who previously lived in Haiti for 12 years to coordinate the reception of relief goods which are being shipped. (Not to imply that we haven’t yet sent relief good, because this would be false. Within the first ten day Assist along with her partners had chartered planes into Haiti with medical supplies and high tech medical equipment and solar water filters to aid in the rescue and recovery efforts.)

In the midterm we are sending containers full of food, water, clothing, shoes, and shelter items. What makes these shipments of great interest to me is a little twist I brought to the shelter shipping process. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that instead of just shipping shelter items we should purchase the container and turn them into shelters also.

To accomplish this I asked Dan Cooney, founder and owner of LOML Design (www.LOMLdesign.com) to create a model for converting the containers into dorms to house some of the thousands of children that have recently been orphaned. Many of these children were transported several hours outside of Port au Prince for medical care and are now being released from the hospital hours from home with no knowledge of the status of their parents.

Here is the design Dan Cooney came up with. BTW- the finished model will have windows.

Through my metal building company www.reddogsteelbuildings I am working to get the roof structures donated for the two already donated containers. Thank you GE.

Each container has the capacity of housing 30 kids with the goal of providing immediate shelter, ample food, and the security of belonging.

In the long term Assist International will be building a family style village where the kids will be placed into homes with a mother and father who love them and will shepherd them into adult life, much like perhaps your parents did for you.

In my opinion this is a crazy great plan. You fill a container with the food and clothing necessary to care for children and then turn the container itself into the shelter. As more containers arrive and more permanent family homes can be built you reduce the density of the population in the containers until they eventually become classrooms for learning.

It may not be a perfect plan, but for the time being, let’s not let that stop us. If you want to get involved give me a call at 209 599 1890.