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Wednesday, December 23, 2015

How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti ­and Built Six Homes

Even as the group has publicly celebrated its work, insider accounts detail a string of failures

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF CAMPECHE sprawls up a steep hillside in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Goats rustle in trash that goes forever uncollected. Children kick a deflated volleyball in a dusty lot below a wall with a hand-painted logo of the American Red Cross.

In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which was hit hard by the earthquake that struck Haiti the year before. The main focus of the project — called LAMIKA, an acronym in Creole for “A Better Life in My Neighborhood” — was building hundreds of permanent homes.

Today, not one home has been built in Campeche. Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water.

The Red Cross received an outpouring of donations after the quake, nearly half a billion dollars.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too many big salaries and hands out take most of the money.

Anonymous said...

12:50 I agree. That's why I stopped giving to them right after 9/11. I saw the numbers and it was appalling.

Anonymous said...

not to mention the Clintons have fingers in there

Anonymous said...

Investigation please.

Anonymous said...

Let them develop the motivation to better themselves through initiative, hard work, planning for their own futures, and the direct correlation between effort expended and reward received.

Anonymous said...

Common knowledge. For every dollar donated only 10 cents hit the needy. I stopped donating to them years ago because of this.

Anonymous said...

Your Right. I do not donate to them,UNICEF,and many other because of that fact. There are far more needy organizations out there.

Anonymous said...

Look at the stats. The most deserving for your donations is, and has always been, The Salvation Army.

Anonymous said...

Not failures.
Fraud.