Travel industry rallies for Port-au-Prince children

Monday, 05 May, 2011 0

 

Water-aid charity Just A Drop doffed its cap to the travel industry today after it revealed that major players had raised £165,000 to help with its Haiti rebuilding campaign.

 

Travel companies including All Leisure Group, ATD Travel, Co-operative Travel, Kuoni Travel, Monarch, Reed Exhibitions, Sea Chefs, Southall Travel, Shearing Group, Thomas Cook, TUI UK Ltd and Virgin Holidays all contributed to Just A Drop’s Just Help Haiti appeal.

 

The money will be spent helping Just A Drop rebuild 30 schools in the capital Port-au-Prince.

 

Said Just a Drop chairman Fiona Jeffery: “It’s our job to ensure that the money is spent wisely and effectively but the work to include proper sanitation and safe water to these schools has been challenging, complex and, at times, frustrating.

 

“It has been further hampered by the fact that there is virtually no sewerage system in Port-au-Prince and that more than 800,000 people are still living under canvas, using unlined pits in the camps. This has led to a continuing threat of cholera and other water-borne diseases of which children are particularly vulnerable.

 

“Clearly the satisfactory outcome of ongoing elections in Haiti is critical to the rebuilding of Haiti.”

 

However, despite the overwhelming conditions, Jeffery said there were signs of hope.

 

She explained: “A total of 95% of the children who were attending school before the earthquake are back attending lessons in makeshift schools and the work of Just Help Haiti is making definite progress.

 

“The streets of Haiti are still filled with rubble and reconstruction on a mass scale is taking far too long. But because of the goodwill and determination of the travel and tourism industry, I am delighted to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel for these schoolchildren.

 

“They have shown amazing resilience, courage and cheerfulness amid a disaster the like of which the world has never seen.”

 

by Dinah Hatch

 



 

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