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Micheline Lagrenade has been volunteering at the Haitian Red Cross branch in the town of Jeremie for the past 24 years. Micheline is a single mother of four who up until recently was living in a house in a coastal neighbourhood of Jeremie. Her home was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, and she’s been staying with her four children at a friend’s house.

Since Hurricane Matthew hit the southwest of Haiti, not much remains of the crops that provided livelihoods for people living in the countryside. The hurricane hit during the second main harvest season, so it will take many months for crops to grow back enough to be eaten.

Infections from injuries sustained in the hurricane aren’t the only health concern Haiti is facing. Cholera cases are on the rise, although there is currently no testing being done to confirm cases, making this challenging to quantify.

The Canadian Red Cross is deploying its Emergency Health Clinic and a team of nine aid workers to Haiti jointly with the French Red Cross in collaboration with the Haitian Red Cross and the Haitian Ministry of Health. 

Elmita Nodeis sits on the ground in the courtyard of Philippe Guerrier school in the town of Les Cayes in Haiti. The school's been turned into an evacuation centre since Hurricane Matthew hit, and she's been sleeping there with eight members of her family ever since.  The 51-year-old has a few buckets in front of her, and she's busy scrubbing clothes. 

While the damage from a Category 4 hurricane like Matthew can be severe no matter where it hits, some countries are more vulnerable than others to the impacts of storms. One of the countries hit hard by Matthew is Haiti – and at this time the extent of the damage is not fully known. 

Like the rest of Haiti, the Jacmel community was left reeling after the January 12, 2010 earthquake devastated the country. This community of 40,000, capital of the Sud-Est department of Haiti, suffered significant damage to many buildings, including an estimated 70% of homes and the county hospital Saint Michel a Jacmel. Given that a strong and functional major health care facility is vitally important to both short-term and long-term recovery efforts, the reconstruction of Saint Michel Hospital was considered an essential task.

It was the largest Red Cross response ever to a single country. The Red Cross helped one in two Haitians, about five million people. After the 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, individual Canadians and governments generously donated $222 million to the Canadian Red Cross to support the tremendous emergency and recovery efforts.