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Clearing the Path Cash-for-Relief

in Haiti

Five years after the earthquake, Tzu Chi volunteers
continue to put compassion into action in Haiti. Tzu Chi Volunteers

Excess garbage clogs waterways and
worsens flooding. Photo: Mike Tang

fter the catastrophic earthquake of four relief distributions that provided nearly two
January 12, 2010, claimed the lives hundred thousand people with food, tents, and
Aof a quarter million Haitians and left supplies, while medical professionals treated
survivors submerged in rubble and despair, more than fifteen thousand patients, and nearly
Tzu Chi volunteers wasted no time in reaching four thousand disaster survivors participated in
a compassionate hand across the Caribbean. a series of Food for Work programs in which they
Volunteers arrived in the disaster zone after received hot meals in exchange for cleaning
just nine days and initiated a cycle of love that their own neighborhoods.
continues to this day. Volunteers helped young children get back
While volunteers had already delivered into classrooms quickly and continue to support
relief and supplies to Haiti after hurricanes in their education through tuition assistance, after-
1998, 2004, and 2008, it was the earthquake school tutoring, and hot meal distributions. Tzu
that forged an even stronger connection. In the Chi also rebuilt three Port-au-Prince schools for
months that followed, volunteers held eighty- Canada’s Congregation of the Sisters of Saint

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