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Blog Post:  Posted April 23, 2010, 3:26 pm by Cassandra Nelson

In Congo, saving trees and lives

Country: DR Congo

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Emergencies, Economic Development, Displacement, Conflict & War

Last November and December I was working with Mercy Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I had the chance to make a photo essay on our work that the BBC is featuring on their website.

In 2009, the number of displaced people in eastern DRC reached more than 1.5 million. Today, the violence and displacement situation continues.

Camps for refugees and displaced people pose significant threats to personal security for women and girls who must leave the camps to collect firewood in the surrounding forests. Last year, Mercy Corps conducted a survey of displaced households and found that 90 percent of the people surveyed reported they had experienced harassment, violence or rape while collecting firewood in the forests.

Mercy Corps is training women to build fuel-efficient stoves and make bio-mass briquettes, to reduce the amount of firewood women need to collect in unsafe and remote areas where rapes typically occur. The fuel-efficient stoves and bio-mass briquettes also reduce the massive deforestation in the area.

Please check out my photo essay on the BBC for more information on this critical program that Mercy Corps is implementing.

Blog Post:  Posted January 28, 2010, 2:54 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Surveying needs outside Port-au-Prince

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies

There's been a massive outward migration from Port-au-Prince to the rural areas. I'm texting this blog entry from the countryside now, where I'm with Bill Holbrook, our country director, and Diane Johnson, our global economic development czar. We're visiting groups of people who fled the city to identify their needs.

I met the mayor of Mirebalais -- which is about an hour north of Port-au-Prince -- to talk about how the arrival of 15,000 people into his 9,000-person small town over the last week has impacted his community. He says crime is up, food stocks are almost depleted and they don't know what to do.

Mercy Corps is planning to respond to these needs and work to create jobs and opportunities here, so the displaced families don't become a burden on the host community.

Blog Post:  Posted January 25, 2010, 12:44 pm by Cassandra Nelson

On CNN about our clean water, Comfort for Kids efforts

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies

CNN NEWSROOM
Aired January 25, 2010 - 11:00 ET

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: One of the biggest needs in Haiti right now, water. And we have been following the efforts of Mercy Corps to meet that need. And you are looking at images shot by Mercy Corps' Cassandra Nelson. She has been documenting her group's efforts since the crisis began, efforts to help families desperate for a glass of water.

Well, we keep asking Cassandra to come on back and give us an update on the progress, and she's kind enough to do it for us. And she's with us now from Port-au-Prince.

Cassandra, talk to us about -- first of all, good to see you again. Thank you for the time again, as always.

Has the water situation improved?

CASSANDRA NELSON, MERCY CORPS: Yes. The water situation is definitely improving. Water trucks are now running, and there have been water bladders that have been set up in numerous of the spontaneous camps that have formed around the city.

So, the water situation is improving. It certainly is not ideal.

Right now, the quantity of water is not so much a problem as the quality of water. Mercy Corps actually has a team out right now that's going around from water point to water point, actually testing the water that's available to make sure that it is acceptable to drink. A lot of this water here needs treatment, and that is really the next phase. Now that they have water, we have to make sure it's good water.

HARRIS: Yes. Give us an update on the filtration systems you were waiting for to arrive. Have they gotten there for you yet?

NELSON: The water filtration systems have not arrived yet. They actually -- as I understand, one is in Santa Domingo and it's on its way here. We certainly have found places where we will be putting those up and are expecting them, we're hoping, in the next 24 hours.

HARRIS: Yes. Give us an overall assessment of where things are in your efforts there in Haiti.

NELSON: Well, the aid effort, I have to say, in the last few days really has gained some serious traction and things are, I think, turning a positive corner. The situation remains absolutely dire, I think, as everyone is aware here. But the markets have opened, which has been a very good thing. People who actually do have some money can actually go out and purchase some supplies themselves, which has taken a little bit of relief off so the people that are the most needy, the people that are the poorest, who don't have money to buy food, now can be focused on. So that has definitely helped.

The banks are opening. So the situation has improved and food is getting out.

Mercy Corps has got about 15 tons of food delivered so far. We're delivering more food today and continuing with the water project. So things are improving, but a long way to go.

HARRIS: Hey, you know, a pretty dramatic rescue over the weekend. A 24-year-old man trapped for 11 days.

I'm just curious, do you hear those stories? And what kind of a positive impact does a story like that have on the spirits of your people?

NELSON: You know, it has a very positive impact. I think these are sort of the miracle stories that everyone needs right now in a time which feels incredibly hopeless. So those stories have a lot of positive impact.

At the same time, they do create sometimes a challenge in that many families are camped out in the rubble, next to their homes, in the hope that maybe someone's still alive inside. And these are very unsafe places for them to be, often.

If there's additional tremors and shakes in the evening, again, the building can continue to fall down and actually hurt people that are camped out outside. So we do encourage people to move away from the structures despite the fact that their loved ones might still be inside.

HARRIS: Hey, one more quick one here before I lose you. Tell me about this program that you've started where you're actually working with kids, young people who have been through this horrible, traumatic experience.

NELSON: Well, Mercy Corps is starting a program called Comfort for Kids. It's a program we've actually used many times. We used it after 9/11 in the U.S., and around the world in many earthquake zones and other disasters.

The idea is that we go in and we work with actually caretakers of children. So, families, teachers, people at churches, and we teach them how to identify traumatic symptoms in children and how to work with them to actually bring them forward and to make sure that they get those feelings out.

We have all sorts of activities and games to encourage children to tell their stories. We find that it's a very therapeutic way for children to cope with the disaster, actually to talk about it.

HARRIS: That is wonderful.

Cassandra, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time. And we're going to give you a couple of days to get back to work here, and then we're going to dial you up again.

Cassandra Nelson from Mercy Corps.

Thanks for your time.

Blog Post:  Posted January 23, 2010, 2:22 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Assessing needs in a forgotten neighborhood

Country: Haiti

Topics: Water/Sanitation, Emergencies

Yesterday I accompanied our water expert Mugur Dumitrache yesterday. It's a shantytown that Mugur has described as "not even being on any map."

Residents here have been extremely industrious, salvaging their metal roofs to construct tin shacks in an open field. They are really working to pull themselves together. They nominated three people as their representatives. Mugur met with them and is very keen on helping ensure they're drinking clean water and helping them organize a sanitation plan.

Check out more photos I took of this neighborhood on our Facebook page.

Blog Post:  Posted January 22, 2010, 12:10 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Talking to NBC

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies

Yesterday I talked to NBC Nightly News correspondent Mike Taibbi about the challenges of delivering aid in post-quake Haiti.

Click here to watch.

Blog Post:  Posted January 21, 2010, 10:27 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Thursday in Port-au-Prince

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies

News and observations from today in Port-au-Prince:

Food distributed: We distributed high-energy biscuits provided by the UN World Food Program to patients, family members and staff at Haiti's largest hospital. People were relieved and happy to see us. It was a little bit difficult to gauge the reaction of the patients because so many of them had undergone surgery or were in body casts, but their family members were definitely grateful. Hospital officials told us they've been very short on food. And the people who received the biscuit package opened it immediately and started eating it, so you could tell they were hungry.

Banks reopen: One thing exciting to see was that some of the banks reopened today. Not every bank -- some had structural damage, some have totally collapsed -- but today was the first day any bank had been open since the earthquake. And the lines were a mile long. You could tell people had been living without access to financial services for over a week.

This means a lot to the aid effort, because there are a lot of people in Port-au-Prince who have some money -- maybe not a lot -- but they were having to live on handouts simply because they couldn't access their money. People having access to their bank accounts will reduce some of the pressure on aid. Some people will not need assistance as much now because they can access their money, and we can focus on getting assistance to those most in need.

Commerce in the street: When I first got here, there was no activity. Now, people are selling stuff -- I've seen people selling bananas, mangos, crackers .... The stores aren't open, but people are selling basic foods in the streets. It's a good sign.

Aftershocks heighten anxiety: We two fairly significant aftershocks today, both powerful enough so people were running out of their homes. I was in the CNN studio when the first one hit, and we all ran out into the courtyard. We went back inside, another one hit, and we ran out again. People are not taking the aftershocks lightly. In some neighborhoods, people have taken bricks and stones from rubble and extended their property line into the street about five feet, and that's where they're putting all their stuff, bedrolls, etc. Even people in the most upscale neighborhoods are sleeping outside, because they're afraid to stay inside their homes.

Still in shock: I've asked a lot of people what they plan to do next, and honestly I've yet to meet anyone thinking along those lines. They're still shell-shocked; they don't know what to do. And you would be, too: There are tons and tons and tons of rubble, and there are rotting bodies everywhere. People are picking through the rubble and simply trying to organize their things.

Blog Post:  Posted January 21, 2010, 5:50 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Emergency food aid delivery to Port-au-Prince's General Hospital (8 photos)

Country: Haiti

Topics: Health, Food/Nutrition, Emergencies, Displacement

Today we delivered three days' worth of high-protein biscuits to 300 patients and their family members.

The General Hospital in Port-au-Prince is the largest hospital in the country. It was damaged in the earthquake but is still functional. However, due to structural damage and the overwhelming number of patients from the earthquake, patients and their families are outside -- on hospital beds, cots and foam pads on the ground.

Doctors treat the patients in the parking lot and on the lawn, applying full body casts, stitches and delivering babies. Surgeries are performed behind a sheet that hangs from a tree branch.

Blog Post:  Posted January 20, 2010, 12:15 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Residents begin recovering their possessions (8 photos)

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

Survivors of the earthquake begin to dig their personal possessions out from the rubble. Dead bodies still remain in the rubble.

Blog Post:  Posted January 19, 2010, 11:32 am by Cassandra Nelson

Talking about our response on CNN

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies

TONY HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Mercy Corps is one of the international aid groups on the ground working to help the people of Haiti. The organization is focused on providing clean drinking water, using filtration systems. Mercy Corps spokeswoman Cassandra Nelson joining us from Port-au-Prince.

And good to see you, thanks for your time, Cassandra. A week after this tragedy, are the people -- just a general assessment from you -- are the getting the help they need? The answer seems to range from yes to absolutely not. What's your assessment?

CASSANDRA NELSON, MERCY CORPS: I think that some of the people are getting the help they need, and each day the aid effort is reaching more and more people. So it certainly is increasing, but not everyone who needs assistance has been helped yet. The needs are absolutely overwhelming and everyone is working as fast as they can, but there's certainly a lot of people out there that still need to be reached.

HARRIS: OK, and describe your setup -- your operation, your staging, your communications with other agencies, your security setup. I know a lot of questions there, but how are you operating in Port-au- Prince?

NELSON: Well, operations here have been an incredible challenge and Mercy Corps has done emergency response for years and years and is very seasoned. We have to say, this is probably one of the hardest ones we've had.

We are working out of an office. Right now our office is overflowing. It's a place where we all sleep, we all eat, granola bars and we all do our work there as well so we're really obviously in a challenging work environment. We're having a hard time getting vehicles and getting fuel just to get around town and obviously there's the traffic issues that we're facing.

But there is a lot of coordination efforts that are going on to really make sure that there are no gaps in terms of how the aid is going to be delivered. So we're working with our colleague humanitarian aid organizations and the United Nations to really synchronize our efforts and make sure that geographically we're covering, you know, the right areas.

HARRIS: OK. Your focus is water and purifying water, filtration systems. How are you able to do this, because -- are you shipping in water? Are you able to tap into, for example, the World Food Program's supply of water? How are you getting what you need to do the work you're doing?

NELSON: So for water what we're doing right now is we're shipping in five water filtration systems and three or four desalination systems. They have not arrived yet. We are waiting for them to get here.

Right now, in the interim period while we wait for those devices -- and those will give us -- will serve 25,000 families with those units as soon as they arrive. But in the interim, our water engineers are out right now, they're working with the communities to identify where would be appropriate places to put them, as well as we've also gone out and are working to identify any existing water wells that have been damaged in the earthquake but that can be quickly fixed. So those are some quick band-aids we can put on there while we're waiting for our other systems to arrive, which really help the problem here.

In terms of coordinating with the WFP, we're doing that on our food distributions. We're working to distribute high energy biscuits. The WFP has them in a warehouse in stock here and we're working with them to actually take them that last mile and get them out to the families in need.

HARRIS: One last question for you, Mercy Corps, my understanding, is putting together a work-for-cash program. What's the idea here and how does it work?

NELSON: OK. This is a program we're going to probably be starting up next week and in the coming weeks. It is basically a program that's a little bit akin to, say, the WPA program in America.

The idea is to get the Haitian people fully engaged in their own recovery, so we basically hire the local community people to go out and clean up their neighborhoods, get debris and we pay them a basic wage. That wage allows them to actually go out and buy what they need versus being dependent on assistance and handouts from aid organizations. Lets them stand on their own feet.

It also has a really positive, I believe, emotional and psychological impact on the people, that they actually are then engaged in their recovery and are not just simply standing by.

HARRIS: I like that. I hope you can get it up running and I hope it's wildly successful for you.

Good to see you, Cassandra Nelson of Mercy Corps. Thanks for the time.

Transcript courtesy of CNN.com.

Blog Post:  Posted January 18, 2010, 10:10 pm by Cassandra Nelson

Taking shelter into their own hands

Country: Haiti

Topics: Emergencies, Displacement

As people emerge from the emotional shock of losing their homes, families along the roadside are starting to take the question of shelter into their own hands.

They start by breaking off tree limbs -- with their bare hands, since they don't have any tools -- and using them as poles. They use their hands to dig holes for limbs, and then pound the poles into the ground using rocks. Tablecloths and bedsheets are used for the material for the roof and walls.

They're an example of the creativity and resilience of Haitian families. But of course they're woefully inadequate -- which is why we were pleased to see progress today on a UN plan to set up tented camps for earthquake survivors. Camps will not only provide healthier, more secure shelter for homeless families, but it will also make it easier for them to receive aid. It's much easier for humanitarian agencies like Mercy Corps to conduct safe, well-coordinated and fair distributions of relief items in managed camps than in the streets.