Hollywood star shows how aid can help Haiti

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Sean Penn's tent city for victims of January's quake is no publicity stunt. As Guy Adams reports from Port-au-Prince, it's the best relief operation in town
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hollywood-star-shows-how-aid-can-help-haiti-2023810.html

The life of a Hollywood star isn't all red carpets and luxury hotels. Not if you're Sean Penn, who woke at sunrise yesterday in a tiny tent on a mosquito-infested hillside overlooking the city of Port-au-Prince, rolled up the sleeves of a filthy shirt, holstered his Glock pistol, and set about trying to make life better for some of the two million people left homeless by the earthquake that hit Haiti's capital six months ago.

Penn's been doing the same thing virtually every day since late January, when he heard singing coming from an open-air church on the fairways of a ruined golf course in Pétionville, once one of the city's most affluent neighbourhoods. After wandering over to take a look, he decided it would be an ideal location for his newly created J/P Haiti Relief Organisation to build a camp for displaced victims of the worst natural disaster in modern history.

Today, that camp is home to more than 50,000 people, making it one of the biggest of the tent cities in Haiti, where the earthquake on 12 January destroyed about 280,000 buildings, killing 300,000 people and leaving – at a conservative estimate – a million and a half more without homes.

Penn has become one of Haiti's most hard-working advocates, pausing in his rescue mission only to make very occasional fundraising trips to Washington, where he addressed Congress and the UN, before returning to the coalface, digging trenches, hauling sacks of food and delivering medicine to help the inhabitants of his tent city – which aid workers informally call Camp Penn – to survive outbreaks of malaria, diphtheria and TB.

[Political_Junkie]

1. I love this man.

He doesn't need to do this, he could just sit back in his mansion and do nothing, instead he's out there laying it all on the line for his fellow man.

[Bobbieo]

2. His parents are to be congratulated for a job well done!!!!

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Many jobs well done.

Sean's father was the director Leo Penn, his mother is the actress Eileen Ryan. Both courageous and excellent artists.

[Lindsey]

4. Sean Penn - American hero. n/t

[applegrove]

5. What a great guy. Think how proud his kids must be of him.

[scarletwoman]

6. More from the article:

...the remarkable thing about Penn's Haiti tent city is how well it works. With a fraction of the money of mainstream relief organisations and almost no experience of the aid game, the Hollywood actor has created what is widely regarded as the most vibrant and by some distance the best-run humanitarian project in Haiti.

Walk around Camp Penn and you will notice more schools, more hospitals, more latrines, and more water stations than at any of the 1,300 similar tent cities that dot the country. The camp is tidier (they have daily litter collection), safer (you see regular police patrols) and better designed than any other. Its inhabitants may not have their lives back yet – not by a long way – but they at least feel as if things might be heading in the right direction.

"The difference between this camp and all the others? Where do I start?" asks Florian Blaser, a German doctor with Médicins Sans Frontières who has worked at facilities across the country. "There are no gangs roaming the streets. There are plenty of hospitals, so people have proper access to doctors. Children have at least four schools to choose from. You go to other places, and the earthquake victims are just existing. Here, they are thriving. There's a real sense of community."

<snip>

Penn's success matters, because across the rest of Haiti, relief efforts aren't all turning out so rosily. Although billions of dollars in aid was pledged after the disaster, only a fraction has been spent. Rebuilding has barely started. Questions are starting to be asked over how major charities and organisations such as the UN are spending their cash. A report by ABC News this week claimed that just 2 per cent of the $1.1 bn (£730m) that the 23 biggest charities in Haiti raised after the disaster has been released. Just 1 per cent has been spent on operations.

Yet while NGOs pay thousands of dollars a month to billet staff in air-conditioned houses (the cost of leasing a home with a pool in Port-au-Prince has doubled since the quake), the Hollywood A-lister and his volunteers sleep in identical tents next to the club's former tennis courts.

The thinking behind Penn's approach isn't just about spending money wisely. It also reflects a desire, surprisingly rare in the aid industry, to be seen as something approaching an equal by people he helps. Traditional agencies might parachute into disaster zones with aid deliveries, and then vanish for days. Penn strongly believes that he can only help a community if he lives in it and understands what makes it tick. (my bold)

Bravo for Sean!

sw

[EFerrari]

7. What a remarkable human bean.

Bravo!

[Sentath]

8. As another commenter mentioned, "Its the equality, stupid."

Parachuting in aid feeds people, working with them builds community.

Makes me wonder to what extent civilization is a state that can only be communicated person to person.