The humanitarian response to the earthquake in Haiti represents the most challenging and complex emergency effort Save the Children has ever undertaken. The country’s
infrastructure was widely destroyed, and the quake significantly damaged large areas of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, where coordination during a humanitarian response needed to take place. Save the Children’s Haitian staff, most of whom suffered personal loss during the quake, have been working under the most taxing conditions. Given the needs of children and families, Save the Children has scaled up operations rapidly, creating stress on the agency’s financial, operational and human resource systems. Despite these difficulties, we have met the needs of hundreds of thousands
of Haitian children and families without other means of support.

Over the past six months, and with an outpouring of donor support second only to that Save the Children received following the 2004 South Asia tsunami, the agency has
coordinated with Haitian authorities, the international community, local and international organizations and communities to reach an estimated 682,000 children and adults — with lifesaving and life-sustaining assistance. Save the Children staff have worked nonstop since the early hours of January 13 to provide families in Port-au-Prince, Léogâne, Jacmel, and surrounding areas with food, shelter, water, health and nutrition services, sanitation and livelihoods support as well as protection and educational activities for children. With over 90 years of experience in providing relief assistance to children and families in disaster situations and through the compassion of its donors, Save the Children is one of the world’s foremost humanitarian development and assistance organizations. Yet the aftermath of Haiti’s
earthquake has presented one of the most challenging emergency responses in the agency’s history.