Rotary's ShelterBox Deploying to Haiti

Just days later, Tropical Storm Grace made landfall over the epicentre - triggering flooding and mudslides and forcing families to make the impossible choice of whether to shelter in their damaged, dangerous homes or sleep out in the open.

Right now, we are deploying a team to the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

This is the first time a Response Team has deployed in 18 months since coronavirus severely restricted international travel in 2020.

Over the coming days, we will work with fellow humanitarians to assess damage reports, understand from communities what they need, and work on the challenging logistics of delivering aid to areas where buildings have been reduced to rubble.

As part of this, we are also in active discussions with Rotary.

For 20 years, the unique humanitarian bond between ShelterBox and Rotary has supported families around the world with a place to call home after a disaster. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Rotary family was critical in helping us provide shelter to 28, 000 families.

We will be using everything we've learned from this response, and our close partnership with Rotary, to forge local connections and make sure the right emergency shelter reaches communities when they need it.

If you have the capacity to give, any support for our emergency Haiti response is appreciated. Your generosity will go on to provide vulnerable families with emergency shelter and household items.

Ngā manaakitanga,
The ShelterBox New Zealand team.

Exploring our previous responses in Haiti

We have significant experience working in Haiti - and this year will mark our sixth response there.

Our most recent response was in 2016, when a ShelterBox Response Team - including New Zealand's own Jimmy Griffith, distributed 2, 805 ShelterKits to families devastated by Category 5 Hurricane Matthew.

Our 2010 response is also noteworthy. After a magnitude 7 earthquake struck the country, and left 1.5 million people homeless, we completed our biggest response to date (outside the long-running conflict in Syria) providing 28, 000 families with aid.