Our Partners

During major disasters, Save the Children and other aid agencies collaborate to improve the effectiveness of the response. Many have said that aid agencies were not coordinated in their response to the earthquake, but this was not the case among organizations such as Save the Children.

Working since 1978 as one of the largest agencies in Haiti and with global humanitarian expertise, we were asked by the United Nations to lead or participate in groups of other agencies who were also responding. These UN clusters ensured that groups could coordinate efforts, deliver aid equally and gather information to expand assistance. Specifically, we:

• Co-led the education cluster with UNICEF. We worked with other agencies like CARE, Mercy Corps and World Vision and the Haitian Ministry of Education to restore children’s access to education and organize teacher recruitment and training, as many teachers had been killed.
• Led the UN health cluster in the damaged cities of Leogane and Jacmel.
• Actively participated in and periodically chaired the Family Tracing and Reunification Working Group and staffed the national hotline until it was transferred to the Haitian government.

We worked closely with the World Food Program and members of the UN’s food cluster to make sure that women’s security concerns were addressed so that they could safely collect food during distributions and bring it to their families—recognizing that Haitian women are children’s primary caregivers. Food distribution to women worked well, despite early challenges with mass distributions.

NGO Coordination and Advocacy

• Enable NGOs supporting education in Haiti to have a voice and to contribute to national reform and the reconstruction of the Education system: Played a leading role in launching an NGO education platform called the CLIO Education Commission (CEC) and hired an Education Coordination Specialist to lead the CEC through early May 2013. The value of the CEC in supporting NGOs and education stakeholders’ coordination has been recognized by the education donors and the MENFP.