Months before the first storms of the hurricane season are likely
to strike the shores of Hispaniola, IOM and the government have
published Haiti's first policy guidelines on the use and
functioning of evacuation shelters.

The evacuation shelter guide and an associated workshop, which
continues today, are part of IOM's disaster risk reduction and
management support for the government, which includes a programme
to train grassroots volunteers in civil defence.

The guide was released in Port-au-Prince on 8 February as part
of a two-day hurricane preparedness workshop, with participants
coming from across the country. The guide and associated workshops,
as well as field visits, looked at issues such as construction
standards and rehabilitation of sites, as well as policy and
procedures.

An introduction prepared by Haiti's department for Civil
Protection noted that earthquake of January 12, 2010 exposed deep
structural and organizational fissures in the country's
institutions. The result is that prevention efforts are undermined
every year, thereby putting lives and property needlessly at
risk.

IOM has both initiated and supported technical assessments of
over 500 potential evacuation shelters around the country, to
determine usability and structural stability. The organization
built or rehabilitated a total of 29 shelters. The need for the
guide became apparent during construction, because of concerns for
the management of these sites during emergencies, including
difficult choices over who will have access.

This work was carried out with the same Ministry of Public Works
engineers who assessed all buildings in the earthquake affected
parts of the country, marking them red, for demolition, yellow for
repair and green as safe to live in.

The two-day workshop officially launched the "Guide de Gestion
des Sites et Abris d'Evacuation" or "Guide to Evacuation Sites and
Shelters". Produced as part of a joint IOM-government project, the
guidelines and contents of the report were officially adopted as
government policy on December 16th.

One important aim of the two-day workshop was to ensure that
participants are trained in the use of emergency shelters in time
of emergency and that the specifics of every region of Haiti are
taken into account. Ordering an evacuation is a big step, not least
in a country where so many live in flimsy or flood- prone
accommodation. It also included a pilot project in evacuation in a
rural area, which called for careful coordination at local
level.

The workshop targeted first responders in emergencies,
especially those charged with running the more than 500 emergency
evacuation shelters around the country. The workshop was designed
to strengthen local capacity especially at departmental, municipal
and local levels in order to coordinate responses during hurricane
season. Participants included delegates from the Haitian Red Cross
and the Department for Civil Protection (DPC).

Particular focus was placed on the presence of department level
technical coordinators; technical coordinators and Haitian Red
Cross departmental coordinators.

For further information, please contact:

Bradley Mellicker

IOM Haiti

Tel: +509 37 02 75 93

E-mail: "mailto:Bmellicker@iom.int">Bmellicker@iom.int 

or

Leonard Doyle

IOM Haiti

Tel: +509 37025066

E-mail: "mailto:Ldoyle@iom.int">Ldoyle@iom.int