Fame is a very interesting concept. Today we had a very famous visitor at our camp. So famous that he came with heavily armed guards to protect him and a 5-mini bus entourage of team members, camera crew and photographers to chaperone him and capture his every movement on film. The trouble was - and perhaps my kids will say, 'O Dad' when I admit this - but I hadn't any idea who he was. Perhaps I'm getting old, perhaps I just don't keep up with the times. The VIP guest was a very personable young man named Kris Allen, the most recent winner of 'American Idol'. His visit was part of an awareness raising campaign by the United Nations Foundation. He spent the day visiting 4 different sites across Port au Prince and our camp was chosen as it represented both the challenges we are facing and some of the unique ways in which we are responding. If you have cable, please check the programme out next Thursday. You never know, I may even get in on a shot!
One of the innovative things he was here to see was our new registration process. Our programme has received fantastic support from many donors. But one of the best has been the American company UPS. They have assisted by providing free charter flights to move reief supplies and have provided the services of one of their professional logisticians. But theoir most recent contribution has been to design a programme to help us register our beneficiaries and track the assistance we are giving them. They have donated a complete package worth US$20,000 which allows us to issue bar coded ration cards. As we do distributions families will bring their cards which are electronically scanned and checked. The software automatically records what commodities have been allocated and received and prints out a complete list of who has received each commodity. It was revolutionise our tracking process and it something pretty unique in humanitarian circles.
The challenge this week has been to bring all 3,300 families to our camp management office, issue the new cards and check the data. Kris visited the team and even helped process one of the new ration card allocations.
It was good to see him - he was very friendly and he made quite an impact on the families. My hope is that his visit will keep the interest in Haiti alive and help promote the on-going work. Check out the programme on Thursday and look out for The Salvation Army.
2 comments:
Kris Allen who ?
Thanks for the post about Kris Allen. I'm a huge fan of his, and I was anxious to hear about his trip to Haiti. God bless you all in your efforts there.
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