In brief

After completing several missions abroad, including in Lebanon, the DRC, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde, Régis Billaudel arrived in Haiti in February to assess the capacity of the aid transport system before making improvements to the orthopaedic-fitting centre.

What was the aim of your mission?
I was sent to Port-au-Prince to see if the facilities for transporting humanitarian aid were up to the job. I met with NGOs, transporters and Haitian trade unions who use the logistics platform set up by Handicap International to assess their needs. However, in an emergency situation, it's difficult for NGOs to know what their needs will be over the next three months.
We manage a fleet of all-purpose lorries which we used to transport vital aid in the days immediately following the earthquake, before the NGOs had time to find private transporters themselves. The platform is now used more to transport aid to inaccessible areas and to distribute items for small NGOs without the resources to pay for private transporters. This platform enables us to transport humanitarian aid for over sixty NGOs.

What was your second mission?
I coordinated the renovation of the building housing the orthopaedic-fitting centre in Port-au-Prince. The building was originally designed to be a supermarket and the centre looked like a concrete underground car park, cold and very dark, but with a good city centre location that was easy for patients to access. We managed to find teams to do the work. I was responsible for coordinating the Haitian foremen, who are highly skilled. My priority was to improve the welcome given to patients to help calm their fears about the fitting centre. We also worked with artists who painted a fresco representing the physical development of patients with amputations and orthopaedic devices and their own psychological journey. The orthopaedic-fitting centre is now a lot more warm and welcoming.

What's the state of mind of Haitians?
They're still not ready to sleep indoors, even if they're lucky and their home is still standing. They spend their days inside but at nightfall they sleep outside because they're afraid of another earthquake. Mourning for the victims has made the atmosphere a little oppressive, but our Haitian colleagues have shown a slight improvement since Easter. People are beginning to laugh again and are slowly rediscovering the joys of life.

What's your life like in Haiti?
The mountain of work to do keeps us really busy. We don't really have time to mix with the population, especially since the safety regulations are so strict in Haiti and we're not authorized to walk around the streets alone. But I will always remember the look on the faces of the patients we fit with orthopaedic devices in our workshop - worried, grateful then surprised and, finally, huge smiles.

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