VIENNA, Va. — For several days, the U.S. has been evacuating American citizens out of Haiti, amid gang violence and unrest.
The capital city of Port Au Prince is overrun with violent gangs. People are being forced out of their homes, making an already dire humanitarian crisis, worse.
The ongoing situation is also proving challenging for local aid organizations trying to help. Vienna, Virginia based 'Community Coalition for Haiti' has been operating on the island nation for 30 years. The non-profit helps feed school children, train teachers, train medical professionals and helps provide essential needs to people in rural communities in Haiti.
The group has three medical clinics in southern Haiti and partners with more than a dozen schools. But CCH says its day-to-day operations have changed significantly because of the ongoing violence.
"It's hard for people to move around the country. Mobility is limited because of persistent violence and unrest," said Clark Seipt, Executive Director of Community Coalition for Haiti.
The organization's efforts on the ground are able to continue amid the unrest because of the small staff of 20 Haitian men and women who work for CCH.
"We feed 700 school kids every day. And it's because of our Haitian staff, the men and women that are dedicated to this ministry who get up and show up every morning regardless of the risks, because they know there are men, women and children who need them," said Seipt,
Seipt says the biggest challenge right now is getting resources to their staff on the ground. The non-profit tells WUSA9 they recently had to charter a plane from Port Au Prince to fly in medicine to their clinics because their pharmacy was empty.
"Everything is centralized in Port Au Prince. That's where everything comes into the country and that's the hub where everything is distributed out. When you talk about a capital that's 100 percent controlled by gangs, all those access routes are stymied.," said Seipt.
In the past, the non-profit often traveled to Haiti with volunteers and medical teams from local partners in the DMV like INOVA, but because of safety concerns, they haven't been able to do that since 2020.
"This humanitarian crisis is not new. This has really been ramping up since 2021," said Seipt.
The organization says it will continue to be creative in its efforts to get necessary resources to the staff on the ground, because their services are vital to the Haitian people.
"We have patients that show up at our clinic having traveled by foot for hours to get there because they do not have other options. As long as we can, we're going to stand strong serving the people of Haiti," said Clark.
The organization says locally, the community can help by spreading the word and talking about the ongoing crisis in Haiti.
"Please talk about Haiti. Talk about these stories," said Clark.
Here is a link to the non-profit's donation page.