Limerick niece of Concern founders fighting to save lives
The 28-year-old is facing her biggest catastrophe yet, but she can call on her forebears for strength.
Susan is the niece of Concern founders, Fathers Jack and Aengus Finucane, and is carrying on their noble tradition as she works around the clock in shattered Port-au-Prince.
“It’s a difficult situation,” the Limerick woman said. “It’s not a nice thing to be going down the street and seeing dead bodies on the side and signs that say ‘Please Help Us – Bodies in Here’. It’s not nice for anybody to see, but that’s the reality of Haiti at the moment.”
This disaster is different from others faced by aid workers, because of its sheer magnitude and because they too have lost friends and family. There are now 200,000 people feared dead in Haiti and estimates put the number of homeless at a million.
“Everybody has been affected,” said Susan. “I’ve lost friends. Every single person in the office has lost friends or family; husbands, wives, children, so they are trying to come to terms with their own trauma. It’s sad, it’s very sad to see.
“At the moment everything is so busy, we’re working nearly 24/7 so there isn’t really a huge amount of time to think about it. I suppose we can all deal with it in the near future, but for now it’s making sure that our distributions go as planned and that we get the aid out there.”
Susan arrived on Thursday, flying in from New York, where she was based working for Concern. Her only previous posting with the charity had been in Haiti, where she spent two years.
But now working in Port-au-Prince is fraught with danger, as criminals roam the levelled city, adding to the panic.
“Prisoners were released here recently and I suppose there is a certain element of insecurity,” she explained. “I can’t tell you from my experience here that I’ve seen anything like that but I do know that it exists in certain pockets of the city.”
Aftershocks sparked fear of another quake. “We were down getting supplies in UNICEF,.. And we felt a tremor and it was 4.9 on the Richter scale and the night before there was also a tremor which was very high,” Susan recalled.
“So there is always that fear but I suppose we can’t really not do anything and not be here for people because God knows what would happen to Haiti.”
Delays distributing aid have led to frustration and even bloodshed on the streets but this does not surprise Susan. “It has been very difficult to get aid out to people,” she explained. “Initially people were patient but they’re desperate at this stage with no water, no food and having lost everything except the clothes on their backs. So there is an understanding as to why they would be getting irate.”
But Concern has managed to roll out relief. “We’ve already done distributions of medical supplies to hospitals.
“We’re doing a water distribution to reach 50,000 people; we’re going to be providing tents and plastic sheeting for up to 30,000 people. We’re building 300 latrines and doing distributions of a hygiene kit so people can at least have a little bit of basic dignity.
“We’re setting up emergency nutrition on seven sites at the most devastated areas, initially targeting 700 children under one year old, who are the most vulnerable at the moment. It was slow to begin but it’s definitely getting out there.”
Susan was speaking on Limerick’s Live95fm.
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