Action for Resilience in Haiti:
The experience of a health NGO
The activities of the Haitian Group for the Study
of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections
(GHESKIO), a Haitian health NGO, demonstrated
that their efforts to create a resilient
HIV/AIDS service system in Haiti indeed were
very effective in coping with the earthquake disaster
in early 2010.7–9 In this sense, having at least
one local organization that has gained the trust
of a community in dealing with one threat and
empowered that community with a focus on
building their “resilience to a particular threat”
is crucial for human security.
While GHESKIO’s primary focus since its
founding in 1982 has been dealing with AIDS
and opportunistic infections, it already had
strong connections with the local community
(and is made up almost entirely of Haitians).
This meant that it understood the needs in the
community as well as the opportunities for mobilization
through local, national, regional, and
international collaborations.10 Furthermore, very
importantly, it had the trust of the communities
in Port-au-Prince that were most in need of
health services after the devastating earthquake
on 12 January. Since people knew and trusted
GHESKIO, they came to the organization, notonly for health services but also for food, water,
and shelter, and GHESKIO was able to leverage
its community orientation to link those in need
with those who were coming from outside to provide
various forms of support.