Abstract
Humanitarian response to the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2000 was from National Government and Non-Governmental Organizations. Support in form of rescue and relief workers got sent to Haiti. Humanitarian supplies got directly supplied to areas directly affected by the earthquake. National fund raising got organized in an effort to provide monetary support. Medical staff got sent and security personnel too. The urgency of the response to Haiti is important and the response to the appeal of donation. Use of questionnaires was quite helpful as it provided the best sample for the research. There was strong support for the humanitarian aid offered to Haiti in monetary form but it was not enough to cover for the clearing of rubble in Haiti. More funding is needed to help with repairing of housing and prevention of cholera cases that have killed thousands of Haiti people and more have got hospitalized (Middleton, 2010).
Introduction
Providing social consensus information about other people influence their decision to donate aid and support the appeal. There are countries that have a culture of giving and it was evident by the quick reponse inform of support that Haiti received immediately after the earthquake. There is a strong support for the renewed appeal as well as weak support for the renewed appeal ; this can get credited to response in social consensus information provided in different societies. The group with the strong support is from a society that supports aid efforts to Haiti. While the group with weak support is from a society that does not commonly agree or support aid efforts . The renewed humanitarian appeal by the United Nations seeks to prevent human suffering that has led to high rates of mortality and reduce human suffering in the long term by enabling the Haiti community with the ability to have better response to potential shocks in the future.
Method
Primary data collection methods were done through filling of questionnaires. One questionnaire showed strong support for humanitarian aid while the second showed weak support for the aid eforts. Also, this research paper looks at the perceptions of Haiti people as well as the world in general regarding humanitarian assistance. The first part of the questionnaires required the participants to rate the urgency of humanitarian aid in Haiti based on the information provided by a newspaper article. Also, the first part required the participants to rate if the donation provided was strong or weak in response to the United Nations appeal. The second part of the questionnaires required the participant to rate how strongly they disagreed or agreed with the support and endorsement of the humanitarian aids. Also,the participants got required to rate the percentage of the support aid given to Haiti.In addition, the participants got required to rate the people who support the aid appeal to donate money and if the people who supported the donations would find it morally right. Also, the participants were required to rate whether people involved in Haiti donation, should continue with the same behavior in strong and weak donations. Also, they were required to state if they believed the people who support humanitarian needs have common aspects that make them feel closer to each other. The third part required them to collect data about their gender and residence in Singapore.
Secondary data collection was from printed reports that showed and analyzed how resources contributed got directed to earthquake response and how it evolved with time
Qualitative data was to identify challenges that the Haiti community faced during the recovery process and how every household got impacted by the earthquake disaster. Also it looks at the role of humanitarian aid in helping through the recovery process. Qualitative data used focus groups that looked at impact of the 2010 earthquake on each household and community as a whole. It also sought to look at the definition of social networks that show the type of humanitarian assistance that households got from other community members (Hyndman, 2011).
Method participants
Participants in this research were psychology students. The research was conducted with 84 students taking psychology course and each participant gave his or her views about humanitarian aid. Female participants were 63 while 21 participants were male. Their average age was about 24years with a standard deviation of 4.52 years. 82 of the participants were residents or citizens of Singapore.
Method materials
The newspaper indicated that Haiti needed humanitarian aid urgently . The newspaper article also suggested there was a strong and weak donation response as a result of the appeal. The three DVs chosen were support, action intention and social identity .
Support for aid efforts in Haiti can get described interms of feelings. These feelings include compassion, responsible , sympathy, guilty or furious for not being able to offer the best support that can get tangible. Feelings of support are welcome in aid efforts because such support helps the victims feel that they are people who care about their suffering. Feelings of support show that people care and would be willing to help if they got the opportunity. When people send messages of condolence to people Haiti they are showing they care and pray for them.
Action intention is about supporting the aid appeal through donating funds and starting initiatives that can help generate funds for the Haiti. These initiatves can get started through social media platform such as facebook and twitter and people can get involved to donate foodstuffs, money, clothes, or anything they have that could get of assistance to the victims. Action intention is also about volunteering in the whole process of aid efforts or even going to Haiti to give any assistance that can get required. Social identity is about a supporter associating with other people who share the same ideologies. Usually such people have a lot in common and are proud to be supporters of aid efforts. Social identity makes people spend their resources into helping those that are in need. They are happy to get associated with organizations such as red cross and other networks with similar intentions to achieve a common goal of helping out in a situation. Social identity ensures that supporters do not need any form of recognition.
On support, I endorse the aid efforts to Haiti at Cronbach’sα = .61 that showed that such results were acceptable. However, the weak support group would show a lower scale. About 50% percent of people support aid efforts to Haiti and would donate funds in the strong support group. In the weak support group only 10% would donate.
Action intention donation was at Cronbach’sα = .88 in strong and weak support group. It showed a strong agreement that people who support aid efforts donate money. People who support the aid efforts see donations as morally right. Haitian victims face hardship and people who donate should engage in similar donation behavior elsewhere. People who support aid efforts get prepared to act (Humanitarian Aid in Haiti, 2014).
I strongly agree that to support the United Nations appeal I will tell my friends and family about it. However in the weak support group I would not inform them . I also strongly agree to donate about $100 to the United Nations Haiti appeal in the strong support group.
On social identity Cronbach’sα = .83 showed I strongly agree that when we come together we can achieve change by supporting the aid efforts. I strongly agree that I feel sympathetic for Haiti situation and compassion too(Smillie, 2001).The only factor that got analysed was that individuals who support aid effort should engage in donation behavior elsewhere.
Results
T test results
The support DV on the weak group had a mean and SD of 5.9 and 0.94 respectively .The mean and SD for the strong group was 6.0 and 1.05 respectively with t test results for support being t(82)=-.438, p=.662. Action intention had a mean and SD of 4.2 and 1.26 respectively on the weak group. The strong group had a mean and SD of 4.4 and 1.35 respectively, the t test results for action intention were t(82)=-751, p=.455. Social identity in the weak group had a mean and SD of 4.0and 1.07 repectively. The strong support group had a mean and SD of 3.9 and 1.16 repectively social identity results for t tests were t(82)= .389, p=.699.
The t- tests conducted showed that there were minimal differences between the conditions for supporting aid in Haiti such as support, action intent and social identity because those who support aid effort do not necessarily have to donate.The mean differences between support, action intention and social identity were above 0.5 which shows the results were significant for the research.
The correlations showed that there was a strong relationship between support and action intention for aid efforts and also in donation and for weak support the correlations were no different r(82)= .347, p<0.1. There was also a significant relationship between action intention and social identity r(82)=.731, p<0.1. There was also a significant relationship between support and social identity with r(82)=.283, p<0.1.
Discussion
The implications of the research findings showed that people who are willing to support humanitarian aid in Haiti are also likely to donate funds and hence support the appeal by the United Nations. In real world situations these findings show that some people will only help out in situations when they see others helping but will not act to be the first. Some people will support and not donate funds because others have donated and hence feel that their contribution is unnecessary. Lack of significant findings in the research can get blamed on the fact that the research did not involve organizations that have been known to offer huge donations whenever calamity strikes. Also, the government contribution should have got included in this research (Farmer & Gardner, 2011).There many ways to encourage people to donate and that is collecting donations at local popular places such as supermarkets where people can donate little amounts such as coins.
Urgent humanitarian Aid to Haiti was necessary to save lives, however it did not foresee the rebuild of Haiti to reconstruct the life’s of the residents. International Non-Governmental Organization that arrived in Haiti to help did not give local organizations the chance to help because the international organizations were well funded and hence the locals could not compete. The local organizations got pushed out of the response process. Haiti’s economy got labeled as the economy of disaster. The lack of proper communication between the humanitarian aids led to profiteering form the humanitarian funds by some organizations. It was very important to involve the Haitians in the recovery process through local leaders because they had proper networks needed to aid with the response. Their understanding and expertise on the Haitian culture could have helped through providing information on the recovery from the disaster (Kelley, n.d.).
The immediate people to respond to the earthquake in Haiti were the residents. They were forgotten in the rebuilding of their country the moment the internal community got involved in the humanitarian process.Many Haiti residents moved to the provinces for better shelter and survival environment but when they returned they did not find any changes .The response to humanitarian aids had not managed to clear the rubble and had not finished repairing the old houses as new ones were being constructed. It is argued that the humanitarian aid harmed Haiti more than it helped, because too much aid was provided for but it ended up creating social rifts. A social disaster unfolded unmasked in the banner of humanitarian aid (Hooper, 2012). Many Non- Government Organizations delivered help in the wrong way and delivered services without a plan and hence displaced institutions that were indigenous and local services too. Humanitarian aid from this perspective has been blamed for weakening Haiti and its local organizations (Theodore, n.d.). Research has shown that different organizations offering international assistance coordinated little to deliver same services even with efforts to centralize the distribution of humanitarian aid and its deployment too.
The appeal by United Nations needs to address the issue of donated funds falling into the wrong hands when channeled through the Haiti government. Long term solutions to recovery of Haiti are important to alleviate poverty and morality levels that are ever rising. With the appeal by the United Nations, it is important to note that humanitarian aid should address the root cause of environmental degradation, social inequality and chronic poverty.
Conclusion
The humanitarian aid that got provided by both international and local communities exceeded and met the immediate needs that Haiti’s affected areas required. The humanitarian assistance in Haiti did not make any contribution that positively impacted the society after the earthquake; in some cases it might have caused more harm because the spread of cholera that killed many people got blamed on the United Nations peace keepers. It is argued that had the Haitians been involved in disaster management, the strategies, program implementation and policies should have helped meet future needs of Haiti. International community has no choice but to engage Haiti residents in the new humanitarian appeal by the United Nations. The recent appeals by the United Nations are a wakeup call that donated funds should get used for intended purpose. That projects set up with donations should get supervised to bring the positive change that is needed by the society. The appeal is also a plea to people to make donations a habit so that affected countries can get rebuilt. However, the world is still generous to calamity victims.
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