Rotary’s ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) dispatched 700 ShelterBoxes to Haiti on 15 January in response to the 12 January earthquake, directly from prepositioned stock in Curacao and El Salvador, ‘with even more to be packed before the end of the week.

Each ShelterBox contains a tent that will accommodate 10 people, together with blankets and/or mosquito netting, basic tools, cooking equipment, water purification tablets and even colouring books for the kids..

ShelterBox volunteers were among the first international relief workers to reach Haiti. SRT is a U.K. based disaster response organization supported by Rotary clubs worldwide. There are now around 5,000 ShelterBoxes in Haiti, enough to assist about 20,000 people, but firstly, targeting pregnant women and families with newborns, but as team member Mark Pearson says, “The walking wounded are everywhere.”

Another 600 patients were admitted to the team’s emergency hospital. The team worries that as time passes, the risk of disease will increase. “Should it rain, there will be outbreaks of cholera and other diseases,” Jim Kushner said, a volunteer from the Rotary Club of Inwood, Manhattan, N.Y.

Rotary requires around $1,200 funding to construct each ShelterBox. Thousands of ShelterBoxes have been dispatched to various disaster areas around the world in the past year, such as Malawi, Myanmar, Philippines, Samoa and Sumatra.

Find out more at www.shelterbox.org.