NEEDY: A line of earthquake survivors queuing during a food distribution in Port-au-Prince this week.

Gibraltar based independent philanthropic trust the Bonita Trust has allocated $250,000 to be distributed to organizations in Haiti, over the next five years, to assist in the rebuilding of the country recently devastated by earthquake.

An initial $80,000 is being provided immediately for the purchase of water-tanks to be set up within the many tent camps.

 

Announcing the move Ruth Parasol DeLeon, founding member of the Bonita Trust's International Advisory Committee, said that water is the source of life and clean water is extremely limited now in Haiti, particularly in the tent camps where thousands of homeless people are literally struggling to survive.

"Watching the people of Haiti suffer has been difficult and we are keen to help them in their moment of greatest need and to recover from this natural disaster."

Each tank, which will be marked "Bonita Trust, Gibraltar" with the Gibraltarian flag, has the capacity to hold 3200 gallons, and Bonita's grant will cover the cost of purchase, set up, and the overhead cost of trucks which refill the tanks daily. All 20 tanks should be operational within 60 days.

Bonita Trust has made this gift in connection with ProDev Foundation, a local Haitian NGO and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a US-based organisation that offers non-sectarian disaster relief and longer-term development assistance worldwide. ProDev, which is run by a former Haitian Government Minister, Maryse Kedar, has both the resources and connections on the ground in Haiti to implement and oversee the management and operation of the water tanks at the tent camps.

In addition to the grant to Haiti, the Bonita Trust intends to expedite its rollout of previously earmarked grants totalling £250,000 over the next 10 years to the Dominican Republic which borders Haiti and shares the same island. The Dominican Republic has been at the forefront of disaster relief operations resulting from the earthquake, and also requires urgent economic and operational support.

The Dominican Republic  is especially important to the Bonita in terms of its heritage. It is intended that some of the projects to be funded in the Dominican Republic will named in honour of the memory of Dominican Marisol Santos (screen user name Lucy Jones), Partypoker.com's first and well-loved player agent, who recently died in late 2009.

See http://www.bonitatrust.org