Training helps Red Crosser Cliford Monfort help families in Haiti

My name is Cliford Monfort. I was born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. In 2006 I started volunteering in the National Ambulance Services, and in 2007, I joined the Haitian Red Cross.

In Haiti, Cliford Monfort has helped to respond to disasters including the 2010 earthquake, Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and most recently Hurricane Irma in 2017.

In the early days following the 2010 earthquake, Cliford was on the ground, providing first aid. Later, he was at the Red Cross headquarters, where he joined relief teams as they distributed emergency aid to people who had been impacted by the disaster. He was then selected to be the emergency relief deputy team leader, where he was able to continue training for working in the field.

Through support from the Government of Canada, as part of the CERA initiative, aid workers like Cliford receive training that helps them to respond to disasters and emergencies.

Just one month before Hurricane Irma hit, Cliford participated in a training session for Open Data Kit (ODK) and Mega V. This training was conducted by the International Federation of the Red Cross, who helps implement CERA training sessions. These tools help assess damage and needs, take records of affected people, and distribute aid in an effective and timely manner. Before these tools were being used, registration would take place on paper, a system that can become challenging and time consuming.

In La Tortue island, the area that was most affected by Irma, Cliford played the important role of leading and training the damage and needs analysis teams.  These assessments are crucial to making sure the Red Cross is addressing the needs of those in impacted areas, and using ODK and Mega V meant that these assessments could be carried out in a more efficient way.

Before Mega V, it could take 15-20 minutes to distribute aid to a family because volunteers needed to look up registrations on paper. “With Mega V, it takes us less than a minute to serve a family. “ Clifford said, “We were able to serve 1,000 families in an hour. “

Now that Cliford has been trained on the system, he is able to share his knowledge with other aid workers, “one of my highest achievements with this system is when I trained some 60 volunteers in ODK and Mega V in Jeremie after Hurricane Matthew", he said. 

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