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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – We dropped Jerry off at his next stop and said our goodbyes, having to make our next appointment with the volunteers at World Vision up in Pernier.
We’d met and interviewed Keith Chibafa a couple of days earlier and were eager to see Last Mile Mobile Solutions (LMMS) at work in the field.
If you want to get a better understanding of what LMMS is and how it’s changing lives in Haiti, you should really watch the following video:
But, in short, World Vision has found a quick, easy, cost effective way to distribute aid and provide transparency to donors, while cutting back the hours of wait time locals would have to typically spend in line waiting for life-saving food aid and relief supplies.
Before LMMS came along, Haitians would queue up from around 4.30am in seemingly interminable lines to receive their aid. Have you ever tried to stand in a line for hours to receive a handout? Can you imagine how you’d feel? The indignity of the situation? The physical strain of standing that long, in the heat and the dust? Not to mention the bureaucratic nightmare of all the forms and papers to sign. That’s where the beauty of LMMS technology really shines.
Even in remote areas where there is no electricity, no Internet and often in the middle of a crisis, the handheld PDA devices used by World Vision for LMMS stand up to the challenges.
Developed by hardware manufacturer Intermec, the robust handhelds have around eight hours of battery life and enable the scanning of photo ID cards to ensure families receive the right amount of food or funds in minutes, not hours.
The device eliminates the reliance on paper-based systems and automatically calculates accurate food rations while delivering web-based reports to donors and stakeholders, making aid distribution faster and fairer.
Sleepily emerging from the car in Pernier, rubbing my stiff neck and squinting my eyes in the sunlight, I was about to get a demonstration of aid the way it should be.
A long line of women snaked its way up the stairs of a two story white washed building opposite a field. “Degagez a droite s’il vous plait!” shouted a World Vision volunteer as we slipped passed the women to the room upstairs where Keith and his staff were already hard at work.
The process was almost “blink and you’ll miss it.”
Each local in turn was called to present their ID card to a World Vision volunteer, the card was scanned, the recipient signed their name on the screen using a stylus, and went to pick up their dues – in this case, cash, handed out for participating in a job training program.
There was a slight bottleneck in the cash collection queue, but that simply resulted from the sheer speed with which people were being processed.
“Why are they all women?” I asked Keith, looking at the fast moving line. “These are all those who are participating in the small business training course,” he answered. “the men typically do more of the ‘cash for work’ agricultural programs.”
Small businesses include stalls selling fruit and veg, to hair products, to clothes and more. Instead of simply handing out hand-outs, World Vision is investing in training locals to stand on their own, much like Inveneo. It’s such a refreshing outlook.
Also, unlike everywhere else we’d been over the last few days, the Haitians standing in line at World Vision did not vehemently object to us filming them. Here, there was no shame. They were there to collect their dues for a day’s work, a day’s training. These Haitians had their dignity intact, and weren’t afraid to look the camera in the eye.
