Their Own Words: Resilience Among Haitian Survivors Of The 2010 Earthquake

Natural disasters are unfortunate events that cause damage to the surrounding environment and its inhabitants. These events can be disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. In the article, “In Their Own Words: Resilience among Haitian Survivors of the 2010 Earthquake”, it was stated that resilience after these natural disasters is “...‘acceptance of conditions,’ as solidarity demonstrated by ‘Haitians helping Haitians’” (581). To overcome the disasters, the inhabitants of the affected area must connect as a community. It is imperative for the survival of the affected people that this is done because the connections help the people to push through the aftermath of the disaster. Due to the psychological stress natural disasters

They connected through their faith and turned it into hope. After the Haitian earthquake, “...members from all three communities had expressed a great deal of ‘faith’ in ‘God,’ and had stressed the importance of faith and spirituality in their ability to continue to live day by day, even with recurrent aftershocks, six months after the earthquake, ‘because we did not die in the earthquake’” (Rahill 594). This quote shows that their faith held strong because they did not die in the earthquake exemplifying their resilience. It increased their ability to endure and unite together as a community. Faith inspires hope but does not make the suffering go away. Religion in Haiti is an enormous part of their identity and culture. Their faith gives them strength to be resilient and “For these reasons, religious communities in Haiti will be essential to the country’s recovery efforts” (Hope par 2). This quote shows that being religious as a community can help in times of

These natural disasters can drive distrust within communities. For example, in an analysis of natural disaster data, evidence was found by Dawn Brancati and Rakhi Bhavnani that “...natural disasters result in a high likelihood of conflict because victims compete with one another for scarce resources such as relief aid, housing and so forth” (Kang 1-2). Due to the scarcity of essential resources, those affected are fighting over them promoting conflict within a community. Instead of connecting, the people are competing against each other to survive. However, the use of the resources in a more efficient way can help to reduce fighting over resources. The fighting is caused by the lack of resources, but if the resources were not lacking and instead were used so that all people had access to the supplies less fighting would occur. For example, after not using the supplies resourcefully following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the government learned that they must “...encourage and ultimately require State and local governments to pre-contract for resources and commodities that will be critical for responding to all hazards” (“The Federal Response” par 5). The planned use of the resources ensures that the people will have what is essential at the correct time. This could ultimately fix the fight for scarce resources because the existing need for them is mitigated.