Back to Basics - WFP Haiti's Emergency Response

Some differences by the way… Instead of letters of salutations, almanacs, etc this time we stamped on Coupons. This time the amount of stamps needed was a 7 number figure… 1 Million coupons. Peter Casier, responsible for the Santo Domingo’s Emergency office, made the request on Wednesday’s 5 PM daily meeting and the office converted into a post office for the next 3 days. People from every department of WFP participated, no matter job responsibility or hierarchy. The following day we were communicated that the amount needed reduced to half, a relief but still a lot to do.

Why we had to do the stamping process is not very relevant right now. Probably the local provider should have given the coupons with an individual number stamped on each one in the first place as it was needed, but that wasn’t the case. They managed to provide the last 500k anyway.

The important thing is what the coupons represent. These simple pieces of different color paper represent a ration for 7 or 14 days (depending on the distribution schedule and the goods to be delivered) for one family targeted as beneficiary by WFP and other NGOs. Actually, this month 300.000 families – about 2 million people - were identified as most vulnerable to food insecurity. Fortunately they started to receive the food since 6 March. Another purpose of the coupons was to provide order and security to the food distribution operations, and to make sure that the food is received by the targeted families.

Simple tasks and great teamwork placed together to achieve even greater and important results.

Regards, Juan