Haiti Earthquake: The Impact & buildOn’s Response

Updated October 21, 2021

On August 14th, a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. Its epicenter was in the southern region surrounding Les Cayes, where buildOn constructs schools that serve tens of thousands of people in Haiti’s poorest communities. More than 2,200 Haitian’s lost their lives and hundreds of thousands more were left homeless and cut off from basic needs in the quake’s aftermath. Fortunately, our Haiti Team members are all safe, but damage and devastation are extensive.

As our team continues to assess the impact of the recent earthquake on schools in Haiti, two key trends are clear:

1. buildOn’s earthquake-resistant schools are standing strong with minimal damage. In the earthquake’s aftermath, many buildOn schools provided shelter and vital community services.
2. Other non-buildOn schools in the area fared significantly worse, and many were completely destroyed. We’re committed to building at least 36 schools in Haiti with communities that had their classrooms destroyed.

While cost and timeline for building new schools has increased significantly in Haiti, buildOn is committed to addressing the immediate education needs of the communities we serve. As a new school year gets underway, we’re taking action to ensure that children and adults continue to have access to education:

1. Building Temporary Classroom Structures – We’re helping communities that lost schools in the earthquake continue to provide safe spaces to educate their children without interruption, as long-term repairs and rebuilding get underway.
2. Enrolling Out-of-School Children – Our Haiti team is deploying buildOn’s Enroll Program to reach students who lost access to safe schools because of the earthquake, getting them enrolled and learning again in buildOn classrooms that are standing strong.
3. Providing Literacy & Income-Generating Skills for Adult Learners – Haiti faces a host of challenges in addition to the destruction caused by the earthquake. To help Haiti rebuild and recover, we’re providing Adult Literacy Classes in which parents and grandparents learn skills needed to undertake income generating activities that benefit their communities.

This interactive map shows the locations of buildOn schools in southern Haiti (orange dots) and the locations and impact zones of the earthquakes and aftershocks (red and yellow dots):

Since 2010’s Haiti earthquake, buildOn has partnered with Architects Without Borders to build and retrofit schools with an earthquake-resistant design that likely saved lives in the recent quake and left buildOn schools standing to provide vital community support and shelter as tropical storms recently made landfall.

As Skyler Badenoch, CEO of buildOn partner Hope For Haiti, reports on the ground in Haiti: “What’s AMAZING to see is that almost every buildOn school that I’ve seen has had minimal damage. There’s a road in a community named Marceline where every single home is destroyed and leveled, and where many people lost their lives. There’s one building standing on that road, and it’s the buildOn school. It’s being used as a shelter, and we did humanitarian food distribution there yesterday to the pastor, whose wife died in the building next to the school.”

The village of Marceline, one of 122 communities in Haiti with buildOn schools, suffered extensive building damage and loss of life >>>

On the main road in the village of Marceline, every building was destroyed — with one exception >>>

The buildOn school in Marceline, retrofitted with our earthquake-resistant design, still stands, providing vital community support today and ensuring that children will be able to receive life-changing education again soon.

We’re grateful our earthquake-resistant building practices prevented loss of life and are helping to provide immediate relief, but no building is 100% earthquake proof and repairs will be essential.

Nearby buildings were destroyed in the earthquake, but the buildOn school in Durocher is still standing to provide vital services like this mobile health clinic.

Thanks to our earthquake-resistant design, buildOn schools are still standing in the aftermath of the quake, but many non-buildOn schools in the region will need to be rebuilt, and we're committed to helping these communities rebuild.

Most buildOn schools in Haiti are standing strong, while nearby schools and buildings were completely destroyed. Schools like this one in the village of Menard are providing shelter and services.

We will continue to provide updates as repairs and rebuilding gets underway. In the meantime, please support our efforts if you can and keep the people of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers.