After discussing concerns I have about the way the relief effort for Haiti has been handled, I wanted to mention some things that I observed after Cuba was hit by 4 hurricanes in 2008:

(1) We need to stay home. Well, maybe not everybody. But if you can’t go and offer a needed skill, you’re a hindrance, not a help. One man I know hurried to get down to Havana soon after the hurricanes went through. It was a time of terrible food shortages on the island. I’m sure that his presence encouraged some, but he was also using up precious resources that were needed by others. We feel a desperate need to do something, yet there are times when our attempts at helping only hurt.

(2) We need to trust the locals. People say, “Well, we need to go and make sure the money is spent right.” Whether we recognize it or not, there is a bit of ethnocentrism in that, a bit of the idea that “those folks just won’t know how to handle things.” One preacher from Panama told me about a building that a church from the States had built. They insisted on using an architect from the U.S., which increased the costs greatly because he wasn’t familiar with local building codes, local materials, nor local labor practices. We need to recognize that in most instances they will know better what they need than we will.

(3) Centralization and cooperation are powerful tools. Due to the nature of Cuban-U.S. relations, people from the States couldn’t go running down there. With the complicated processes involved in getting money to Cuba, it was only natural that the money sent by churches was pooled and overseen by a committee of Cuban church members. Rather than being distributed by agencies competing with one another for funds, the relief items were distributed through one central group.

The situation in Cuba is unique, however the lessons we can learn from what happened there can help us respond to other disasters, especially in the Caribbean.