Haiti : for the new school year, directors, parents and students can call WFP’s hotline
The World Food Programme (WFP) launched a hotline in January 2017. The goal was to allow the population in the areas hit by Hurricane Matthew to call WFP to ask questions or raise issues. Based on the success of the initiative, WFP is making the hotline available for all its programmes in Haiti, starting with the School Feeding Programme.
Matthew was the most violent Hurricane which hit Haiti during the last decade. In the Southern Peninsula, millions of people have been affected and many have lost everything. WFP launched an emergency operation to bring food assistance to 900,000 people. Communication with communities was one of the top priorities. The affected people, whom many lived in remote areas, needed to know if they could receive WFP’s assistance and for how long.
The launch of the hotline
In addition to the humanitarian staff on the field, which was responding directly to the questions of the population, WFP saw the need to use additional communication channels, especially in those zones where humanitarian access was limited by collapsed infrastructure or security issues. Apart from broadcasting messages on local radio, WFP launched a hotline for affected communities to call WFP on issues related to its assistance.
“On January 20th, I received the first call”
recalls Willienne Thelemaque, responsible for the hotline. “ We classify the calls based on their importance to be sure urgent questions are treated first. If necessary, a team is sent to the field to resolve the issue”. Since its launch, over 1,300 complaints were received and addressed through the hotline.
To raise awareness on the hotline number, WFP broadcasted several messages through local radio stations and displayed the hotline number on leaflets and posters at distribution sites. The number was also printed on the ID cards that were handed out to beneficiaries of WFP’s activities.
A direct connection with WFP
“I receive regularly calls from beneficiaries who are participating in Cash for Work projects and who wants to confirm the date when they will receive their payment from WFP.” explains Willienne.
“The hotline allows them to have the information in a single call instead of going to the office of the partner”.
“Sometimes we also receive thank you calls, which can come from very far away”, says Willienne, giving the example of a beneficiary of the 6th section of Les Irois (Grand’Anse) who called to express his gratitude to WFP : “I’m greatly thanking WFP for the assistance given to the population affected by Hurricane Matthew. We invite WFP to continue in the same way”.
A new tool to guarantee the quality of all WFP programmes
After the success of the hotline during hurricane Matthew response, WFP decided to replicate the experience to its School Feeding Programme which is reaching 365,000 students.
“The hotline will contribute to the quality control of the programme. It will allow school Directors, students and parents to call us directly in case there is any issue” explains Claudia Schwarze, who is managing the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Unit at WFP Haiti.
For the new school year, WFP is displaying the number of the hotline in the 1,400 schools where WFP distributes meals to ensure everyone knows the number and can reach WFP.
