Chaos Eases As Haiti Food Lines Focus on WomenCBS News: The 79-year-old woman with a 55-pound bad of rice perched on her head gingerly descended concrete steps and passed it off to her daughter-in-law -- who quickly disappeared behind the faded leopard-print sheets that are the walls of their makeshift home on the crowded turf of Haiti's National Stadium. That personal victory for Rosedithe Menelas and her hungry family was a leap forward as well for the United Nations and aid groups...
Under a new targeted approach to aid, Menelas and thousands of other women across Haiti's capital no longer have to battle with men at food handouts that in recent days have been chaotic and dangerous scrums. 'Every time they give out food there's too much trouble,' said Menelas, collapsing into a small wooden chair as two grandchildren quickly scrambled into her lap. 'Today, we finally got something.'...
The UN World Food Program and its partners, including World Vision, borrowed an approach that has worked in other disaster zones. The agencies fanned out across Port-au-Prince, distributing coupons to be redeemed for bags of rice at 16 sites. The coupons were given mainly to women, the elderly and the disabled. Men could redeem coupons for women who were taking care of children or who otherwise could not make it.
'Our experience around the world is that food is more likely to be equitably shared in the household if it is given to women,' WFP spokesman Marcus Prior said at the stadium, now a sprawling encampment of families left homeless by the quake. Officials targeted women because they are primary caregivers in most households and are less likely to be aggressive on aid lines. Many Haitians agreed. Chery Frantz, a 35-year-old father of four who lives in a ravine near one distribution center, said men are more likely to try to sell the donated rice. 'Women won't do that because they're more responsible.'...
A tour of several sites showed the project was largely successful. People hauled away their rice, often dividing it up among friends and family... Some recipients said it was their first aid since the quake. 'I have a big family and we have nothing,' said Nadia St. Eloi... who carried her rice bag on her head while holding her 2-year-old son by the arm. She said she still needs cooking oil and beans to make a meal but will make the rice last as long as possible.
