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According to US AID, there are approximately 600,000 displaced people living in 416 makeshift camps in Port-au-Prince. Sanitation conditions in the camps remain a grave concern. With heavy seasonal rains fast approaching, the population is extremely vulnerable to exposure and water-born disease.

Two leading directors of Doctors Without Borders have called the relief effort to date "broadly insufficient." In a March 5 interview, they say that, “The lack of shelter and the hygiene conditions represent a danger not only in terms of public health, but they are also an intolerable breach of the human dignity of all these people.”

Conditions are also critical outside the earthquake zone. Cap Haitien, Haiti’s second largest city located 120 km north of Port au Prince, has received an estimated influx of 50,000 refugees. Its mayor, Michel St. Croix, recently told the Miami Herald, “We need housing, sanitation, security -- we need everything.'' He said the city has received next to no assistance from the United Nations nor the International Red Cross.

In an interview with Associated Press on March 5, Haiti’s Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive repeated his government’s growing concern with the international aid effort. "Too many people are raising money without any controls, and don't explain what they're doing with it."

Farmer warned against the “trauma vultures” descending on Haiti. He asked why so many years of aid and charitable funds going to Haiti has left the country poorer than ever.

Canada was one of the few large countries in the world that did not send civilian emergency rescue teams to Haiti. Its official aid mission arrived one week after the earthquake in the form of two warships and 2,000 military personnel. They pitched into the relief effort and earned praise for their work. But most of the assistance brought by the military, including its field hospital in Léogâne and its emergency health center in Jacmel, have now been withdrawn.

“The Canadian military is not a relief agency. It helped out with short-term needs. Aid and reconstruction is a long-term process. Who is going to pick up where the military’s work left off?”

Prior to the earthquake, Cuba had some 350 health professionals volunteering in Haiti. That number, including graduates and students from the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Cuba, has expanded considerably. Since 2005, 550 Haitian doctors have graduated from ELAM. The school received its first Haitian students in 1999. Currently, there are 570 students from Haiti attending the school.

Timely and informative articles and videos are also posted to the website of the Canada Haiti Action Network (http://canadahaitiaction.ca/) and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (http://ijdh.org/).

The UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) and its partners are setting up provisional schoolrooms in Port-au-Prince and other areas, as schools destroyed in the quake are being rebuilt.

Haiti’s educational system, said Marc Vergara of the agency, virtually ceased to function in affected areas, leaving about 2.5 million children out of school after the earthquake.Together with the ministry of education, Unicef is helping to establish more than 150 tent schools to get children back to school before April.With more than half of school-age children not attending classes prior to the quake, the agency’s goal is to "build back better" to create conditions to allow many young Haitians to attend school for the first time.

Togura Elementary School stands in the middle of what once was a town and now barely has any marks of human existence. The force of the water erased concrete roads and placed a full-grown tree in the school corridor, it's roots blocking the way.

"I will wait for the kids to come back," he told CNN, as he continued going through his files.

UNICEF, Save the Children and other partners are working to get children back to school as quickly as possible. Temporary schools have been set up in places such as Duékoué in the west, where 15,000 refugees have been sheltering since January.

An estimated 60 per cent of teachers are not in post due to the growing insecurity.

In the south, public schools have been more or less open for the last couple of months, but the on-going political crisis is causing a heavy burden on families. It’s paralyzed the economy causing massive layoffs, and with banks closed families are finding it increasingly difficult to have money to feed their children and send them to school. Food prices have also soared since the beginning of the year.

Public school is free in Côte d’Ivoire but families have to pay for school supplies and other miscellaneous fees. Where schools are open, UNICEF is distributing school bags filled with supplies such as textbooks, pens, pencils, eraser, pencil sharpener to support families in need.

Unfortunately, the education crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is compounded by chronic poverty. At the moment, families are faced with the difficult choice of feeding their children or sending them to school. It’s a decision no one should ever to have to make.