Congratulations to all the Haven volunteers who helped to built 63 houses, a community centre and a playground last week in searing temperatures just so the lives of some of the world's most poorest people could be a little better.

Gonaives, about 160 km miles north of Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, has been riddled with poverty for years. Families live in the tiniest makeshift shacks or tattered tents after many had their homes destroyed by two devastating hurricanes in 2004 and 2008. Children ignore the horrible stench to play in their bare feet in sickening filth where Irish people would dump their household waste. Men work whatever menial job they can get, usually in fishing, for little more than $3 a day.

It's some of these unfortunate people who will have their lives greatly improved by the first housing project in the area for 25 years, one that will continue later this year and into next year.

The surrounding wasteland might look as barren as it gets but at least poverty-stricken Haitians will have four walls to keep them dry when the rainy season comes, a community centre in which to meet and discuss their futures and a playground that the kids might never have seen before but will be something joyful that will give them childhoods to remember.

It's these lives that the Irish volunteers last week helped to change for the better and will continue to do for many years to come.

But it's a pity they couldn't see the destruction caused by January's quake in Port-au-Prince, many of whom having signed up to fly to Haiti after seeing the images on television of the world's worst natural disasters in decades. Gonaives might have as much poverty in parts, if not more, than the capital, but at least there are some positive moves being made, no matter how small they may be. But PAP will take decades to repair, if it ever does.

Imagine the sickening feeling of helplessness as you rise every morning and stare at the rubble that was once your home, as so many do. Added to that the infinite pain of losing someone you loved in the terror that engulfed the city on January 12. Houses can be rebuilt but broken hearts take a lot longer to mend. These are the nightmarish feelings of loss and suffering that 1.3 million Haitians wake to every day.

Three days after leaving the land many locals consider to be God-forsaken because of the practice of voodoo in some parts, and there is much to reflect on. For one, when the rain comes what will become of so many of the camps that are merely built on hillsides and what kind of future the children of this potentially beautiful country have in store for them? The truth may lie in the fact that much more hardship lies in wait for Haiti before the damage of recent months and years can even begin to be repaired.

The work of Haven and their volunteers in their two Build-It weeks so far might be making a small difference to the lives of some. But far greater intervention, perhaps a divine one, will be needed for the people of this small country, only the size of the Munster, to be ultimately able to enjoy some kind of normal life.