By Sarah Gillam, ActionAid International

Marie André is a manager with ActionAid Haiti and has been a heroine over the last week, working all hours to help some of the poorest communities in Port-au-Prince as well as friends and neighbours.

This week she led the team distributing food and medical supplies to people in Mariani where ActionAid works with children and young people, describing what was being given out and explaining to them how we would be back with more. The high protein food packs for children were distributed in four locations earlier this week along with medical supplies. More food will be distributed tomorrow.

Marie has done all this while looking after four children who were unable to locate their parents after the quake - as well as her own daughter. Her home tipped over in the shock and is no longer habitable. So she and the five young people stayed with a friend of hers.

"I was at home when the whole house started tipping sideways," she said. "Luckily I was near an outside door and was able to get out.

"I drove about 100 metres to my daughter’s school and then had to stop because there was so much rubble on the road. I ran about a kilometre to the school and found my daughter outside and safe along with lots of other children. The church had collapsed but the school was still ok.

"We stayed in the schoolyard until 6am the next day with about 300 other people. People were playing with the children to keep them occupied. Gradually parents came to collect their children until there were five left, including my daughter.

"I thought it was better to take the kids home with me rather than leave them there. Gradually, over the last week parents have taken their children home – only one was left. Her mother is a doctor and the clinic where she worked collapsed. There were six doctors working in there.

"I paid people to look for her mother and contacted the fire station and the Israeli rescue team but so far we’ve been unable to locate her.

"She’s a young woman with a life ahead of her – an A grade student…she needs closure."

Read more survivor's stories

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ActionAid's Sarah Gilliam is writing daily diaries from the relief effort in Port-au-Prince

We urgently need your help to stop this terrible disaster from turning into a long-term catastrophe. We have set up Emergency Appeal pages where you can help the thousands of Haitians who desperately need your support:

• In Brazil
• In the United Kingdom
  In the United Kingdom
  If you live in the UK, you can also donate through the multi-agency "Disaster Emergency Committee" (DEC)
• In the United States
• In Italy
• In Australia
• In Spain
• In Sweden