Ian Rogers was in Haiti the day the earthquake crumbled the country.

The events of January 12, 2010 are forever etched on my mind. It is the day that Haiti was rocked by a devastating earthquake that killed 230,000 people. I was in Haiti that day. It was a shocking experience. People often ask if I was scared. I can honestly say I wasn't. I put this down to the fact that I knew how to react. As a trainer on disaster risk reduction I have run countless courses on disaster survival. This time however I was able to put theory into practice. I felt empowered to take split second decisions to assist my colleagues to take immediate action like standing in a doorway.

As the sun set in Haiti that evening an eerie silence was punctuated by the sounds of mourning and distress as people tried to rescue others in the darkness. It is one of the longest nights of my life. For those trapped and missing loved ones it must have seemed like an eternity. At dawn there was trepidation knowing that daylight would reveal the enormous scale of the devastation.

What followed is an international relief effort rarely seen, involving local and international aid workers. It is without doubt the toughest most harrowing disaster response that I have experienced up close and personal. My colleagues and I worked night and day for one-month getting life-saving supplies like food, water and medicine to thousands of children and families. But even our best efforts seemed futile given the enormity of the disaster - 60 per cent of the city of Port-au-Prince destroyed, millions left homeless, thousands injured or killed including many of Haiti's civil servants - usually among the first emergency responders.

Since the earthquake I have returned four times to Haiti. Each visit brings life's stark reality for earthquake-affected people sharply into focus, and the massive toll the disaster exacted on the local population. Fact is Haiti was wretchedly poor before the quake but now Haitians, with support from the international community, have an opportunity to build back better to put the nation on a path to prosperity.

The Haitian people refuse to be cowed by the earthquake - a disaster that goes down in history as one of the world's worst. Their collective strength of character typifies why the international community must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Haiti to help them build a better country for future generations of children.

This cannot be achieved however unless the Haitian government redouble its own efforts and plays a much greater leadership role in charting the nation's recovery.

A question I'm asked frequently is: is enough being done to help people in Haiti? Why haven't things improved faster? What bang is being got for the donated buck? These are all important questions. On occasion, there may be a tendency to think the Haiti situation is too hard or too complex for media and the Australian community to grasp. But I say it's our job to explain the problems, perils and pitfalls along the road to recovery. After all, Australian mums and dads, pensioners, students and teenagers donated hard earned cash to help Save the Children raise $1.4 million for the children of the Haiti earthquake. What's clear is that we have a responsibility to deliver on the goodwill and expectations of the Australian public, and in Haiti we must deliver.

I'd like to see the generosity of everyday Australians bettered by the international donor community who made commitments in March 2010 to allocate $5.75 billion to help fund Haiti's short-term recovery. Sadly, less than half what was pledged has actually been disbursed to Haiti. Australia though is among a handful of countries to have come close to fully funding their Haiti relief pledges.

So, what's my answer to these questions? To be blunt we - the international community - must do better. And I say that despite Save the Children having extended a lifeline to more than 870,000 Haitian people - more than half of them children - since the quake. But saving lives in the aftermath of the disaster was relatively easy compared to the reconstruction and recovery we face over the coming years. There are hard yards ahead in order to deliver on our promise to help Haiti build back better.

The plain truth is, we - the Haitian authorities, donor governments and agencies like mine - have a mountain to climb in Haiti.

For our part we plan to work on earthquake programs in Haiti until at least 2015. We know from previous emergencies like the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that it will take years to rebuild Haiti. When I say rebuild I'm not simply talking bricks and mortar.

Unlike the tsunami in the Indonesian province of Aceh and Sri Lanka where there was a strong and functioning central government able to respond to the humanitarian needs, Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital, was mostly flattened in the quake and with it went most of the Haitian government. That left a gaping hole in the nation's ability to deliver essential services like emergency responders, housing, water and sanitation.

There are other issues too. The recent Presidential elections in Haiti have so far not produced a new government able to lead the nation's recovery. Hopefully there will soon be a credible election outcome that will help move the country forward. Recently former US President Bill Clinton said of the Haiti election candidates, "My candidate is the reconstruction process." A clever sound bite since the protracted nature of the elections has already detracted from the immediate needs of quake affected families and children.

No account of the last twelve months in Haiti is complete without acknowledging the role that children have played in helping the nation get over the trauma of disaster. The resilience of children affected by disaster never ceases to surprise me. They have an uncanny ability to bounce back. I will never forget the moment that an excited Australian television news crew rushed into our office just 100 metres from the site where they plucked baby Winnie, 18 months old, from the rubble of a crumpled building. She'd been buried alive for nearly ten days. Winnie's parents were killed in the quake, but according to her uncle Frantz she is now starting to talk and is making good progress.

Save the Children works with children of all ages to teach them about safe hand washing practices so that they can avoid deadly diseases like cholera that, sadly, has blighted so many lives in Haiti today. We teach children how to protect themselves during an earthquake or hurricane. Then, when they go home, they teach their families what we taught them.

For Save the Children, children are active participants in Haiti's quake recovery. They are ambassadors of good practices and idea innovators. They are our partners.

Cholera though as mentioned has become a full-blown public health crisis in Haiti. In fact it is what's best described as the emergency within the emergency. Even the word cholera strikes fear into the hearts of people, but in all cases it is easily treated with rehydration therapy. If untreated though it causes vomiting, diarrhoea, rapid loss of fluids and death. Death occurs in hours if an individual cannot access a cholera treatment centre.

To help the Haitian government tackle the cholera crisis, we have set up ten cholera treatment centres. By promoting safe hygiene and attempting to reduce the risk to those most vulnerable such as children under five, we hope to protect 600,000 people from cholera over the next six months.

Now, one year since the earthquake, I look back on my time in Haiti over the last year with a mix of pride and sorrow. Despite the pain and suffering I witnessed, I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to play a very small part in supporting our Haitian staff start to rebuild their country. That said I'm acutely aware of the enormous challenges ahead. For example before the international community can start to transition approximately one million people from tented camps to new homes, millions of tonnes of rubble must be cleared from the streets. Today, only five per cent of the rubble has been cleared. It will take many, many years to remove all the debris.

But I have also witnessed the best of what can be achieved with goodwill, innovation and funding like the schools we're building to better withstand earthquakes and hurricanes in order to keep children safe from natural hazards. I have witnessed children return to classrooms and play and laugh with their friends. That's why I believe there is hope for the children of Haiti.

To support the work Save the Children are doing to help rebuild the lives of people inHaiti donate to the Children's Emergency Fund.