Merry Christmas 2012!

Sandy fuels growing fears of food security crisis in Haiti

By Jacqueline Charles
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

(Click to enlarge image)

 PETIT-GOÂVE, Haiti -- Before Sandy dumped more than 20 inches of rain on Haiti, rural towns like Petit-Goâve were relatively prosperous, their crops of banana, pigeon peas and yam helping feed the island-nation’s southern peninsula.

The hillside farms and plantations were among those that had been mercifully spared from previous disasters and disease in a country struggling under the weight of a severe food crisis. Now, with ruined roads and crops destroyed throughout the country, international aid and Haitian authorities are worried about a worsening food crisis in a country still recovering from a year of drought, a weak economy and a previous storm.

“Whatever was left of a potential harvest is gone,” said Johan Peleman, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs here. “Even the banana harvests seem to be gone.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/11/04/3082030/sandy-fuels-growing-fears-of-food.html#storylink=cpy

Continue reading...

Clintons land in Haiti to showcase industrial park

By TRENTON DANIEL
 Associated Press – 
10-22-2012 

CARACOL, Haiti (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton encouraged foreigners to invest in Haiti as she and her husband Bill led a star-studded delegation gathered Monday to inaugurate a new industrial park at the center of U.S. efforts to help the country rebuild after the 2010 earthquake.

Actors Sean Penn and Bill Stiller, fashion designer Donna Karan and British business magnate Richard Branson were among the luminaries at the opening of the new Caracol Industrial Park, which is projected to create thousands of jobs more than 100 miles from the quake-ravaged capital of Port-au-Prince.

Hillary Rodham Clinton told a roomful of investors gathered for a luncheon that she had made Haiti a priority when she became Secretary of State.

"We had learned that supporting long-term prosperity in Haiti meant more than providing aid," she said. "It required investments in infrastructure and the economy that would help the Haitian people achieve their own dreams.

Continue reading...

UK puts Haitian art in the picture with major exhibition

Mark Brown
Arts Correspondent
Guardian.Co.UK,
Sunday 21 October 2012

Haiti is often known for its grinding poverty, brutal oppression and natural disasters but the biggest exhibition of its art ever staged in the UK aims to provide more of a balance.

"When you walk in here, hopefully it is, on a simple level, visually eye-popping, astonishing," said the director of Nottingham Contemporary, Alex Farquharson. "These images speak to a very rich culture. There is a lot of joy."

Continue reading...

Hands, hearts across Haiti: Blount family adopting child, helping impoverished Haiti

By Melanie Tucker | The Daily Times

A little girl who deserves a second chance and a Blount County family with hearts big enough to make that happen are drawing some much-needed attention to the ravaged nation of Haiti.

Jeff Ledford is a deputy for the Blount County Sheriff’s Office who thought he had seen everything in his 16 years as a community servant. But when he arrived in Haiti back in January, what he saw not only changed his life forever but also set into motion the adoption of the 12-year-old girl the Ledford family will now be bringing home.

 Working on a plan
Ledford was part of a group of about 15 from Foothills Church who arrived in the village of Camatin to help build a cistern. They stayed for seven days and had the construction project 90 percent complete. It’s now finished. While there, Ledford said his heart went out to the students living in the town’s orphanage. One girl in particular, 12-year-old Christella, stole his heart away.

The whole experience of being there, of seeing families living in them most primitive of conditions, weighed heavily on Ledford when he returned.

“I had never been on any kind of trip like this,” he said. “I was home for three or four weeks before I could even talk about it.”

When he was finally able to relay his experiences, Ledford said he talked to his wife Kyla about adopting Christella. The family already includes a 21-year-old daughter, and three sons, ages 4 to 13. Ledford admitted he had already decided before this trip that they were done having any more. “But God had a different plan for us,” he said. Kyla was just as excited as he was.

The required paperwork to complete the adoption has been turned over to authorities in Haiti. The Ledford family now waits for word they can go and get Christella and bring her home. Ledford said it could happen as early as December or as late as a year from now.

Continue reading...

Donor Fatigue Hampers Haiti's Recovery

The Toronto Star
Published on Sunday August 12, 2012

Hardscrabble. That’s the only way to describe life in Haiti, where people still struggle to rebuild shattered lives 2 ½ years after the earthquake that wrecked Port-au-Prince, killed 220,000 and left a million homeless. As the Star’s Catherine Porter wrote in this weekend’s World Weekly section of the Star, money is tight and donors are fatigued. Haiti is in danger of becoming an afterthought.

Unlike some, Canada is well on track to deliver the more than $1 billion in aid we promised from 2006 through this year. Given Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision to pare back the overall aid budget, the follow-through on Haiti is commendable. Others have reneged. Of the $12 billion donors pledged in earthquake relief, Haitians have seen barely half.

Moreover, even innovative Canadian projects, such as the $20 million cleanup of Champ de Mars square in the capital where 5,000 families camped out, go only so far. Ottawa’s $500 subsidy to help them relocate is enough to cover this year’s rent in modest digs. Other elements of the program provide jobs and skills training. But as Porter reports, many wonder how they will fare when that lifeline runs out. Cheap, solid housing remains scarce and pricey. Hundreds of thousands are still living in flimsy shelter in camps. Former U.S. ambassador to Haiti Raymond Joseph calls that a “horrendous” situation that indicts policy-makers and donors alike.

What’s the take-away? First, that Canada has a residual responsibility to Champ de Mars families and others who may still need help next year. We should be prepared to extend another year’s rent as needed, rather than see people forced from their new homes. Second, at donors’ meetings Canadian officials should press the case for building new homes at a far faster rate, and for repairing damaged ones that are salvageable. That would provide much-needed jobs, along with more shelter. There’s an urgent need as well to rebuild hydro, ports, water and sewage lines, and other basics.

Finally, the Harper government has the credibility to remind the world that it promised to help Haitians “build back better” from catastrophe. Haitians are eager to do their part. But they can’t get far on just half a helping hand.

US pledge to rebuild Haiti not being met

By TRENTON DANIEL and MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press

Posted:   07/21/2012 01:01:24 PM EDT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—The deadly earthquake that leveled Haiti's capital more than two years ago brought a thread of hope: a promise of renewal. With the United States taking the lead, international donors pledged billions of dollars to help the country "build back better," breaking its cycle of dependency. But after the rubble was cleared and the dead buried, what the quake laid bare was the depth of Haiti's dysfunction.

Today, the fruits of an ambitious, $1.8 billion U.S. reconstruction promise are hard to find. Immediate, basic needs for bottled water, temporary shelter and medicine were the obvious priorities. But projects fundamental to Haiti's transformation out of poverty, such as permanent housing and electric plants in the heavily hit capital of Port-au-Prince have not taken off. 

Critics say the U.S. effort to reconstruct Haiti was flawed from the start. While "build back better" was a comforting notion, there wasn't much of a foundation to build upon. Haiti's chronic political instability and lack of coordinated leadership between Haiti and the U.S. meant crucial decisions about construction projects were slow to be approved. Red tape stalled those that were.

The international community's $10 billion effort was also hindered by its pledge to get approval for projects from the Haitian government. For more than a year then-President Rene Preval was, as he later described it, "paralyzed," while his government was mostly obliterated, with 16,000 civil servants killed and most ministries in ruins. It wasn't until earlier this year that a fully operational government was in place to sign paperwork, adopt codes and write regulations. Other delays included challenges to contracts, underestimates of what needed to be done, and land disputes.

Until now, comprehensive details about who is receiving U.S. funds and how they are spending them have not been released. Contracts, budgets and a 300-item spreadsheet obtained by The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act request show: 

— Of the $988 million spent so far, a quarter went toward debt relief to unburden the hemisphere's poorest nation of repayments. But after Haiti's loans were paid off, the government began borrowing again: $657 million so far, largely for oil imports rather than development projects.

— Less than 12 percent of the reconstruction money sent to Haiti after the earthquake has gone toward energy, shelter, ports or other infrastructure. At least a third, $329 million, went to projects that were awarded before the 2010 catastrophe and had little to do with the recovery—such as HIV/AIDS programs.

— Half of the $1.8 billion the U.S. promised for rebuilding is still in the Treasury, its disbursement stymied by an understaffed U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince in the months after the quake and by a Haitian government that was barely functional for more than a year.

— Despite State Department promises to keep spending public, some members of Congress and watchdogs say they aren't getting detailed information about how the millions are being spent, as dozens of contractors working for the U.S. government in Haiti leave a complex money trail.

"The challenges were absolutely huge and although there was a huge amount of money pledged, the structures were not there for this to be done quickly," said former U.S. Ambassador Brian Curran. "The concept of build back better is a good one, but we were way over-optimistic about the pace we could do it."

The U.S. Special Coordinator for Haiti Thomas C. Adams, who oversees USAID spending here, says the first priority in the critical days after the quake that killed more than 300,000 was crisis management, and the U.S. government spent $1.3 billion on critical rescue operations, saving untold lives.

Three months later, the goals shifted from rescue to what would become a $1.8 billion reconstruction package aimed at building new foundations.

"U.S. taxpayers, in the past, have spent billions of dollars in Haiti that haven't resulted in sustainable improvement in the lives of Haitians," said Adams. "The emphasis was never on 'spend the money quickly.' The emphasis was on spending the money so that in a year or two, we could look at these projects and see that we've helped create a real base to jump-start economic development and give Haitian families and businesses the kind of opportunities they deserve."

Haitian government officials are appreciative, and said the U.S. provides generous support for projects that impact long-term development. As for going back into debt, "Haiti needs all the assistance it can possibly get at this point," said Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe's deputy chief of staff Dimitri Nau.

PROMISES UNMET

Within months of the quake, Congress approved a 27-page plan detailing a partnership with the Haitian government to "lay the foundation for long-term stability and economic growth." USAID, an agency overseen by the State Department, was held responsible for getting the job done by choosing contractors, selecting projects and overseeing the work. But just as there's little to show for the $2 billion the U.S. spent in Haiti in the two decades before the earthquake, it hasn't built much that is permanent with the new influx of cash.

The plan laid out broad categories: infrastructure, health care, education, economic development. It was followed by a strategy that included specific benchmarks. This month, as about 40 of those come due, some are met, like a new police hotline to report abuse. But others are not.

For example, the U.S. had planned to improve the business environment by working with the local government to reduce regulations, pass national e-commerce laws, expand mortgage lending and update the tax code. The measurement of success, said U.S. planners, would be a better ranking by the World Bank's "Doing Business" indicators.

Instead, this year Haiti sank eight points lower compared with the rest of the world as a place to do business in categories including securing construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, receiving credit, enforcing contracts and paying taxes.

And so far, the U.S. has no public plans to build a clean water or sewer system in Port-au-Prince, even as the country grapples with the world's biggest cholera outbreak that medical researchers say was likely introduced by a U.N. peacekeeping unit after the earthquake. The U.S.'s largest jobs program is a garment manufacturing plant being built in Caracol, 280 kilometers (175 miles) from the capital. Adams said some investments, like fixing the electricity system, are taking more time.

A $137 million effort toward supplying reliable electricity in Haiti, including blackout-prone Port-au-Prince, stalled after a contract dispute led to a stop-work order—leaving the capital with electricity only about 10 hours a day. Those who can afford it use private generators and those without use lanterns or candles. To date, just $18 million has been spent on electricity—largely to build a power plant at the northern industrial park in Caracol.

The single largest recipient of funding is Washington, D.C.-area contractor Chemonics, which has received more than $58 million, including $6.8 million to remove rubble, $7.2 million to develop a market for environmentally friendly cook stoves, and money for youth soccer tournaments and "key cultural celebrations" including Flag Day, patron saints days and Mother's Day. Chemonics spokeswoman Martha James says 67 percent of the federal money went to Haitians, including salary for 94 Haitian staff, and Haitian subcontractors, grantees and vendors.

Meanwhile, 390,000 people are still homeless. The U.S. promised to rebuild or replace thousands of destroyed homes, but so far has not built even one new permanent house. Auditors say land disputes, lack of USAID oversight and no clear plan have hampered the housing effort. USAID contested that critique.

The State Department says 29,100 transitional shelters have been built, to which residents are adding floors, walls or roofs to make permanent homes, although homes once again vulnerable to natural disasters. U.S. funds also supported 27,000 households as they moved in with friends or families, and repaired 5,800 of the 35,000 damaged homes they had planned to complete with partners by July 2012. Also by this month the U.S. had planned to help resolve 40,000 to 80,000 land disputes, but at latest count had helped 10,400.

The State Department acknowledges that efforts to build shelters has been slower than anticipated.
While more than 1 million people have been moved out of the tent camps, most went to stay with family or friends, or moved into temporary shelters.

"Having tent cities in the capital 2 1/2 years after the earthquake is horrendous," said Raymond Joseph, a former Haiti ambassador to the U.S. "It's a condemnation of those who had the money and dragged their feet."

'NOTHING TO DO WITH THE QUAKE'

Making progress in Haiti has been easier with established programs that were under way before the earthquake. Contractors had already been chosen, and plans drawn up. As a result, much of the recovery and reconstruction funding was awarded to projects that were not damaged in the earthquake— from medical clinics to rural farms. Of the $988 million spent to date, $1 out of every $5 went to HIV/AIDS programs, though $49 million went to farming projects and $16 million supported elections.

Lack of education has long been a problem. Haiti has about 4.5 million school-age children, about half of whom were attending school before the earthquake. The largest U.S. education program after the quake was through the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research, which was a few years into a $25.6 million U.S.-funded project to train teachers.

"Then the earthquake happened and everything changed," AIR vice president Jane Benbow said. "They said we need you to take the resources you have left and we need you to redirect them, we need you to start doing other things with that money."

In April 2011, USAID announced that a $12 million AIR project had "constructed or is in the process of constructing more than 600 semi-permanent classrooms serving over 60,000 students."

But when pressed for details, AIR spokesman Larry McQuillan said the number of classrooms actually was 322. They were serving at least 38,640 students each day, many in two shifts.

The organization left Haiti last year after building 120 temporary schools. Today, about half of Haiti's school age children attend school, about the same as before the catastrophe. The Haitian government says it wants to put another 1.5 million children into school—by 2016.

The education money has made no difference for Odette Leonard, 39, who lost her husband, and her home, to the quake. Like most Haitians, she cannot afford to pay even the modest school costs for uniforms and books.

"People like me won't be able to see any of that money," Leonard said. She had to send her two children to her mother's house in the countryside so they could attend an affordable school.

One of USAID's most tangible post-earthquake accomplishments was the construction of a bridge across the muddy, winding Ennery River. The strong and well-engineered span eases a key route from the north to the south 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Port-au-Prince. The bridge had been down for more than a year before the earthquake, a casualty of the 2008 hurricane season. Plans had been sketched for a new bridge, but there wasn't funding.

Engineer Larry Wright, who temporarily moved to Haiti from Wyoming to lead the $4 million project, said he didn't know the funding came from earthquake reconstruction funds.  "This had nothing to do with the quake," said Wright.

AND YET MORE DEBT

When the earthquake hit, world lenders were already several years into forgiving Haiti's substantial debts, many of which dated back to millions in loans taken by the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, who was overthrown in 1986 and suddenly returned last year. In June 2009, seven months before the earthquake, donors wiped out $1.2 billion of the Haitian government's debt. In January 2010, as the capital lay in ruins, it still was $828 million in the red.

In March 2010, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) said canceling the debt is "one of the simplest but most important things we can do to help Haiti."

And to date, debt relief is the largest single item the U.S. has spent toward Haiti's rebuilding: $245 million.
But since taking office in May 2011, President Michel Martelly's administration has borrowed $657 million, largely from Venezuela for basic fuel needs, but also from Taiwan, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the International Monetary Fund and OPEC. Next year Haiti is expected to spend close to $10 million servicing those debts, according to the IMF.

"The U.S. government cannot dictate how the government of Haiti, as a sovereign country, chooses to address its financial situation," said USAID's Haiti task team leader in Washington D.C., Beth Hogan, whose office facilitated the payments. The U.S. is now only providing grants, not loans, to Haiti.
Waters now says she's disappointed, but not surprised, that Haiti has resumed its borrowing habits.
More than half of Haiti's annual $1 billion budget comes from foreign aid.  "Haiti needs grants, gifts and loans," said Haitian official Nau. "Every country in the world has debt and Haiti is no different."

OFF THE RECORD

A major frustration for watchdogs of the U.S. effort is a lack of transparency over how the millions of dollars are being spent.

From interviews to records requests, efforts to track spending in Haiti by members of Congress, university researchers and news organizations have sometimes been met with resistance and even, in some cases, outright refusals.

As a result, U.S. taxpayers are told they've agreed to spend $7.2 million for a project to design and distribute cleaner cooking stoves to 10,000 street vendors and 800 schools and orphanages, but there's no public accounting for how that will break down: How much might each stove cost? What are the office expenses? What are workers' salaries?

"The lack of specific details in where the money has gone facilitates corruption and waste, creates a closed process that reduces competition and prevents us from assessing the efficacy of certain taxpayer-funded projects," said Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat whose district includes the second largest population of Haitian immigrants in the country.

Legislation introduced last year in Congress would direct the Obama administration to report on the status of post-earthquake humanitarian, reconstruction and development efforts in Haiti.

The AP filed a Freedom of Information request to learn what was accomplished and how much was spent on a two-day retreat for 12 senior U.S. staffers in Miami in March 2011. USAID released the hotel sales agreement, the facilitator's purchase order and an agenda. It did not release information about what was accomplished, and withheld another nine pages, citing concerns that it contained information that had not been finalized.

State Department officials say they are trying to be responsive, noting that in the past nine months, they have coordinated 51 briefings to members of Congress and their staff on Haiti and delivered five congressionally-mandated reports.

One of the problems with following the money in Haiti is that the records are not up to date.
A State Department inspector general report in June found the embassy's political section retains about 10 linear feet of paper files dating back a decade in several safes, and the narcotics affairs team doesn't have a coherent filing system.

In its own effort to follow the money, this year the AP began contacting firms that have received U.S. funding since the earthquake. A memo went out two weeks later.

"A series of requests from journalists may come your way," cautioned Karine Roy, a spokeswoman for the USAID, in an email to about 50 humanitarian aid officials. "Wait for formal clearance from me before releasing any information."

U.S. contractors, from pollsters to private development firms, told the AP that USAID had asked them not to provide any information, and referred to publicly released descriptions of their projects.

The Durham, North Carolina-based group Family Health International 360, for example, received $32 million, including $10 million for what the State Department described as an "initiative designed to increase the flow of commercially viable financial products and services to productive enterprises, with a focus on semi-urban and rural areas."

When the AP asked for a budget breakdown, FHI 360 spokeswoman Liza Morris said, "We were pulling that for you but were told that it was proprietary by our funder."

Who is the funder?

"Our funder," she said, "is USAID."

On Haitian TV, Masses Laugh at Other Half

Part of the show involves the host and producer, Georges Béleck, far left, chatting with cast members and guests, including the Haitian author Gary Victor, far right.

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: July 10, 2012 

 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Two and a half years after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, life here can still be a struggle. 

“I couldn’t even get my mom a decent Mother’s Day gift,” Soraya said, pouting. “Finally, I used my measly allowance and bought her a ticket to Paris. It’s nothing special, but I figure it’s the thought that counts.”

Soraya isn’t a real Haitian, at least not exactly. She’s a character played by a 26-year-old actress named Belinda Paul in a sketch-comedy television show called “Regards Croisés.” 

Soraya is a caricature of a certain kind of privileged, bubbleheaded daughter of the Haitian elite — a Zuzu. Zuzu girls are conspicuous in places like Miami and Paris, but they are hard to see in the hills of Port-au-Prince, where they shop, go to the gym and party behind high walls topped with bougainvillea and concertina wire. Zuzu-speak, an affected whine of Creole, French and “omigod” English, is deliciously recognizable to the less fortunate masses, and every Saturday night Haitian viewers roar, clap and rock with laughter at Soraya’s airs. 

Continue reading...

The TV Watch: Haiti

Alessandra Stanley, the Times's chief television critic, looks at several cultures from around the world through the prism of their television programming.

Produced by Shayla Harris

Child Servitude in Haiti

The restavek system and children in Ayiti, 
by Guerda Lexima Constant

The situation of many children in Ayiti (Haiti) is difficult. Like suffering children all over the world, many do not have their basic rights.

In Ayiti there is a specific phenomenon caused by economic desperation, called ‘restavek,’ ‘to stay with.’ Many parents in rural areas cannot feed their children and the children lack access to education. Hoping to give the chance for food and education, many parents send their children to ‘stay with’ another family. They may not know the family, but entrust their children on the suggestion of a friend or relative who told them that the children will go to school, eat, and be better off.

But many children will not be better off. Typically, a woman who asks for a child to ‘stay with’ them cannot afford to pay a helper to do house chores, so they look for a child to do the work. They often ask for a girl, who is seen as more docile. The child may be only 7 years old when she leaves her parents’ home. It is often difficult for them to go back, and they lose touch with their family who never had the means to come to see them. And even if they wanted to return home, they may not be able to remember where they came from.


Continue reading...

Number of Haitians displaced by quake is falling.

By TRENTON DANIEL
Associated Press

Tuesday, Jun. 26, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti The number of people living in the precarious settlements that became glaring symbols of the Haitian earthquake's devastation has dropped below 400,000 for the first time since the January 2010 disaster, according to an aid group's report released Tuesday.

 The International Organization for Migration says there are now 390,276 people living in the precarious settlements that were erected in the aftermath of the earthquake.

This figure is down from the high of some 1.5 million people who were staying in the camps six months after the quake. It is also a drop of 7 percent from April.

The reduction in the camp population is attributed to a combination of forced removals, rental subsidies and voluntary departures, but it is not clear where the bulk of the people have gone or if their living arrangements are better than the camp conditions.

A government relocation effort conducted with the migration organization offered people $500 rental subsidies for a year but the project targeted only 5 percent of the camp population.

"As for the rest we don't know," said organization spokesman Leonard Doyle. "A lot of these people we know have pitched tents on the side of the mountains."

Even before the quake, many people in the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince built ramshackle homes on hillsides due to a lack of affordable housing for the poor majority.

The housing issue remains hot. On Monday, more than 1,000 protesters blasted a reported government plan to evict renters from their shanty homes to reforest the hillsides.

The organization's figures were released following a three-day visit by its director general, William Lacy Swing, who is a former U.S. ambassador to Haiti.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/26/3343150/haiti-quake-population-drops-below.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/06/26/3343150/haiti-quake-population-drops-below.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

Blue Jays helping bring baseball to Haiti

By Chris Toman / MLB.com | 05/14/12










TORONTO -- A glowing example of the impact sports can have on the lives of others can be found in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where severely impoverished kids have learned the game of baseball with a little help from the outside world.

In 2009, before a catastrophic earthquake wreaked havoc on Port-au-Prince, Artists for Peace and Justice -- a nonprofit organization -- was created, and while serving aid to the people of Haiti and providing them with shelter and medical treatment was the top priority, there was a big-picture plan at heart.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one where obtaining an education beyond grade school is not possible for many outside of the elite. Enrolling in high school is prestigious for Haitians, as the same percentile who go to post-secondary school in Canada and the United States are making it to high school in Haiti. It became such a grave concern that APJ sought to address the situation by providing Haitians with a free high school after the earthquake.

Continue reading...

Modest gains mark Haitian leader's first year

By TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press

Posted:   05/12/2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In a country where the news is typically bad, if not catastrophic, many people in Haiti look at the past year under a musician-turned-president with guarded surprise. 

Yes, parliament and President Michel Martelly were in a standoff that hobbled government much of the past 12 months. Yes, less than a quarter of the population has a formal job. And yes, cholera and many other problems still haunt the country.

Yet six of the most visible displaced-persons camps that sprang up after the 2010 earthquake have been cleared and several are back to being public plazas; renovations are far along at the international airport; a sprinkling of new hotels and shops have begun to emerge across the capital's otherwise ruined landscape; and in a country where free education is rare, the government, for the first time, has covered school tuition for 1 million children .

It's hardly a Golden Age. But it's not bad either for a leader who had never held political office and was best known for often-raunchy musical performances before he took office a year ago Monday. The achievements have come with a parliament so dominated by the party of the man Martelly defeated in his run for president that lawmakers stonewalled his attempts to appoint a prime minister and Cabinet for three-quarters of the year.

Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/ci_20609856/modest-gains-mark-haitian-leaders-1st-year#ixzz1uqkySpG8

Parkway club members befriend students in Haiti

Parkway School’s “Kids With A Purpose” club has begun its latest mission, raising money toward a new library for children in Cap Haitien, Haiti.

The program is called Hands to Hands, and the parent organization is “Hands Up for Haiti,” which works to bring sustainable medical care to Cap Haitien and to the students of the Open Door School in the town.


KWAP students have not only bonded with the students from the town by becoming pen pals in letter writing.
In conjunction, Parkway has just completed its first of a series of fund-raisers for the Open Door school library. KWAP packed and sold Valentines gift bags to the school in February, calling their fund-raiser “Hearts for Haiti.”

Parkway school’s “Kids With A Purpose” has been raising money through charitable school wide fund-raisers for others in need for the past five years.

Parkway’s fifth graders have guided the school on its mission of “kids helping kids,” choosing the organization they wish to help by voting, and achieving a handful of fund-raisers throughout each school year.
The group is led by parent volunteers Limor Pompa, Jennifer Feenstra, Jennifer Weinstein and fifth grade teacher, Kate Frey.

Written by Greenwich Post Staff ,  Wednesday, 02 May 2012 12:00 
For more information: Handsupforhaiti.org.

New hotels arise amid ruins in Haitian capital

By TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Glimmers of hope are coming to this devastated capital and its surrounding cities, as the concrete Royal Oasis hotel rises over a metropolitan area still filled with displaced-persons camps housing hundreds of thousands. Signs of Haiti's comeback can also be seen in the 105-room Best Western hotel being built within blocks of shanty-covered hillsides.

At least seven hotels are under construction or are in the planning stage in Port-au-Prince and its surrounding areas, raising hopes that thousands of investors will soon fill their air-conditioned rooms looking to build factories and tourist infrastructure that will help Haiti bounce back from a 2010 earthquake that officials say claimed 300,000 lives. Some damaged hotels are undergoing renovations.  Continue reading...

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2012/04/29/2315541/new-hotels-arise-amid-ruins-in.html#storylink=cpy

Hamilton pair enlisting Haitians in T-shirt firm

The Green Egg is the first contract partner of the Haiti Projects, a fair-trade, nonprofit sewing and knitting cooperative located in Fond des Blancs, Haiti. Situated in a poor mountainous area 75 miles southwest of Port au Prince, it was founded in 1995 and has US offices in Beverly, with the goal of empowering women in Haiti to lift themselves out of poverty, become self-sufficient, and strengthen their community. “It feels good to me that these little shirts can actually make a difference in their lives,’’ said Davidow, who runs the company with her husband, Steve. “It’s got a very powerful meaning for me. It’s amazing that these little shirts can do so much for somebody.’’

Read article...

Cadets Commit to Improving Conditions in Haiti

LEXINGTON, Va., April 16, 2012 -- “Anpil, anpil.”

These words, in Haitian Creole, expressed the intensity of one man’s joy at the arrival of VMI cadets to lay the groundwork for a new clinic to serve his village.

Ten cadets in VMI’s Engineers Without Borders chapter, led by Maj. Tim Moore ’97, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, worked toward establishing the clinic in Zoranger, Haiti, during spring furlough, March 10-17. The cadets were supporting the operations of Foundation Manmo, an organization formed by Haitian Rosemona Gedeon to serve the children living in Zoranger.

Continue reading...

Sean Penn says he's in Haiti for the long haul

By BEN FOX and TRENTON DANIEL; AP

Posted: Sunday, Apr. 22, 2012

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/22/3190504/sean-penn-says-hes-in-haiti-for.html#storylink=cpy

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Sean Penn no longer lives in a tent, surrounded by some 40,000 desperate people camped on a muddy golf course. And he no longer rushes about the capital with a Glock pistol tucked in his waistband, hefting bags of donated rice and warning darkly of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

But the actor who stormed onto the scene of one of the worst natural disasters in history has certainly not lost interest. Defying skeptics, he has put down roots in Haiti, a country he hadn't even visited before the January 2010 earthquake, and has become a major figure in the effort to rebuild.
"At the beginning, we thought he was going to be like one of the celebrities who don't spend the night," said Maryse Kedar, president of an education foundation who has worked alongside Penn. "I can tell you that Sean surprised a lot of people here. Haiti became his second home."

Continue reading...

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/22/3190504/sean-penn-says-hes-in-haiti-for.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/22/3190504/sean-penn-says-hes-in-haiti-for.html#storylink=cpy

A Poem by Kenneth Koch

  A Schoolroom in Haiti

In Haiti, Port-au-Prince, a man walked up and down the school hallways
      carrying a bull whip.
Oh, he never uses it, the school administrator said. Its purpose is only to
      instill good discipline in the students.
They were from fourteen to seventeen years old,
Boys in white shirts and white short pants. They stood up
And wouldn't sit down till the Minister of Education
Beckoned to them to do so.
They concentrated very hard on the ideas they were being given for
      writing poems.
After the officials left, they started writing their poems in Creole.
After four or five days they were asking to come forward and sing to the
      rest of the class these Creole poems. They did so.
This experiment was never repeated. The government became even more
      repressive.
One poem begins "B is for black, Bettina, a negress whom I dote on."
The assignment was a poem about the colors of the vowels or the
      consonants in the manner of Rimbaud.
What has happened to those poems? What has become of those students?
I have the poems in New York. In Haiti I had asked to teach ten-year-olds
      but I had been told
They won't be able to write well enough. The reason was they didn't
      know French,
Not well enough to be able to write poetry. Their native language was
      Creole,
The language they spoke at home, but at the Lycée Toussaint L'Ouverture
And every other school, the instruction was in French.
They were stuck behind the French language. It loomed over them a wall
Blocking out everything:
Blocked mathematics, blocked science, blocked history, blocked literature
While Creole stayed back with them, cooking up poetry
But that was all. For the most part, except for a few rich boys
Who could afford to study French in the afternoons
They were left fatally behind. 

______________________________

 
Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) was a legendary teacher of poetry, whose presence is still felt among the many young poets who passed through his classroom. He liked to teach elementary-school children as well as the usual graduate students; today’s poem, which appeared in his final collection, A Possible World, came out of a trip he took to Haiti in 1975, invited by the American ambassador to teach poetry in a Port-au-Prince lycée. As Koch later wrote about his poetry experiments in other countries, with their distinct literary traditions and contexts for poetry, "I did the foreign teaching, I think, mostly out of curiosity: to see if the teaching would work, and to see what kinds of poems the children would write. I didn’t think that the ease, excitement, and spontaneity, the quick and poetic responsiveness of my students at P.S. 61 in New York were exclusively American phenomena." As it turned out, despite the pupils' lack of familiarity with his teaching method and the atmosphere described below, Koch did break through to the Haitian children, using Blake's "Tyger" and Rimbaud’s "Vowels" as examples for them to follow.

NatCom introduces Haiti to Fiber Optics

(Picture credit Ilio Durandis)

Posted by Francy Innocent on March 31, 2011

Leogane, Haiti--On April 29^th, 2010, the Vietnamese Telecom (Viettel) officially became the majority owner of the Haitian national telecommunication company (TELECO). Viettel is a state-owned company. The transaction took place in Port-au-prince under the leadership of Viettel representatives and the governor of the National Bank (BRH) Charles Castel; other dignitaries present were General Director of the council for modernization of public enterprises (CMEP) Yves Bastien and Michel Presume former director of TELECO.   Continue reading...

Haiti: President diagnosed with pulmonary embolism

Apr 17, 10:04 PM EDT

By TRENTON DANIEL
Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti's President Michel Martelly was being treated for a blood clot in his lung caused by an earlier surgery, a presidential adviser said Tuesday.   Continue reading...

McKenna Technical Institute

The Technical Center

To be called the Sant Teknik McKenna [McKenna Technical Center], this project has as its goal teaching boys and girls from Maison Fortuné, but also from the town, skills in such areas as the building trades, tailoring/sewing, auto mechanics, and agriculture. The Sant Teknik’s products and services will eventually provide income to make it a sustainable operation.  It will, in addition, become an incubator for small businesses in the area.  Continue reading...

 

Site Plan

US, Haiti kick off vaccination campaigns!

Apr 17, 12:38 AM EDT

 By TRENTON DANIEL Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti, the United States and international partners are launching a nationwide vaccination campaign in the Caribbean country that seeks to curb or prevent infectious diseases, health officials said Monday.   
Continue reading...

Ms. Kathleen Sebelius U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary is in Haiti

April 16th.

Ms. Kathleen Sebelius U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary is in Haiti for a 2-day visit to strengthen the ongoing partnership between the U.S. and the Haitian Government and strengthen health services in the country, particularly regarding the prevention of infectious diseases.

Continue reading...

6 a.m. Mass in Hinche

Angels in the Dark

I’m sleeping on a simple cot in the Rectory.
Hinche, Haiti. 
Suddenly the night sounds of constantly barking dogs are overwhelmed by a hand rung bell in the steeple  of the Sacre Coeur church only a stone's throw away.
It is 5 a.m. 
More dogs bark. 
Roosters dotting the landscape begin their daily ritual. 
Hinche awakens in its darkness. 
And as not to have one forget,
allowing me to fall back into sleep,
the bell sounds again its call to morning.
It is 5:30 a.m.
To follow in what seems a timeless sense of space,
gentle voices of children can be heard,
singing hymns.
I listen mesmerized in a dreamlike state.
Voices from heaven I wonder?
It is 6 a.m.
Daily Mass begins in Sacre Coeur.
Darkness is giving way to lightness.
As I pray,
uniformed children of Carissade begin their walks to school.

- Steve Applegate 



- Video by Ed Gerardo

Pax Christi Haiti

We will be screening the video, Cite Soleil,  that has been selected for the New York Peace film festival.

Speakers Amy Watts and Manuel Padilla from Pax Christi USA will share the background of Cite Soleil, where Pax Christi’s work is being done. They will discuss how history, economy, stigma and violence often work together to create seemingly impossible situations of conflict and oppression.

They will share the work of PC Haiti and PC USA in addressing these root causes of violence and how conflict resolution and working with the youth are acting to transform lives and the community.

Together we can identify parallels to the challenges we face in our own metro community and draw on each other for inspiration and hope.

Sunday, April 29, 2012
3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
St. Edward Catholic Church

Bring a covered dish for a Pot Luck immediately following the presentation

For more information contact:
Patrice Schwermer
(757)575-­7002
or pschwermer@comcast.net