YOUTHAITI – “Unity makes Strength”
Benefit in honor of Haitian Flag Day
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Turner Hall Ballroom
Milwaukee, WI
Tickets: $100
Contact: info@youthaiti.org for more information
Thanks to recent donations, and especially a grant from the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief, we were able to plan 3 new public toilets to be built in the next month. As areas in the countryside absorb internally displaced people, the need for sanitation and increased agricultural production are increased. Every area I visited in Grande’Anse reported hundreds of new people returned to the area. We will build a toilet in Les Caves in conjunction with a seed bed that we started while I was there. We will build a toilet in Fonderon at a parish and school that serves 300 children, and finally, we will build a toilet in the mountain area of Lakadoni, where La Hotte Coffee is grown.
In each community we will provide hygiene education and agricultural training in the use of dilute urine as fertilizer, and the development of household vegetable gardens.Wednesday March 3, 2010
As always, I return from Haiti with mixed emotions. Anxious to be home, sad to be leaving. Already looking forward to planning my next trip.
As I try to review for myself the trip as a whole, I’d like to share my thoughts and impressions with you. The first few days were spent in Port-au-Prince – taking in the level of destruction, and the resilience of the Haitian people. I returned there on my way home as well. Little by little the streets are being cleared of rubble, and the city has returned to normal function. Traffic clogs the street, vendors sell everything from clothes to food to toothpaste and art work all along the roadway. People leave the tent camps during the day, searching for work or food or water, and return at night to sleep. Few people sleep inside a building, as the aftershocks continue. Although various aid organizations are trying to plan for the future, and port-a-potties are starting to be seen in various camps around the city, most individuals seem to be living day-to-day, without a real plan about how or when they will move on. Aid still fails to reach many in an organized way. And outside the city, in areas like Leogane that were hit even harder than PAP, it is even slower. Sanitation and waste disposal remain a huge public health concern. I made several connections for possible future work outside of PAP, but the brevity of the trip made substantial planning unrealistic.
In the countryside, especially in Duchity, I continued to hear stories of people that had returned. Young people especially, are struggling with issues of survival and survivor guilt. Not wanting to be a burden on their families, who struggled to pay school fees that are now lost down the drain, yet not having a way to help bring in support. In meetings and personal conversations, I encouraged them to be creative in thinking of how they can find support, and they encouraged me to advocate for them with the outside world – for scholarships and further learning opportunities. I have already had several responses from people on this list and elsewhere of wanting to come teach or help.
I firmly believe the future of Haiti lies in decentralization – of education, governance, production both manufacturing and agricultural. I believe YOUTHAITI can have a role in this by providing work opportunities and teaching agricultural techniques to help improve productivity. Moving from looking strictly at sanitation as a public health issue, to comprehensive programs of health and agriculture training. We have begun this work in earnest in Duchity. There are now 5 functioning toilets and 3 gardens. Our Agronomist, Jean Samuel Alteus, has begun a training program with representatives of the 3 communities we work in, which will be duplicated in other communities as we establish relationships and plan projects. As our resources increase, we will be able to reach more people in more communities.
Your continued support is crucial. Haiti’s natural disaster may be its saving moment. As people focus their attention on its needs, the opportunity for new models of behavior and communities arise. Rescue and clean up from the quake are proceeding. Now is the time to focus on rebuilding. Alteus and our OJPDD Coordinator, Franci Polyte, attended a coalition meeting to Rebuild Haiti. They were the only representatives from the Departments of Grande’Anse and South. They will continue to represent us and the rural communities of these areas, where some of the most fertile soils in the country still exist and the opportunity for agricultural development is perhaps greatest. By combining ecological sanitation solutions with agricultural development, the impact on public health is multiplied.
Friends, Family, and generous Donors,
Where do I begin? Any attempt on my part to convey through words the tragedy that has unfolded here would be futile. Everything in Haiti , from the suffering experienced by its people, to the resilience they show against the struggle, is incredible. In an effort to at least give you an update on the happenings down here, I feel it’s worth passing along a few stories from the last couple days in Port au Prince….
It pays to have connections. After numerous issues with my least favorite airline in the world, American Airlines, Gigi and I arrived in the Dominican Republic with an entourage waiting for us at airport; four cars with 9 people from FNJD (a nonprofit acronym that is too long and confusing to spell out) to be exact. FNJD was a huge help with not only Transpo, but with getting our accompanying 700 lbs of supplies across the border in a hassle free fashion as well. The FNJD organization, made up of well educated, upper class Haitians, has been our primary vessel for distributing supplies and providing medical care in the city of Port au Prince.
Upon arrival in Port au Prince, FNJD dropped us at the front door of some welcoming friends that own a small but prestigious school; like the rest of the country’s educational institutions, classes are currently not in session. We are sleeping at the school in a classroom that has a tin-roof overhead and have access to bucket showers, a basketball court, security, and generator electricity at night. Comparatively speaking, we’re staying at the Four Seasons.
Shock and Awe. “This is the worst humanitarian disaster I’ve ever seen—ever.” Those were the sentiments passed on to me by Major Matt Bray, one of the commanding officers in charge of US military ops here in Haiti . Through one of Gigi’s never-ending connections, we had the opportunity to get into the US Embassy (which, no doubt, is the nicest building in the country) to meet with Major Bray, with hopes of making some connections with USAID to gain access to long term project funding for Youthaiti.
His sentiments on the status of the capital city weren’t an exaggeration.
In some of the worst hit areas of Port au Prince, 2 out of every 3 buildings is now a pile of rubble. Smashed between layers of broken concrete where homes, schools and hospitals once stood, you can see cars, clothes, toys and the rest of what remains from the lives of the hidden bodies that are buried below. There is no electricity, no clean water, absolutely no sanitation services, and for those without means, very little food. Yesterday, on the way to do a mobile medical clinic, we drove past a line of women that stretched for over a mile, all waiting in line to get a small ration of rice from a US military patrolled UN disaster relief compound. People will stand in line for 8 hours in 90 degree heat to get a few cups of rice. The city is literally broken.
At the mobile medical clinic on Tuesday, Gigi along with three Haitian physicians treated over 300 patients at Gressier, an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp of around 2,500 people living in an open area under tarps and in small tents. The last patient of the day, who personally, became the most memorable, was an18 year old student who was in college studying linguistics when the quake hit. Part of the bond I felt for him came from his ability to speak English; without a language barrier, I knew he was intelligent and had big plans for the future. The rest came as he held onto me, screaming, as I sucked the puss out of the infected stitches on his amputated leg with a syringe.
Rising Up. There is a great deal of camaraderie amongst the survivors of the earthquake. Much like the effect 9/11 had on American citizens, the earthquake has become a rallying point for the people. And although many are not happy with the way the government is handling the recovery efforts, there is an air of patriotism in the Haitian people that is as evident as the destruction surrounding them. A degree of uncertainty is in their eyes, yet amongst all the confusion, there is an element of order and respect. Organizations are here from every corner of the globe, performing an incredible amount of humanitarian aid, all of which has been greatly welcomed and appreciated. It may sound cliché to talk of the long road ahead and the resilience needed by the people of Haiti to make it through, but that doesn’t make it any less true. The people I’ve met over the past few days don’t hide their doubts, but they make damn sure to follow up those doubts with a statement of confidence, assuring me that no matter what it takes, they’ll rise above.
More to come…. Thank you to everyone for the well wishes and prayers.
joe
| Tuesday Feb 16
Today we spent the day with the members of FNJD (Federation National de la Jeunesse pour le Development) running a mobile clinic in a tent camp in the town of Gressier, just outside of Port au Prince. It is a camp inside a walled school yard, with approximately 2500 people living in tents. Oxfam has provided a giant bladder with potable water,which is nearly empty, and many green tarps for people to construct their shelter. Their is a strong sense of community that has developed there. We were met afterwards by Fred Cheron, my friend from Duchity who is helping the coffee project, and we went out to dinner at a nice restaurant in Petionville, where life goes on as if nothing has happened. We met another medical team that is working at the University of Miami hospital established at the airport and heard stories of children with amputations and head wounds on respirators and 2 nurses for 20+ patients. In that setting the acuity is grave. But in the camps, where people are somehow living, life has found some “normality” to it. It is quite remarkable what people can go through, what they can put up with, and their tremendous resilience to go on. Tomorrow we will travel to Duchity and learn how people in the countryside are helping the recovery. gigi |
| Monday Feb 15 Today we rode around the city, getting a better feel for the degree of destruction. It is hard to understand – one building down, completely crushed, while its neighbor stands appearing unscathed. But even the buildings that look whole are largely empty, as people are afraid of aftershocks and further buildings falling. There are many people on the street, and businesses functioning, although it seems a bit less crowded than in the past. Traffic has returned to its usual bumper to bumper state. Scattered in every corner, in every neighborhood, are tent camps – from 5 or 10 tents to hundreds. Many are made from green or blue tarp distributed by USAID, however many more are from sheets and other materials people could find. Inside each one, each family has established themselves somehow, trying to reestablish a pattern to their life. We went to the US embassy to meet Major Matt Bray, the brother of my friend in Milwaukee. He has been stationed here for almost one month, coming straight from Iraq. He says the destruction and chaos is worse than anything he saw there. He has found the Haiitian people open and receptive, not at all threatening, as sometimes portrayed on the news. He helped us make a connection with USAID, but now we wait for a call back. Then we went down to visit MABO, the orphanage run by the Lisius family. We found the children in the yard, their usual exuberant selves, playing and giving thousands of hugs and kisses. The house itself looks good, a few minor fissures but does not have any apparent structural damage. But again, they are fearful of staying inside, not knowing what might happen again. We will try to get an engineer out to inspect it as soon as possible. They are sleeping in a small tent encampment with about 20 other families. Everyone has tied their tarps and sheets together and staked out a place underneath. We brought several large tents, and they will be able to give their tarps to someone else. But truthfully, we hope they will be able to move back into the house soon. We returned via the airport and saw my friend Gonzales who is a Haitian American in the US Army. He is discouraged by the lack of distribution of much of the aid that sits at the airport. Truly, given the fact that their are so many camps scattered throughout the city, the logistics must be a nightmare. Back to the refuge at the Edme compound in Petionville, an island of complete calm in the midst of a city struggling to find its way back to normality. gigi |
|
