HAITI OUTREACH -- OUR PARTNER IN MISSION

Executive Director, Dale Snyder introducing Haiti Outreach.

Learn more about Haiti Outreach at its website.  Here is the September newsletter.

Why we are partnering with Haiti Outreach:

• Experience 
• Mission & Philosophy
• Communication
• Accountability

The Haiti Mission Team at Forest Hill Church raised the $15,000 needed to provide a community owned and managed well for the village of Gabo.  Our partner, Haiti Outreach is now developing the capacity for the village to take responsibility for operating its new well.  We have received word that drilling should be starting now.  Pray that they find water for a good well.

WHERE IS GABO AND WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?

The Republic of Haiti is divided administratively into ten departments. The departments are further divided into 42 arrondissements, and 140 communes.    In the Arrondissement of Hinche, look for the Commune and Municipality of Maissade. (Here is a map with Maissade located.)

The Commune of Maissade is divided into three administrative districts, one of which in the northern area is called Hatty.   There is not much reported about this very remote, rural spot on the globe.  The little village of Gabo is located in the District of Hatty.  Getting to Gabo is difficult and impossible in bad weather.

According to the census taken by its newly formed well management committee, Gabo is a village of 241 persons in 40 households.  Water source(s) are miles away and not safe for human use.  Most households have latrines, although they may or may not be sanitary.

Taking a census is an exceptional event in any part of Haiti.  It is one of the very first community development tasks that Haiti Outreach trains the local well management committee to do.  It is not only a matter of counting all the people; it is also a way for the the committee members to establish themselves as responsible and accountable community leaders of the entire project.

Here are some photos Haiti Outreach provided to show us the transformation going on in Gabo right now.

This young woman is filling her water bucket for the long trek back home. 

A community meeting in Gabo to prepare for a well. 

                       Learning to lead with authority, responsibility, accountability and transparency
                         requires serious education with Haiti Outreach staff animators and teachers.

DEATH OF DUVALIER

I have selected some of the news coverage on the death of Jean-Claude Duvalier.  His death is an event that highlights profound issues for Haiti and for its relation to the US.

Haiti Libre coverage

Obituary, New York Times

Obituary, The Guardian

Analysis, Amy Walentz, an author and expert on Haiti

Analysis of Baby Doc's return to Haiti, Haiti Libre

Comments by Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History.  If you only read one comment, this is the one to read.  Dubois book is an excellent source of information about Haiti for Americans.

--kjl

ANOTHER BLESSED SUCCESS!!

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!  An amazing expansion of partnership and commitment to work with people in rural Haiti to help with their community development and transformation occurred September 14!!  Well over 100 people gathered at the SOHO Kitchen and Bar in Cleveland to raise funds for a community-managed well in the village of Gabo.  (This link will take you to a post about Gabo.)

The amount raised was double the 2013 campaign and will provide the entire $15,000 needed for construction of a well for the village.

Members and friends of Forest Hill Church, friends of friends and visitors from out of town were .   Everyone had a great time meeting people, making new connections and hearing some details about Haiti Outreach, whose staff of Haitian community "animators" and construction work every day to deliver community organization and management for operation new sources of clean, safe water to very thirsty people.  Just think: We build community here while raising resources for the capital costs of a new well while our partners at Haiti Outreach build community while putting those resources to work bringing health and saving lives in Haiti.  There is rejoicing and thanksgiving at both ends of this transaction!  

Here is some evidence.

Sharing doggy care information

Selling a painting contributed by Matt Smith

Four quilts were sold, one for $1,100! 

Blown glass vase contributed by Mark Sudduth

The total sale amount of contributed art was matched by an anonymous donor!

Neil Van Dine, Director Generale of Haiti Outreach in Pignon, described for us how the well inauguration ceremony is done. 

Here is Dale Snyder, Executive Director of Haiti Outreach, describing a successful well operation in La Fontan and the difference a community managed well makes.

According to a report received on September 15, the well digging has started and the management training is going forward.  Inauguration of the well in Gabo will be set soon for a date in October or November.  People from here are invited to travel to Haiti Outreach in Pignon, Haiti to attend that inauguration celebration.  That event will be announced at Forest Hill Church and on this blog when the details are decided.  Anyone who would like more information about making that trip should contact one of the following persons: Jeff Smith, Deanne Lentz or Kermit Lind.

To all who participated in this amazing gathering of resources, THANK YOU.

To anyone who would like to join this mission program, WELCOME.

--kjl

A WORD FROM DALE SNYDER TO FOREST HILL CHURCH

Dale Snyder is Executive Director of Haiti Outreach.  He recently spent a few hours in Cleveland with Deanne Lentz, Jeff and Ann Smith, and Kermit Lind.  Dale told us about how he got involved with Haiti Outreach and we told him about how the Forest Hill Church Haiti mission has developed.

At the end of our visit, Dale made a statement intended for the Forest Hill Church community about its fundraising event for a well in Gabo, Haiti.  Here it is.

A Word From Dale Snyder

Here is a video of Dale telling the story of the well managed by the community of La Fontan and the difference access to clean, safe water is making. 

La Fontan Community Well Video

WHERE IS GABO AND WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?

The little village of Gabo, Haiti is not an easy place to find on a map.  First, it helps to know something about how Haiti is organized. 

The Republic of Haiti is divided administratively into ten departments. The departments are further divided into 42 arrondissements, and 140 communes.    In the Arrondissement of Hinche, look for the Commune and Municipality of Maissade. 
(This link will help.) (Here is a map with Maissade located.)

The Commune of Maissade is divided into three administrative districts, one of which in the northern area is called Hatty.   (Here is what I could find about Hatty.)  Notice that there is not much reported about this very remote, rural spot on the globe.  The village of Gabo is located in the District of Hatty.

According to the census taken by its newly formed well management committee, Gabo is a village of 241 persons in 40 households.  Water source(s) are miles away and not safe for human use.  Most households have latrines, although they may or may not be sanitary.  

Taking a census is an exceptional event in any part of Haiti.  It is one of the very first community development tasks that Haiti Outreach trains the local well management committee to do.  It is not only a matter of counting all the people; it is also a way for the the committee members to establish themselves as responsible and accountable community leaders of the entire project.  

Here are some photos Haiti Outreach provided to show us the transformation going on in Gabo right now.

This young woman is filling her water bucket for the long trek back home.

A community meeting about the community managed well.

 Learning to lead with authority, responsibility, accountability and transparency 

requires serious education with Haiti Outreach staff organizers and teachers.

You are invited to participate in this partnership with the residents of Gabo.  

• Attend the fundraising event on Sept. 14 at SOHO.  Click on this link for your invitation.

• Make a donation to the Gabo community managed well project payable to Forest Hill Church - Haiti well project at Forest Hill Church, 3031 Monticello Blvd., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118.

• Learn more about the sustainable development mission of Haiti Outreach and its Adopt-A-Well program from this website.

--Kermit Lind

HOW HAITI OUTREACH BUILDS COMMUNITY WITH WELLS

The Adopt-a-Well Program

Haiti Outreach Community Well at La Fontan

Haiti Outreach operates a new program that should interest many individuals, churches, and schools, along with Rotary Clubs and other civic groups and foundations: The Adopt-a-Well Program!  In its 17 year history of community development, Haiti Outreach has earned a reputation of excellence as an organization that works with Haitian communities to build sustainable facilities for transforming life.  

The Forest Hill Church Haiti Mission has committed to raising funds to sponsor a well for the little village of Gabo in the Central Plateau region of the country.  The community there has asked Haiti Outreach for a well, with the blessings of the municipal mayor and the national clean water authority.  And at the same time, village's leaders have made a commitment to develop their capacity to manage the well permanently with their own personnel and resources.

In this program, the sponsor raises the money for a specific community managed well in rural Haiti. Each community has a name, population, and its own story about where and how far people have to go to get contaminated water that they bring home daily for their families to use.  In order to receive its well, each community must have its own organization responsible for permanently managing its well and the distribution of clean water.  

This newer method of developing a local community well management group to take responsibility, be accountable to the whole community, and do their work in a transparent way is transforming life in rural Haiti.  The success rate for clean water wells in operation steadily over more than five years has dramatically increased from about 50% to more than 90%.  That translates into better health and fewer deaths from contaminated water.  It leads the way to better sanitation and living standards.

Once the funds are raised and donated to Haiti Outreach, their staff begins the process of engaging the people of that community and training a volunteer water management committee. When they have been sufficiently trained, the well will be developed on community owned land and completed with a ceremonial inauguration. While that process is underway, the sponsors can be informed as to the progress of the well management training and drilling.

Haiti Outreach produces 50 community managed wells a year. That impacts 18,000 – 20,000 people every year.   But in order to do this,  need to raise the money to maximize our capacity.  Each well costs $15,000, so that is the sponsor’s goal. Of course, if the sponsoring group could raise funds for more than one well, that would be great! If the sponsor can only raise half that much, another group is recruited to add funds in order to reach the goal.

If some members of the sponsoring group wanted to travel to Haiti during this process to visit the community, or to attend the well inauguration, Haiti Outreach will do its best to facilitate that as part of a trip to see Haiti and other community development projects of Haiti Outreach.

Here is a very specific and concrete way YOU can make the difference in the lives of hundreds of people in one of the poorest countries in the world, not only for today, but for years to come as they maintain their well. Become a sponsor and literally save lives with clean water and sanitation education.

For more news and information about Haiti Outreach click on this link.  For a video telling this story click on this link.

NGO'S AND HAITI'S GOVERNMENT: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HELP HAITI'S PEOPLE?

Since the Haiti earthquake of 2010, attention has been focused on the miserable records of both the international community of NGOs and the government of Haiti to effectively deliver relief and reconstruction to the people directly and indirectly hurt by catastrophes.  Actually, that problem preceded the earthquake and has dogged Haiti for most of its history as a nation.

Now comes an article in Foreign Policy by Clare Lockhart and Johanna Mendelson Foreman suggesting an approach to better cooperation between NGOs and the Haitian government.  They prescribe dialogue.  Rick Cohen, an editor for the Nonprofit Quarterly responds with doubt about the possibility of successful dialogue.  Both of these articles are linked here below.

I urge my friends reading this blog to take a look at these two articles.  I have attempted in my blogging to distinguish between help and development that is toxic and hurtful, on the one hand, and the work of building community-based capacity in Haiti that can receive and sustain our well-intended aid to the Haitian people on the other hand.  In doing so, I have observed and pointed to the mission and methods of Haiti Outreach as an example of how to do things better.  

The Haiti Outreach difference is that it finds ways to work with local communities to develop the capacity of the intended beneficiaries of capital resources to maintain clean and life-giving water systems. They partner with local and national officials to establish community-based authority.  They make sure all who have responsibilities carry out those responsibilities with integrity and transparency.  That includes Haiti Outreach, whose financial records, for instance, are published right on their website.  Their program staff is virtually all Haitian.

So with those kinds of principles in mind, take a look at these two articles below.  They aren't that long or difficult.  See what you think about how we in the NGO world might act to be more effective in Haiti.

"Four years after a devastating earthquake, Haiti remains a mess. It's time to bring Haitians from all walks of life into a national conversation about the country's future." 

Why Haiti Needs a National Dialogue

"Given the challenges that Lockhart and Forman detail in the article, a Haitian national discussion seems well intentioned but difficult to imagine getting very far." 

  A Prescription for Haiti’s NGO-Related Problems: Heal Thyself

KREYOL: SPREADING THE WORD

The Forest Hill Church mission team attended a very special church service at the Episcopal Cathedral on our visit in the fall of 2013.  It was the first service in which Kreyol was used as the primary language for the entire service.  Until that Sunday services were in French even though the vast majority of Haitians speak only Kreyol.  French is regarded as a "foreign" language, the language of imperialism and the very elite in Haitian society.

Now the Haitian government is pushing harder to make Kreyol the nations dominant language.  By teaching in the Kreyol language, learning is accessible to more children and underscores the reality that their lives and future in the own country do not depend on learning a foreign language.

For recent news about this issue look at these articles:

Help for Haiti must include embracing Creole

By Jacques Pierre

February 20, 2014 

A Creole Solution for Haiti’s Woes

By MICHEL DeGRAFF and MOLLY RUGGLES

AUG. 1, 2014

--kjl

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/02/20/3640172/help-for-haiti-must-include-embracing.html#storylink=cpy

FUNDRAISING EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

Here is the announcement and invitation you have been waiting for!!  Make your reservation now!

The sponsors know that everyone who would like to come to this event will not be able to fit it into their social calendar or travel the distance to get here.  If you want to participate in this project and cannot attend on September 14, your donation will be most welcome.  Thank you.

IT'S ABOUT LATRINES

Haiti Outreach published a report this week on a community development project for better health. The report is not about clean, community managed wells this time.  It's about latrines.  It is also about the process of changing personal habits for better health and life in rural Haiti.   Read the article here.

Postscript:   I am tempted to draw comparisons between the latrine development project of Haiti Outreach to transform unhealthy waste management in poor villages with our struggle to get global financial corporations and their various servicers to adopt good habits about handling the solid waste they excrete and abandon in Cleveland's residential neighborhoods hardest hit by the mortgage crisis. I won't.  I've already tried to make that point elsewhere.

--kjl

BREAKING NEWS FROM HAITI OUTREACH

Haiti Outreach just posted big news on its website. It announces that "... the division of the national government of Haiti responsible for potable water and sanitation throughout the country, DINEPA, agreed to join Haiti Outreach in a breakthrough 100 Community Well Project in the Northeast Department. This is a $2.3 million project that will take 2 – 3 years to accomplish. It is the first time that the government has agreed to have Haiti Outreach train their staff in how we do our community development work."

Here is a statement from Dale Snyder, Executive Director of Haiti Outreach

I have two comments:

1.  This is an example of how effective collaboration between the government of Haiti and NGOs  should work as partners to develop lasting improvement for community health, safety and welfare.

2.  The most important investment being made is in the development of capacity by people to plan and manage a vital resource independent of long-term financial aid from outside.  It is community development as liberation, not domination.

What do you think about this development?

--kjl

LIFE SPRING CLINIC IS BORN

Life Spring, Inc.        

Ten months ago I met Dr. Roberta S. Van Dine when she and her husband, Neil, passed through Cleveland on their way back home to Haiti.  Roberta's husband is Founder and Director of Haiti Outreach, a construction and community development organization in Pignon, Haiti, a city in the Central Plateau on the road between Hinche and San Raphael.  I visited the Van Dines last fall in Pignon.  

In our initial conversation, Roberta outlined a vision she had for a medical practice that would treat people with respect, that would be sustained primarily by patients' fees, and that would be accessible to people in rural villages needing both preventive care and medical treatment.  Now, ten months later, a nonprofit corporation named Life Spring is in formation.  It has a website to show and tell the progress being made to realize Dr. Roberta's vision for how health and medical services should be provided by Haitian medical practitioners in response to the health needs in rural communities. 

Here is a link to Life Spring's new website.  Check it out.

The Challenge          

In a conference call conversation just a few days ago, Dr. Roberta repeated something she said nearly a year ago that challenges me.  Here it is:  There are trained doctors in Haiti just like her who want to practice medicine but whose efforts to set up a practice and make a living at it are undermined by the competition from providers of free medical services who drop in for short visits. Haitian doctors cannot compete with free services, so stabile clinics operated by Haitians to provide continuous, community-based, preventive care and basic medical treatment cannot grow and survive.   We heard another version of this about mid-wives when we were in Hinche in 2013.  Desperately needed midwife nurses were unemployed because local clinics could not afford to give them jobs.

Described this way, the development of health care in Haiti suffers from the same problem as food development.  Large donations of free and government subsidized rice from the US puts Haitian rice farmers and marketing systems at a great disadvantage.   When Haitian farmers, wholesalers and retailers have to compete on unfair terms, they can't develop their own country.  In colonial times, European slave-masters in Haiti produced and exported to Europe and the US huge quantities of coffee, sugar, fruit and other products that resulted in very little benefit to Haitian people.  Now that Haiti is an independent nation, Europeans and the US are "helping" Haiti meet urgent needs but doing so in a way that frequently leaves Haitians out of the process and subservient to the vision and will of those with resources to give.

In a blog posting last year I mentioned two challenging books -- When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, and Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert Lupton.  These books echoed the criticism of  my dear friend, Ralph Jean-mary, who lamented how often relief and development aid to Haiti ignored the Haitians who were supposed to benefit from it and its harmful impact on others.  

But this challenge is not easy to resolve.  When confronted by desperate poverty and curable disease, how can one say "No, first we must develop a Haitian means of relieving poverty and preventing disease."  Aren't we supposed to help the poor and heal the sick?  How can one justify charging poor people for food, clean water and health care needed so desperately by persons right in front of us?  

I would suggest, as we proceed in building relationships in Haiti, that we keep the discussion of this question open along with our eyes and our minds.  We would do well, I think, to make sure our discussion includes those in Haiti permanently engaged in the liberation of people there from the confinement of poverty and disease.  We need the guidance and awareness of Haitians who are helping other Haitians to build community infrastructures locally in Haiti.  We need to consider ourselves as their partners first and providers only as necessary.

What do you think?

HAITI ELECTION DELAY IS A PROBLEM

Haiti's national government seems to be dancing on the edge of crisis because of unreasonable delays in the holding of elections.  The election for one-third of the seats in the Senate has been postponed several times since it was due in May, 2012.  The election of local municipal mayors was due in April, 2011.

As a result, the US -- and other countries, as well -- may be inclined to delay or deny much needed economic aid.  Observers in Haiti point out that private investment in Haiti is not as available in times of political uncertainty.  The prolonged deferral of elections and the squabbling within the political class of the country clearly increase the risks for investing partners.  Read more . . .

While we have seen some great examples of community development in the rural countryside, much of it has been under the authority and responsibility of NGOs (non-government organizations).  The national government has recently launched some critically needed initiatives but without transparent and accountable relationships with local civic structures the future of those initiatives is doubtful at best.

Perhaps the best news out of Haiti in these uncertain political circumstances are the advances at the local level in those places where Haitians are helping other Haitians manage for the benefit of the whole community, where benefit is measured in hygiene, health and education of the whole community, and where everyone is given an opportunity to participate, or at least know who is responsible and what is going on.

I wonder what you readers think about this, especially those of you in or from Haiti.  I hope you will comment in the space for comments below, or reply by email.  Repons nan Kreyol pa gen pwoblem!

--kjl

HAITI NOW MAKES WIRELESS TABLETS

This is news I just found that is too good to wait.  I just have to blurt it out.  Two Haitian companies are making wireless tablets!  The brand names are Surtab and Handxom.

There are multiple reasons this is fabulous.  First, it is a business people do not associate with the "poorest country in the hemisphere," or any of the other epithets that depict the country as way behind.  It is first-rate technology in demand from Haiti, a source of pride.  Second, these tablets are selling at a price that is more affordable than those marketed from rich countries.  Venezuela just ordered 10,000 tablets.  Buyers will include people in Haiti and will certainly have a stimulating effect on business development, education, health, safety and security.  Third, the reports out about Surtab detail a modest level of employment but really good pay by Haitian standards.  It paves the way for better employment standards for other industries like the garment industry.

This development, of course, is one that could be a factor in building relationships with partners in  Haiti.  We may want to explore how to assist in making tablets available to our friends there . . . then learn to write and speak to them in Kreyol.

Here are some articles with more details.

Chicago Tribune

The Guardian

Caribbean Journal

--kjl

THIRSTING FOR LIVING WATER IN HAITI

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, . . . ”  Isaiah 61:1 & Luke 4:18

Ralph Jean-Mary and Carline Paul-blanc have both told us that Haiti can be liberated from captivity to poverty and disease, and brought out of its prison of darkness by Haitians.  The good will and charity of Americans must work -- with, not instead of -- those whose home is in that country.  This admonition is founded in scripture and it guides the Forest Hill Church's Haiti mission in its quest for a partnership of servanthood.  

I think our calling is to help Haitians to free themselves from the captivity of dependence on  others, especially  Americans whose charity is often toxic.  That will require years of patience commitment and collaboration.  Both we and our collaborators will be transformed.  Yes, Haitians can teach us some things about living better lives.

I want to tell you about an organization -- one of a growing number -- that is transforming lives in the Central Plateau of Haiti.  It is meeting the thirst for clean, life-giving water and for life-giving schools to people in remote villages.  Consider thoughtfully how it uses these critical needs to build human and community capacity for freedom from dependence on absentee donors.  

Haiti Outreach Video (9 minutes)

Haiti Outreach website 

Collaborating With Rotary Clubs To Build Schools

The Newest School In Rankit

Hosting Visitors & Work Teams

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  Isaiah 12:3

BREAKING NEWS!

Right now we are learning about a new medical practice being developed by a Haitian doctor in Pignon.  She is someone I met last summer and who I visited in October.  Her vision for a clinical practice is what we heard from Ralph Jean-mary from the very beginning.  We will hear much more about Dr. Roberta Sterling and Life Spring over this summer from Carline and others in our planning group.  

WESTSHORE UNITARIANS AT MPP IN HAITI

Another Cleveland area congregation with ties to Haiti is the Westshore Unitarian Universalist Church.  Like our group from Forest Hill Church, they also went to the Central Plateau to serve and learn in the company of the Mouvman Peasant Papaye (Papaye Peasant Movement, in English).  Readers of this blog may recall that our FHC team visited MPP in 2012 and saw one of the villages being developed with resources provided by the Presbyterian Church, USA.  The Unitarian Universalist College of Social Justice (UUSC) is also a resource partner of MPP's village development program and assists Unitarian congregations to make service learning trips to Haiti.  

Last month, Jeanette Nemcek and her husband Bob, a member of Westshore UUC, helped make a connection so that some of us from Forest Hill could attend a presentation at the WUUC.  Those of us who went were warmly welcomed and included in the discussion.

Thanks to Rev. Kathleen Rolenz and Intern Minister, Matthew McHale, their story can be shared in their own words.  Here is Matthew describing MPP and its work.  Below are links to blog postings by Rev. Rolenz describing things they saw and did.


How Was Haiti?

The Town Where Nobody Lives

Power To The Peasant People

Unfinished Business

The Women Of Haiti

We look forward to getting together again soon with our friends at Westshore UUC and others in the Cleveland area with Haiti in their hearts.

--kjl

PARTNERS IN HEALTH AND IN TRANSFORMATION

In a follow-up to the previous blog posting on the new book by Paul Farmer and Gustavo Gutierrez, here is an article that reports on liberating transformation being done by Partners In Health in Haiti.  The author, Stephanie Garry, a news reporter who now works for Partners In Health, describes again how Liberation Theology works in practice.  

Read it here.

New hospital in Haiti proves that aid done right can change lives

You can read more about the hospital here and here (video).

For more on its long-term impact on health in Haiti, read this.  

IN THE COMPANY OF THE POOR

I am posting this video of a discussion by Dr. Paul Farmer and Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez when they launched their book, In The Company Of The Poor, in November, 2013.  It is a book I will be reading right away.  I invite you to join in the reading.

In The Company Of The Poor the video

In The Company Of The Poor  book review


--kjl

A SERIOUS DISSENT TO CONSIDER

I want to pass along a three-year old news clipping for your consideration while the echoes of outcry about Crimea's domination by Russia are still reverberating.  The instances of the US asserting dominion in and over Haiti in the past 200 years are numerous.  As a nation, we have much to answer for both in our attempts to alleviate suffering and to dominate sovereignty in this small country.  Is the US and its allies much different than Russia in this regard?  Read and think. --kjl

entretien Lundi 20 décembre 2010

«Haïti est la preuve de l’échec de l’aide internationale»

Arnaud Robert

Ricardo Seitenfus: «Pour rester ici, et ne pas être terrassé par ce que je vois, j’ai dû me créer un certain nombre de défenses psychologiques.» (Paolo Woods)

Diplômé de l’Institut de hautes études internationales de Genève, le Brésilien Ricardo Seitenfus a 62 ans. Depuis 2008, il représente l’Organisation des Etats américains en Haïti. Il dresse un véritable  réquisitoire contre la présence internationale dans le pays.

Le Temps: Dix mille Casques bleus en Haïti. A votre sens, une présence contre-productive…

Ricardo Seitenfus: Le système de prévention des litiges dans le cadre du système onusien n’est pas adapté au contexte haïtien. Haïti n’est pas unearticle . . . [continue in English]

Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Brazilian Ricardo Seitenfus 62. Since 2008, he is the Organization of American States in Haiti. It provides a real indictment against the international presence in the country

Time: Ten thousand peacekeepers Haïti.  In your view, a counter-productive presence ...
Ricardo Seitenfus: The system of dispute prevention within the UN system is not adapted to the Haitian context. Haiti is not an international threat. We are not in a situation of civil war. Haiti is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet the Security Council, since lack of alternative, imposed peacekeepers since 2004, after the departure of President Aristide.Depuis 1990, we're here at our eighth UN mission. Haiti since 1986 and saw the departure of Jean-Claude Duvalier what I call a low-intensity conflict. We are faced with struggles for power among political actors who do not respect the democratic game. But it seems to me that Haiti, on the international stage, essentially pays for its proximity to the United States. Haiti has been the subject of negative attention from the international system. It was for the UN to freeze the power and transform Haitians into prisoners on their own island. Anxious boat people largely explain the decisions of the international community vis-à-vis Haiti. We want at any price for them to stay home.
- What prevents the normalization from Haiti?
- For two hundred years, the presence of foreign troops has alternated with that of dictators. It is  force that defines international relations with Haiti and never dialogue. The original sin of Haiti, on the world stage, is its liberation. Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804: a crime of lèse-majesté for a troubled world. The West is now a colonialist and racist slave world that bases its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So the Haitian revolutionary model scared the great powers. The United States will recognize the independence of Haiti in 1865. France requires payment of a ransom to accept this reality. From the beginning, independence has compromised and impeded the country's development. The world has never known how to treat Haiti, so it ended up ignoring it. Its revolutionary independence began two hundred years of solitude on the international scene. Today, the UN blindly applies Chapter 7 of its charter, it deploys its troops to impose its peace operation. It solves nothing; it is imperialism. We want to make Haiti a capitalist country, an export platform for the U.S. market; it is absurd. Haiti must return to what it is, that is to say, a place still fundamentally imbued with customary law in an essentially agricultural country. The country is constantly described in terms of its violence. But without a state, the level of violence has not yet reached a fraction of that of Latin American countries. There are elements in this society that could prevent the violence from spreading without measure.
- Is not that a resignation of Haiti seen as an unassimilable nation whose only horizon is the return to traditional values?
- There is a part of Haiti that is modern, urban and touring abroad. The number of Haitians living outside their borders is estimated at 4 million. It is an open world. I would not dream of returning to the XVI ^century, in an agrarian society. Haiti, though, lives under the influence of international NGOs, universal charity. More than 90% of the education system and health are in private hands.The country has no public resources to run a minimally state system. UN fails to take account of cultural traits. Haiti summarize a peace operation is to make the economy of the real challenges that arise in the country. The problem is socio-economic. When the unemployment rate reached 80%, it is unbearable to deploy a stabilization mission. There is nothing to stabilize and everything to build.
- Haiti is one of the most subsidized countries in the world and yet the situation has only deteriorated since twenty-five years. Why?
- Emergency aid is effective. But when it becomes structural, when it replaces the state in all its functions, we arrive at a collective disempowerment. If there is evidence of the failure of international aid, it is Haiti. The country has become the Mecca. The January 12 earthquake and the cholera epidemic only accentuate this phenomenon. The international community has a sense of duty every day again it ended yesterday. Haiti fatigue begins to dawn. This small nation must surprise the universal consciousness with disasters more enormous. I hoped that in the distress of 12 January, the world would understand what it had done wrong with Haiti. Unfortunately, it has reinforced the same policy. Instead of making an assessment, we sent more troops. We must build roads, raising dams, participate in the organization of the State, the judicial system. The UN says it has no mandate for this. Its mandate in Haiti is to keep the peace of the cemetery.
- What role NGOs play in this bankruptcy?
- From the earthquake, Haiti has become a key intersection. For transnational NGOs, Haiti has turned into a place of forced passage. I would say even worse than that: a place for aid-workers' vocational training. The age of those who arrived after the earthquake is very low and they landed in Haiti without any experience. And Haiti, I can tell you, is not suitable for amateurs. After January 12, because of massive recruitment, professional quality has declined significantly. There is an evil or perverse relationship between the strength of NGOs and the weakness of the Haitian state. Some NGOs exist only because the misfortune of Haiti.
- What mistakes were made ​​after the earthquake?
- Given the massive importation of consumer goods to feed the homeless, the situation of Haitian agriculture is still péjorée. The country offers a free field to all humanitarian experiences. It is unacceptable from the moral standpoint to consider Haiti as a laboratory. The reconstruction of Haiti and the promise that we dangled $11 billion attracts much interest. It seems that a lot of people come to Haiti, not for Haiti, but for doing business. For me, American aid is a shame, an insult to our consciousness. An example: the Haitian doctors that Cuba shape. More than 500 were educated in Havana. Almost half of them, when they should be in Haiti, are now working in the United States, Canada and France. The Cuban revolution is to finance the training of human resources for its capitalist neighbors ...
- We constantly described Haiti as the margin of the world, you rather feel the country as a concentrate our contemporary world ...
- This is the concentration of our tragedies and failures of international solidarity. We're not up to the challenge. The world press comes to Haiti and describes the chaos. The reaction of the public does not expect good things. For most, Haiti is one of the worst countries in the world. We must go to the Haitian culture, go to the terroir. I think there are too many doctors at the bedside and the majority of these doctors are economists. But in Haiti, we need anthropologists, sociologists, historians, political scientists and even theologians. Haiti is too complex for people who are in a hurry; cooperating in a hurry. Nobody takes the time or has the interest to understand what I might call the Haitian soul. Haitians have grasped us, the international community, as a cow to be milked.They want to take advantage of our presence and they do it with extraordinary skill. If we consider  the Haitians only by the money we give, it's because we of the way we present ourselves.
- Beyond the acknowledgment of failure, what solutions do you propose?
- In two months, I will have completed a two-year mission in Haiti. To stay here and not be overwhelmed by what I see, I had to create a number of psychological defenses. I wanted to be an independent voice despite the weight of the organization I represent. I made my dissent public because I wanted to express my profound doubts and tell the world that this is enough of just playing  with Haiti. January 12, taught me that there is a tremendous potential for solidarity in the world.Although do not forget that in the early days after the earthquake, it was the Haitians themselves, with bare hands, who tried to save their loved ones. Compassion has been very important in an emergency. But charity can not be the driving force in international relations. There should be autonomy, sovereignty, fair trade, respect for others. We need to think simultaneously of providing export opportunities for Haiti and also protect the family farming that is essential for the country.Haiti is the last untapped Caribbean paradise for tourism, with 1,700 kilometers of pristine coastline.  We need to encourage cultural tourism and avoid paving the way to a new Eldorado of mass tourism. The lessons we give are ineffective for too long. Reconstruction and the accompaniment of a rich society are one of the last great human adventures.  For the last 200 years, Haiti illuminated the history of humanity and the human rights.  Haitians must now be given a chance to confirm their vision.

  Dissent

Al Jezeera

Haiti Libre story

Haiti Libre interview

Wikileaks article Guardian Dec. 2010

KANAVAL 2014!!

The pre-Lenten festival in Haiti is a carnival of music.  Here is a taste of this celebration.

Haiti Kanaval 2014 Theme: "Tèt kole pou Ayiti Pi Djanm"

Announcement for English speakers

Listen live!

A selection of this year's Kanaval hits starting with a personal favorite, Boukman Eksperyance, heard in concert last October at Petionville.

Enjoy!

--kjl

REMEMBERING HAITI WHILE FREEZING

Here in Cleveland the month of February is making Haiti travelers long for the days of hot, sweaty weather and languid evenings on a veranda, cold drink in hand, watching the sun slide behind mountains.  At least that certainly is true for me.

My time on Neil Van Dine's deck has provided beautiful, sustaining and body-warming memories.  The gatherings on the porch at l'Ermitage cooling down in conversation with good friends are in my memory bank for withdrawal while cleaning snow off the car for the fifth time on a snowy day.  There are many blessings from having Haiti in my heart.  Warming memories and hopes are certainly at the top of the list while freezing in the wind when the temperature drops below zero.

In the past month or so two Haiti fundraisers were on my social calendar.  They provided an opportunity to see two west-side Catholic congregations supporting projects for education and development in Haiti.  The Blessed Trinity congregation sponsored a fundraiser at The Third Place Tavern.  There a few of us from "the other side of the river" were warmly embraced by a large convivial crowd in a party atmosphere.  A few weeks later Barb and I joined good friends from Forest Hill Church and Cleveland Heights at St. Michael's Woodside Hall in Broadview Heights for an elegant dinner dance organized by the Thea Bowman Center and the Haiti Outreach program.

Just as this goes out on the web, there is a group from the West Shore Unitarian Church finishing up a working visit to the Mouvman Peyizan Papay (Peasant Movement of Papaye) in the Central Plateau region near Hinche.  Having visited the headquarters and a new village under construction in 2012, I would have dearly loved to be on this trip.  MPP, under the leadership of agronomist, Chavannes Jean Baptiste, is Haiti's greatest organization of farmers and is dedicated to development of sustainable farming by Haitians.  Here is a short video about him and his work.  

I hope we can get together soon with these friends and share our experiences, knowledge and appreciation for Haiti and the Haitians with whom we are partnering.

--kjl

JUST LAND GOVERNANCE IN HAITI

The governance of land and other natural resources vital to life is a global problem with a history starting before history was written.  The abuse of land and real property rights is a problem in the both developed counties and in the least developed countries.  I have struggled with the governance of land in my own career as a "dirt" lawyer serving urban community development organizations. When my attention was turned to Haiti a few years ago, that country's historic land governance problems were at the top of the list of things I began to study.  I found that land governance problems in Haiti and in poor Cleveland neighborhoods have some interesting similarities.

Take food security, for instance.  In both rural Haiti and urban neighborhoods there are "food deserts."  Recently, people in those places have started to grow good food for themselves within a few miles of where it is consumed.   Forest Hill Church in Cleveland Heights, for instance, uses a bit of its land now to grow food crops to supplement the diets of people in their neighborhood who suffer from food insecurity part of every month.  Urban gardening programs abound in this region and operate on a commercial scale in some instances.

In our visits to Haiti in the past two years, we saw post-secondary school agronomy education, agricultural experimental and demonstration farming, and the development of small villages committed to self-sustaining food production.  Haitian agronomists are leading a renaissance of sustainable, small-scale farming in order to achieve a safe and secure food supply with high nutrition value for more of its people.  The country cannot depend on the goodness of foreign powers to be trading partners in food products.

I would like to introduce readers to an excellent article on this topic written by Kysseline Cherestal, an attorney and senior policy analyst at ActionAid USA, an international agency advocating for the land rights of poor and marginalized people around the world.  (She is the daughter of Dr. Kyss and Nicole Jean-Mary and Ralph Jean-Mary's sister.)  Read her article.

Kysseline Cherestal

We dare not avoid the part of her article, and her subsequently published report for the anniversary of the earthquake, describing the misguided "help" from the US in grabbing land from subsistence farmers without fair compensation in order to score a quick and highly visible success in putting up an industrial park.  US policy is complicit it the exploitation of landholders whose capacity to defend their rights and interests are miniscule compared to the power of politically dominant foreign companies looking for cheap production.  It is also complicit in the use of agricultural policies that favor large corporate farms to the detriment of the internal food chain in Haiti and other poor countries.  We need to pay more attention to our country's responsibility for injustice in land governance resulting from our policies even while we are acting in merciful generosity to provide earthquake relief.

A good start for anyone interested in this issue would be Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure in Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Scarcity.  This report issued in 2012 by the UN is the work product of an international study and an attempt to generate discussion of this issue because it is so largely ignored at this time.

The Haiti Law Property Group published its Haiti Land Transaction Manual in 2012 to assist post-earthquake reconstruction programs deal with the difficult land tenure and transfer processes that held stopped many important building projects because it was impossible to get a clear title to the land.  In an article earlier this month, Elizabeth Blake, a leading force in the Haiti Law Property Group and Senior Vice President of Habitat for Humanity, reported on the current success in construction in Port au Prince aided by the use of the Manual.  She also said a second manual will be published in collaboration with the Haitian government later this year.  This manual will focus on securing land rights, addressing ownership, leasehold, rent-to-own and other rights on public and private land.  This is encouraging news.

Prime Minister, Laurent Lamothe, officially launched land reform in Haiti in 2012.  The news report of this program outlined a monumental task of both technical and legislative work taking a decade to accomplish.  Without this kind of reform, though, development and agricultural improvements will proceed at a very slow pace, if at all.  Let's pray that the government can sustain its necessary leadership on this vital march toward more just land governance in Haiti.

 I have corresponded with Kysseline about this blog posting and she  urges North Americans to do three things: (1) call on the US Congress to pass the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act of 2013;   (You can send a letter from this website to Senate Majority Leader, Reid, with a copy to Senator Sherrod Brown.  http://cqrcengage.com/actionaid/app/sign-petition?2&engagementId=38938.)  (2) We should also call on the US government to respect the commitments it made by endorsing the Voluntary Guidelines in 2012;    (3) Finally, we should urge support of a Haitian community-led process for the implementation of the Guidelines in Haiti.  The Government of Haiti also endorsed the Guidelines as a member of the Committee on World Food Security.

These initiatives are now are among the best tools to uphold the land rights and food security in Haiti.  

--kjl

JUSTICE FOR GARMENT WORKERS IN HAITI

On January 11, 2010 the NPR News Hour ran this story (click on the link) describing a new hope for economic development of Haiti's garment industry.  Political and social violence had been quelled, governmental stability was returning, and closed factories were opening and retooling for a new beginning.  The Haitian garment industry was at the pinnacle of this hope and a major attraction for new investment from the US and other countries.  Haiti had expectations of large-scale investment for its economy as well as for just wages and working conditions for its garment workers.  It had the attention and leadership of US ex-President, Bill Clinton.  As the Prime Minister said, Haiti was ready to move from misery to poverty.  Better conditions were just around the corner.  What could go wrong?

On January 12, the very next day after this optimistic report was aired, the earthquake hit.  It was as if the nation's whole economy had a stroke.  Jobs and the promise of jobs died in an instant.  Haitians had no money to put into the broken economic system.  The emergency distribution of relief further damaged the broken system for delivering food, goods and services.

Now, four years later, what has happened to the hopes and promises for development of a thriving and fair garment industry in that country?

As 2013 came to a close, a spate of reports on the conditions of Haiti's garment industry made for grim reading.  Multiple watchdog agencies reported on illegal conditions -- wage theft, sexual harassment,  and poor safety and sanitation standards that violated not only Haiti's laws but also the promises of manufacturing companies supplying big retailers in the US and other countries where Haiti-made apparel is sold.  Brands like Gap, Gildan, Hanes, Kohl’s, Levi’s, Russell, Target, VF, and Walmart are buyers of garments from Haiti and they are well-aware of this law-breaking.  Yet they continue with business as usual, profiting from the lower prices that they can obtain from factories that abuse and cheat Haiti's workers of legally owed wages.

One of the situations described with particular dismay is the new garment factory built after the earthquake in a new $224 million industrial park in Caracol, at place located in the northern part of Haiti far away from Port au Prince.  This venture was controversial from the beginning because it took productive farming land away from subsistence farmers to put up a huge factory in a place with no social or civic structure to provide for health, safety, security or education for thousands of workers transplanted there.  The industrial park was heralded as the centerpiece of US earthquake recovery efforts brought about under the leadership of President Bill Clinton.  It turns out to be a leading practitioner of wage cheating and it fell short of other promises, such as the numbers to be employed and living conditions to be provided for workers.

The usual battalions of corporate public relations suits all responded promptly to the barrage of damning reports and corrections have been promised.  (See the Fruit of the Loom statement below.) Indeed, the most promising thing for improvement of Haitian garment workers is the perseverance of those watchdog agencies who will surely keep the glare of public attention on the Haitian garment industry and its assurances.  The fight for better working conditions and fair wages is very incremental and requires both persistence and resilience.  Justice will not come like a bolt of lightening; it will take years.

Refusing to buy clothing made by exploited Haitian workers is not a solution that helps the workers.  Haiti, after all, is not the only country whose garment workers are exploited for bigger profits and a few boycotts will not help poor Haitians.  For most of them, being exploited at work is better than no job at all when there are malnourished children to feed, no other legal means of employment and 70% unemployment.

I will not presume to advise fellow consumers on how to behave.  But we consumers do at least need to be aware of the unjust and broken system of which we are a critical part.  We must support honest watchdog agencies in the role they play.  We must encourage corporate giants to reduce their inhumanity, support government policies that protect the weak and wage-dependent from predatory business practices.  We must consume with mindfulness of the role foreign factory workers have in the garment industry when we make purchases.  We must humbly recognize ourselves as both part of the problem and part of the solution in this matter.

Notes:

    1.  Thanks to Diana Woodbridge for inspiring the research for this entry.

    2.  Workers Rights Consortium, Stealing From The Poor: Wage Theft In The Haitian Apparel Industry.  [WRC is a group representing nearly 200 universities that monitors factories making college logo apparel.]

   3.  Better Work Haiti, Garment Industry 7th Biannual Report Under The Hope II Legislation.
[Better Work Haiti is an innovative partnership of the International Labour Organization and the International Finance Corporation that aims to improve working conditions and promote competitiveness in global supply chains.  The US Congress passed the Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE and HOPE II) Acts, which allowed for duty-free treatment for textiles, apparel and other goods from Haiti to the US.  Better Work Haiti provides technical assistance for compliance by both the government of Haiti and the US with the provisions of the legislation, including protection of workers' rights to fair wages and safe, clean working conditions.]

   4.  Statement of Fruit of the Loom in response to reports that its suppliers in Haiti were violating the rights of Haitian garment workers.

We are greatly concerned about the recent report from the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) regarding the issue of minimum wage compliance in the Haitian garment industry.  It is our view that the clear intent of Haiti's minimum wage law is for production rates to be set in such a manner as to allow workers to earn at least 300 gourdes ($7.07 USD) for 8 hours of work in a day.  Based on our independent investigation, we concur with the WRC that the garment industry in Haiti generally falls short of that standard.

Fruit of the Loom’s Code of Conduct requires, at minimum, strict compliance with applicable laws. With respect to the Haiti minimum wage regulations, we are committed to ensuring that our Haitian suppliers come into compliance with the law of Haiti. For purposes of measuring wage compliance, we will utilize the standard that has been employed by the ILO/IFC Better Work Haiti program. We plan to engage with the WRC and other relevant stakeholders, including worker representatives in Haiti, to address this issue. We recognize that remedies for past violations will be a topic of this discussion.
For further information, please contact Stan Blankenship, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility, at 270-781-6400.

--kjl