Supporting Haitian-led Rebuilding and Recovering Efforts 6 Months Since the Earthquake

Only six months ago, Haiti was violently shaken by an earthquake, killing nearly 300,000 and leaving the country reeling from its latest disaster. With help from responsive and generous donors, Grassroots International has been able to provide support directly to community-led organizations — the people on the front-line of helping rebuild.

Grassroots International has a long-term commitment to rebuilding Haiti, where we have supported peasant and community-led movements and organizations for more than 20 years. The needs in Haiti remain profound, and the challenges steep. Yet the spirit of our partners in Haiti is undaunted, and grateful for the assistance that supporters like you have shown.    “Grassroots International has supported us since 1996, not just since the earthquake. You know us and support food sovereignty. We know your partnership is for the long term,” said Doudou Pierre of the National Congress of Papaye Peasant Movement (MPNKP).   Since the days immediately following the earthquake, we’ve shared our partners’ assessment that the devastation of the earthquake was another layer of challenges on an already impoverished country. And their belief that, together, Haiti could rise from the ground up, led by grassroots organizations. Those groups continue to press forward for sustainable agriculture to feed the people with locally grown produce; to construct schools; to demand that Haitian voices be at the center of rebuilding plans.

We know that reconstruction and community building efforts will continue for years to come and there is a real opportunity for this to be a community-led effort that applies pressure to transform Haiti’s often unjust and dysfunctional institutions. We are committed to helping Haitian grassroots organizations develop comprehensive development plans in which they are the drivers of that long-term effort. Below is a list of grants made possible by the donors to Grassroots International in support of Haiti.  We invite you to help support Haitian-led recovery efforts by making a contribution.  Thank you!  

• The Haitian Platform to Advocate for Alternative Development (PAPDA). Funds for PAPDA will support their work with , VEDEK in the Southeast, and some peasant and women-led groups in the North and Northeast like the Limonade Women’s Association for Development (AFLIDEPA), Association of Milk Producers of Limonade (APWOLIM), and Haitian Women’s Solidarity Association (SOFA). All of these regions have absorbed earthquake survivors who fled Port-au-Prince.
• Other Worlds – A women-driven, multi-media education and movement-building collaborative. Other Worlds is working to document the ways that communities and social movements, together with their allies around the world, are working to build just economic, environmental, and political alternatives out of the ruins of the earthquake.
• The Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP). Funds for MPP will cover the Central Plateau to support local food production during Haiti’s planting season. The bulk of the funds from this grant cycle will be designated for local seeds, with an allowance for necessary tools and training as well. Grassroots International has supported MPP for years for their pioneer reforestation work.
• Tet Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisien – Haitian Peasants Heads Together. The grant to Tet Kole will cover the 47 communities in which they are organized across nine departments throughout Haiti to the provide seeds, tools and training necessary to achieve food sovereignty. Tet Kole is one of the most dynamic national peasant movements in Haiti.
• Via Campesina Caribbean Regional Coordination Team in Haiti, providing water, food and fuel for members who have lost everything, and travel funds to ensure that members can return to their provincial homes outside of Port-au-Prince. Via Campesina is an international movement that coined the phrase “food sovereignty”, and Grassroots International has supported their work across borders.