Jean Entine
An article I came across recently in the midst of much depressing news around Haiti, and a lot else, was: "Palestinians in Gaza donate to Haiti." It spoke of how Gazans were collecting something -- anything -- to donate to earthquake victims in Haiti. Dr.
GAZA CITYLast night, I dreamt of Haiti. Something about the scene felt eerily familiar. The visions of people trapped under folded sheets of concrete, children crying out to family members they would never see again, and incapacitated hospitals overflowing with the dead and injured were so vivid that even after I opened my eyes, I still thought I was there. And then the early Islamic call to prayer brought me back to where I wasI had made it into the Gaza Strip from Israel the day before.
GAZA CITY—Last night, I dreamt of Haiti. Something about the scene felt eerily familiar. The visions of people trapped under folded sheets of concrete, children crying out to family members they would never see again, and incapacitated hospitals overflowing with the dead and injured were so vivid that even after I opened my eyes, I still thought I was there. And then the early Islamic call to prayer brought me back to where I was—I had made it into the Gaza Strip from Israel the day before.
Over the weekend proceeding Martin Luther King Day, kids from Jamaica Plain, MA took to the sidewalks to raise funds for earthquake relief in Haiti. They set up tables in front of local shops, including JP Licks ice cream store and City Feed grocery. In less than two hours, area residents had donated $356 to help the Haiti reconstruction work of three Boston-based groups: Grassroots International, Oxfam America and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.
Grassroots International ally Food First's executive director Eric Holt-Jimenez wrote recently -- on HuffPost -- on the long roots of the disaster in Haiti. His point about the "historic bleeding of Haiti's economy and the systematic undermining of its political institutions" being at the root of the disaster as much as the "tectonics that leveled Port-au-Prince" is right on the mark. Grassroots' partners and allies in Haiti have long struggled against that bleeding and undermining, and fought for better Haitian and international policies on agriculture, trade, and food that would sustain their people, and their land.
As news of the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince trickled out on Tuesday evening, the Haitian Diaspora held its collective breath. At 6 a.m. the next morning I placed an anxious phone call to my father, who left Haiti’s political violence behind for Miami in 2004. He had no news of his sister, brother-in-law, or nieces. By noon, calls and messages alerted me that all my relatives survived unharmed. Seven days after the quake, I realize how truly lucky my family had been. Every single Haitian friend, co-worker, and acquaintance of mine lost someone in the quake.
Grassroots International partner La Via Campesina, a global network of peasant, family farmer and small producer movements more than 100 million strong, and with members in Haiti issued this call for solidarity with Haitians including the peasant population.
Bill Quigley of our ally the Center for Constitutional Rights wrote recently on what he thought the US can and should do for Haiti in response to the devastating earthquake.
In the last 48 hours, my work to gather information from our partners in Haiti has become a puzzle game. As of Thursday morning, I have been unable to talk with our partners and allies in Haiti. The lack of electricity to power the phone lines is probably the main barrier to reaching folks in Port-au-Prince. As I place together the scattered information from colleagues from Dominican Republic, Brazil and Honduras, I keep checking news from different sources. Scarce and brief notes from other member organizations of the Via Campesina and our allies in the U.S. give us hope that they are all well and alive.
Recently, Grassroots International received an email from our partner Camille Chalmers of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA). It is translated below.
PAPDA is a coalition of nine Haitian popular and non-governmental organizations which work with the Haitian popular movement to develop alternatives to the neo-liberal model of economic globalization, and has been a leading advocate of debt cancellation, food sovereignty and sustainable development. When the Haitian government moved to privatize certain industries, PAPDA worked with the unions and the business community to create strategies that would improve production and minimize cost without privatization.Repost - from TransAfrica Forum (Jan 13 2009)
Yesterday Haiti suffered a massive earthquake, which registered a 7.3 on the Richter scale, just outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Initial reports are beginning to pour in on the devastation to both people and property. Grassroots International has set up an “Earthquake Response Fund for Haiti” to support our partners and meet the urgent needs of the population.
We picked up the phones as soon as we heard of the earthquake to speak with Haitian partners like Chavannes Jean Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP). Like the thousands of Haitian families in the U.S. trying to find out who was still alive, we quickly found that communication lines were broken or overtaxed. Eerily, our partners’ phones just ring and ring - no answer. In Chavannes’ case, we were able to reach his brother in New York who confirmed that he is still alive. For that we give thanks. But in truth, we are working with very little direct information.
Over the years, Grassroots International has had an opportunity to talk about rethinking emergency aid with our partners, including those in Haiti. Now, in the wake of a devastating earthquake in Port-au-Prince, those conversations and our funding principles continue to guide relief efforts.
GONAIVES, Haiti - Most of us would agree that there is a serious problem vis-a-vis access to food in the developing world. According to the UN food agency, there are now more than one billion undernourished people worldwide. The need to do something about the broken food system is especially apparent in Haiti, where I have been on a working assignment with Grassroots International for the past few weeks.
I spent the better part of last week crisscrossing Haiti’s arid Northwest with Grassroots International’s partner the National Congress of the Peasant’s Movement of Papay (MPNKP). MPNKP is best known to our allies and friends for their Creole Pig Repopulation project that we have supported for many years, and I was excited to follow up with families in far-off rural areas that our organization has not yet visited.
Throughout our time on the ground together, it became clear to me that it’s not just about the pigs—it’s about the organizing. The pig repopulation project represents this organizing.
I stopped in Gonaives to follow up with last year’s hurricane victims while traveling with Grassroots International’s partner the Peasant’s Movement of Papay (MPP) from Port-au-Prince to Haiti’s Northwest last week. Last year, hurricanes Fay, Gustav, Hannah, and Ike ravaged the entire island causing immense suffering. The coastal low-land city of Gonaives -- which was almost entirely underwater during the disaster – witnessed more loss of life and livelihood than anywhere else during the storms.
Below is a blog by Salena Tramel, Grassroots International Program Coordinator for the Middle East and Haiti. It originally appeared on Huffington Post.
Here in Haiti, a country all too often characterized by internal instability, the biggest scandals of all have external origins. Just ask the Haitians.
