Two years following the earthquake, community-based organizations in Haiti are still advocating for the same changes and considerations as they did last year, namely land and housing rights, respect for national sovereignty in the reconstruction process and aid accountability.
Haitians, whether in Haiti or the diaspora, will always remember where they were on January 12, 2010, when tragedy shook us to our core. Devastating images emerged from Port-au-Prince after the earthquake that brought to mind cinematic depictions of the aftermath of a blitzkrieg. I had to constantly remind myself that an earthquake did this, not indiscriminate bombing. In the days that followed my heart wanted a seat on the next airplane to Haiti, but my mind grounded me on a simple fact: I had no medical training and my presence could not give the kind of help that was immediately needed. But I wanted to do something…
Nearly a dozen of us stuffed ourselves into a stifling cement room – an oven, really - in the Petite Riviere of the Artibonite, Haiti’s breadbasket. The meeting unfolded slowly. With no breeze and drowsy, my chin bounced off my chest.
Last year, significant international donors (including several nations and financial institutions) gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss the massive reconstruction task ahead of them in post-earthquake Haiti. One year later, the situation on the ground in Haiti demonstrates their failure—both in terms of the lack of meaningful reconstruction, and by refusing to allow Haitians themselves to speak for their own development and sovereignty.
Sheer numbers never convey the magnitude of a disaster because they leave out the human stories. News reports offer constant access to images and analysis, but the suffering can just seem too distant at times. And then there are those other times when it hits personally, all in one dreaded moment.
For me, that moment came when I got word that Flo McGarrell, a friend and fellow student of Haitian Creole died in last year’s earthquake when a hotel collapsed on him in Jacmel. As survivors began a weeklong search for Flo’s body, everything about what was going on in Haiti felt painfully close to home—even from half a world away (I was in Jerusalem at the time). Each story became Flo’s story.
Grassroots International’s partner Camille Chalmers, Executive Director of the Haitian Platform to Advocate Alternative Development (PAPDA) traveled to Washington, DC during the last week of July to testify before the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC sponsored-hearing on Haiti entitled “Focus on Haiti: The Road to Recovery - A Six Month Review” wassupported by the Haiti Advocacy Working Group (HAWG).
Nestled between Haiti’s turquoise Caribbean waters and the foothills of the northern mountains, is a large plot of land close to the town of Limonade. Here at the height of planting season a group of peasants is hard at work. Claudelle Sensmyr, 36, quietly sprinkles handfuls of seeds down row after row of prepped soil. "I just started farming a few months ago," she told me, brushing off her hands and looking up. "I’m from Port-au-Prince," she added shyly and then motioned to the other farmers, "Many of us are."
In the wake of the earthquake that left most of urban Haiti in shambles six months ago, more than 500,000 survivors fled cities like Port-au-Prince and Jacmel to rural areas like Limonade.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 recently supported a delegation of Haitian social movements to attend the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit. This diverse group represented several of our partners and allies on the ground in Haiti and offered them a unique networking and educational platform.
Doudou Pierre, representing our partner the National Congress of the Papaye Peasant Movement and our close ally, the National Haitian Network for Food Security and Food Sovereignty, recently told us that the experience changed his perception of the U.S.Grassroots International had been hearing from our partners in Haiti, both the peasant movements as well as the urban-based coalitions, that they were extremely disheartened by their exclusion from the development of plans for Haiti’s relief and reconstruction. Since the week after the earthquake, our partners have shared with us several thoughtful and powerful statements that outline the key principles and strategies necessary for a more just renewal of Haiti - from their perspective. Grassroots International has been sharing their statements as widely as possible – working to insert and amplify their voices within the larger policy debates.
On the cusp of Haiti’s spring planting season, we received urgent requests from our partners and allies in Haiti about their dire need for seeds and tools to ensure that food production would be secured in the immediate planting season -- this is all the more important in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake and the massive migration to rural areas from Port-au-Prince.
Grassroots International is making three new grants of $25,000 each, all of which will help provide seeds, tools and training for this planting season to these groups:
In whats left of Port-au-Prince, Haitians have self-organized into 450 camps administered by neighborhood committees. These newly formed communities not only provide temporary shelter, but are also launching points for local organizers to promote Haitian voices in rebuilding their society. Outside the city, peasant movements and organizations are welcome displaced victims of the earthquake into their communities. These returnees are part of a massive reverse migration back to their places of origin
Today marks the first of many anniversaries in this new phase of Haiti’s history. It has been a month. The earthquake—known simply as “the incident” to Haitians—changed everything, instantly dividing their experience into a before and after. Many large NGOs, international institutions and donor countries are jockeying to get a seat at the table in rebuilding Haiti. Some of their core prescriptions involve the same policies that have kept Haiti near the top of the “Failed State Index” in the first place.
Many of Grassroots International’s partners in Haiti recently released the following statement in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti. Our partners have used this devastating and unstable time to bond together and to work to rebuild Haiti with creative bottom-up solutions.
Since a devastating earthquake shook Haiti more than two weeks ago, Grassroots International’s partners on the ground have been working to assess the situation and respond to the needs of the community – even as they themselves have suffered great losses. With help from hundreds of people who have donated in response to the crisis, Grassroots International has made three initial grants to three of our partners in Haiti.
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.
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.
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.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.
