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Haiti

Manifest Haiti: U.S. Food Aid and Monsanto

By: Carol Schachet | January 27, 2011

Make no mistake: Haiti needs seeds and food. Following last January’s devastating earthquake, it’s been all hands on deck in the small island nation—but decision-making on rebuilding is very often in all hands but Haitian hands.

Since long before the earthquake, Haiti has been known as the Republic of NGOs and is bound by more free trade agreements than any other country in the hemisphere. And this kind of outside intervention has failed Haiti time and again—especially since last year’s unprecedented disaster.
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One Year on in Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | January 12, 2011

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.
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Haiti

“Miami Rice”: The Business of Disaster in Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | December 9, 2010

As we file this article, Port-au-Prince is thick with the smoke of burning tires and with gunfire. Towns throughout the country, along with the national airport, are shut down due to demonstrations. Many are angry over the government's announcement on Tuesday night of which two presidential candidates made the run-offs: Jude Célestin from the widely hated ruling party of President René Préval and the far-right Mirlande Manigat. This is another obvious manipulation of what had already been a brazenly fraudulent election. A democratic vote is one more thing that has been taken from the marginalized Haitian majority, compounding their many losses since the earthquake of January 12.
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A New Kind of Disaster in Haiti in the Midst of Stagnant Reality

By: Carol Schachet | November 20, 2010

Haitian peasant leader, Chavannes Jean Baptiste, put it best: “Haiti is going from disaster to disaster.” He was talking about debilitating disease among displaced people in squalid living conditions, tropical storms destroying agricultural land, and international aid programs undermining local organizing.
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Outrage in a Time of Cholera

By: Carol Schachet | October 22, 2010

Many of us involved in the post-earthquake reality of Haiti have both feared and expected the kind of health crisis that recently surfaced in the news. In many ways, the seeming inevitability makes it all the more tragic – because a full and coordinated response might have averted the ongoing catastrophe.
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Haitian Partner Testifies Before the Black Congressional Caucus

By: Maria Aguiar | August 9, 2010

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).
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Haiti Advocacy Working Group develops key background documents

By: Maria Aguiar | August 9, 2010
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Haiti

Six Organizing Principles for a Sustainable Future

By: Carol Schachet | July 27, 2010

Some of the most important lessons I know about grassroots organizing come from the poet Wendell Berry, who advises, “Invest in the millennium; plant Sequoias.”
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Working to Keep Hope Alive in Haiti’s Forgotten Frontiers

By: Salena Tramel | July 12, 2010

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

By: Carol Schachet | July 12, 2010

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.
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The Haitian Delegation to the U.S. Social Forum Seizes their Moment

By: Carol Schachet | July 6, 2010

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.
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Grassroots International and Partners at the USSF in Detroit

By: Alisa Pimentel | June 25, 2010

By Alisa Pimentel

Among the almost 20,000 activists gathered in Detroit for the US Social Forum this week are several Grassroots International partners and allies. Grassroots International regularly provides funding to our partners and allies to participate in movement-building and leadership development gatherings.
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‘So That Everyone Can Eat, Produce It Here’

By: Carol Schachet | June 11, 2010

Doudou Pierre is a Grassroots International partner and a member of the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress and the Peasant Movement for Acul du Nord. He.is also on the coordinating committee of the National Haitian Network for Food Sovereignty and Food Security (RENHASSA .and a member of the International Coordinating Committee for Food Sovereignty, organized by Vía Campesina, the worldwide coalition of small farmer organizations. This week he will be heading to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.
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Is Monsanto’s Gift of Hybrid Seeds a Trojan Horse?

By: Carol Schachet | June 4, 2010

No one denies that Haiti needs seeds and support this planting season, as the population still faces steep challenges since January’s devastating earthquake. Many thousands have fled urban areas for the countryside, taxing already strained resources and causing many rural communities to re-purpose for food the seeds set aside for planting.

But is any seed a good seed? No, says Chavannes Jean-Baptiste and other Haitian activists. Chavannes is the executive director of Grassroots International partner the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP).
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Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

By: Carol Schachet | May 20, 2010

"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.
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Tell Congress: Haiti Can’t Wait

By: Carol Schachet | May 19, 2010

Micheline Fleuron lives with her two boys in the median on the road in Carrefour, Haiti. Her home, the pile of rubble across the street from where she is now, collapsed during the earthquake and killed her seven-year-old daughter. Before the earthquake Micheline had a small business selling food items. She lost that in the earthquake. She says food aid has been distributed nearby but she has not been able to get any of it. She says hunger is difficult and "dust from the street is eating us."
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Haitian Led Reconstruction and Development

By: Carol Schachet | March 30, 2010

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.
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Combating Hunger by Reforesting Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | March 19, 2010

Last August, I stood in Haiti’s Artibonite valley with several peasant organizers and looked out at the mountains leading up to the Central Plateau. The older leaders in the group explained in depth how green the mountains once were, while the younger organizers and I listened in amazement. The tropical lime forests they described from their past were the antithesis of the sandy naked slopes we saw in the distance.
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Demand Accountability and Transparency of US Aid to Haiti

By: Carol Schachet | March 18, 2010

Some say that the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed more than 230,000 and displaced more than a million people has left Haiti with a "blank slate."
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Beating Hunger in Haiti with Seeds and Tools for Small Farmers

By: Maria Aguiar | March 11, 2010
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:
- The Peasant Movement of Papaye(the MPP). Funds for the MPP will cover the Central Plateau.
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