Foreign Aid & Community Aid/Solidarity

29 March 2013, Tunisia

As the Social Movements Assembly of the World Social Forum of Tunisia, 2013, we are gathered here to affirm the fundamental contribution of peoples of Maghreb-Mashrek (from North Africa to the Middle East), in the construction of human civilization. We affirm that decolonization for oppressed peoples remains for us, the social movements of the world, a challenge of the greatest importance.

Press release: Friends of the Earth International, Global Forest Coalition, Urgewald, Rights Action, Rettet den Regenwald/Rainforest Rescue, Global Justice Ecology Project, Biofuelwatch

19^th March 2013 - International NGOs have condemned a statement by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) [1] which defends the record of a Honduran palm oil company, Grupo Dinant, which is implicated in dozens of murders as well as other human rights abuses. The IFC statement explicitly admits to supporting training for the company’s armed security guards. A World Bank Ombudsman [2] is currently investigating an IFC loan of $30 million for Grupo Dinant which was approved in 2009, at least half of which has already been disbursed. This month, an Open Letter by 17 NGOs [3] and an international petition signed by over 63,000 people [4] have protested the loan and called on the World Bank to immediately cease their support for Grupo Dinant.

By Beverly Bell
March 5, 2013

Three years after the deadly earthquake in Haiti, what has become of the commitments made on Red Cross billboards, the promises from telethon hosts, the moving declarations of Presidents Obama and Clinton? What has happened to the nearly $10 billion that was pledged to assist survivors and to rebuild, most of which was entrusted to the large non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that Professor Mark Schuller terms “non-profiteers”?
 

Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti from Ted Oswald on Vimeo.

The following is a guest post from Ted Oswald, the author of the recently-published novel Because We Are: A Novel of Haiti. He is giving part of the proceeds from the book to Other Worlds:

In 2010, my wife and I lived in Haiti for several months and interned--she as an international development student, and I as a law student. I spent my days working for a human rights organization in Cité Soleil, the slum where my new novel is set. It was an unforgettable time.

Today, the Haitian Collective to Defend the Right to Housing commemorates the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Titanyen, the site of the earthquake’s mass graves.

January 11, 2013
Haitian Collective to Defend the Right to Housing

It has been three years since falling rubble, bits of concrete, iron bars, and collapsing walls killed countless courageous women and men while they were at work, at school, in their homes or on the streets. In less than one minute, we lost many beautiful people – people filled with love, whose hearts were filled with hope. We lost elders, children, youth, academics, professionals, factory workers, peasants, and vendors. They were lost. We lost them.

Today, we have come to Titanyen where so many of their bodies lay in mass graves, to ask ‘Where have they gone?’ What have we done with their memories, their stories, their suffering?

Cross-posted from the Canada Haiti Action Network

Statement by the Canada Haiti Action Network, January 7, 2013

Billions of dollars of aid to Haiti have been pledged or spent following the devastating earthquake on January 12, 2010. Yet three years later, life remains very harsh for many of the country’s ten million people. Haiti’s prospects for post-earthquake progress remain exceptionally challenging.

December 10, 2012

On the 64^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call on the international community to act against the human rights abuses taking place in Haiti in the form of arbitrary and illegal forced evictions.

Housing activist Reyneld Sanon is beginning a tour to key cities in the United States. The tour will raise awareness about Under Tents, the international campaign for housing rights in Haiti. The campaign is a joint initiative of Haitian grassroots groups and more than 30 international organizations that are demanding a solution for Haiti’s homeless.