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Throughout the world, solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the day are either nascent or fully thriving. Organized people's movements - sometimes with help from supportive government - are changing the structures which cause violence, poverty, inequality, and environmental destruction.

Rebuilding a Just Haiti

Haiti is known around the world as a troubling, godforsaken place where troubling, godforsaken things happen.  Its poverty and state-sponsored violence are well-known, while the international policies which have contributed to them are not.  The January 12 earthquake is just the latest disaster to befall this country.

Another Haiti is Possible

THE CREOLE CONNECTION: NEW ORLEANS, HAITI, AND CATASTROPHE

Submitted by admin on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 13:33

By Beverly Bell

August 29, 2012


As a native and resident of New Orleans who has spent three decades in and out of Haiti, and as director of an organization with offices in both places, this has been a harrowing week. The two locales sit squarely in Hurricane Isaac’s path. We don’t know yet how New Orleans will weather the giant storm. The official death toll in Haiti was 24, but many more will surely die from secondary effects of cholera or, for those who have lost their slim margins of sustenance, hunger.

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THE THINGS THAT ARE THE RICHEST ARE THE LEAST VALUED: NEW ORLEANS AND HAITI, POST-CATASTROPHE

Submitted by admin on Tue, 08/28/2012 - 07:36


Lolis Eric Elie
Interviewed by Beverly Bell

August 28, 2012

Tomorrow, seven years to the day after Hurricane Katrina dodged New Orleans, the city will be venturing out to assess Hurricane Isaac’s overnight imprint on its neighborhoods. Yet parts of the city – especially low-income, African-American parts – are still damaged from the flood that followed the 2005 storm, when more than 50 levees broke and filled New Orleans with killing waters.

Below, writer Lolis Eric Elie speaks to the connections between his native New Orleans and Haiti, which did not escape Hurricane Isaac. Officially, 24 people died when the hurricane passed through on Saturday, though the numbers of those who will die from secondary effects such as hunger and cholera will never be counted. Elie’s discussion, however, focuses on an earlier disaster in Haiti, the epic 7.0 earthquake of January 12, 2010. 

Tropical Storm Isaac’s Destruction Another “Unnatural Disaster” in Haiti

Submitted by admin on Mon, 08/27/2012 - 13:54

Press release from Accuracy.org

AP reports at least eight deaths from tropical storm Issac in Haiti. Over 30 groups working on Haiti have set up the Under Tents campaign in working to ensure housing.

The groups state that many of Haiti’s problems are not “natural disasters,” but are the result of policies that become increasingly glaring as Haiti faces more storms this season. Among the groups in the campaign:

"Homelessness, Displacement, Evictions . . . This Sounds Familiar": New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center

Submitted by admin on Mon, 07/23/2012 - 10:11

Cross-posted from the New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center.
Posted on 05. Jul, 2012 by

By Hannah Adams, Guest Contributor

There are a number of obvious parallels between housing needs in New Orleans after the 2005 hurricanes and housing needs in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

In both disasters, large regions lost the majority of their affordable housing stock, resulting in massive spikes in homelessness and displacement.  UNITY of Greater New Orleans reports that homelessness rates effectively doubled in the city from January 2005 to January 2009. [1] The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center adds that New Orleans experienced a population loss of over 140,000 according to the 2010 census, and that poor New Orleanians and families with children under eighteen were among those less likely to return. [2] Meanwhile, the Under Tents Campaign reports that 400,000 Haitians remain homeless in displacement camps where they face gender-based violence, disease, unsanitary living conditions, and flooding.

"Baseball in the Time of Cholera" Film Now Available Online!

Submitted by admin on Tue, 07/17/2012 - 08:39

Check out this announcement from RYOT Fims and see their campaign here: www.undeny.org!

Baseball in The Time of Cholera is a powerful insight into the tragedy and scandal of Haiti's Cholera epidemic through the eyes of a young baseball player

If a foreign military dumped their raw sewage into the Mississippi river and it caused the deaths of over 7000 Americans would we remain silent?


That very scenario is playing out in Haiti right now!  UN peacekeeping forces from Nepal dumped their sewage into Haiti's largest river and the ensuing cholera outbreak has resulted in over 500,000 Haitians infected and over 7000 deaths (and counting). 

“Under Tents”: International Campaign Launch for Housing in Haiti

Submitted by admin on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 15:25

"The quantity of people who are homeless in Port-au-Prince today is not acceptable. We need the support of other governments, like the US, to demand that the Haitian Government create a social housing plan. We are looking for allies to help our advocacy. We are asking simply for quality homes where people can live." - Jackson Doliscar of the grassroots group Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA).

“Waiting for Helicopters”? Cholera, Prejudice, and the Right to Water in Haiti (Part II)

Submitted by admin on Fri, 06/29/2012 - 07:34


by Deepa Panchang
June 29, 2012

“Where you stand,” goes an old Haitian proverb, “depends on where you sit.” This article, the second in a series, will examine aid workers’ stereotypes and prejudices about residents of displacement camps in post-earthquake Haiti, stemming from acute disconnect between NGOs and the people they are there to work with. We explore how these misperceptions have perpetuated deliberate decisions to deny water and sanitation services to desperate survivors.

Social Movements' Letter to UNASUR Demands Withdrawal of MINUSTAH Troops from Haiti

Submitted by admin on Thu, 06/21/2012 - 09:20

Last week, Latin American social movements sent the following letter to defense ministers of UNASUR member states, demanding accountability from the UN and withdrawal of MINUSTAH troops from Haiti. Distributed by our friends at Jubilee South.

Dear Sirs:

We commend the Ministers of Defense and the High Representatives for Foreign Relations of UNASUR’s Member States for the consideration given at their meeting at Asunción, Paraguay, on June 5, to the situation in our fellow country Haiti, and we support the recognition expressed in their Declaration of the importance of consolidating a policy, on behalf of UNASUR, of a sustained cooperation which “respects the sovereignty and the self-determination of the Haitian people” and which achieves “a tangible improvement in the living conditions” as the necessary basis of security and lasting peace.

We therefore urge UNASUR’s member states to take firm and effective measures in that direction, including the immediate withdrawal of the 4,929 occupying troops (including both soldiers and military police) currently deployed in Haiti by 10 of UNASUR’s 12 Member States; an end to the MINUSTAH mission and of all other foreign military presence; and furthermore an end to the impunity and absence of justice that have allowed the continued toleration of violations of human rights by these forces.

URGENT ACTION: HAITIAN FAMILIES AGAIN FACING FORCED EVICTION

Submitted by admin on Tue, 06/19/2012 - 09:41

URGENT ACTION: HAITIAN FAMILIES AGAIN FACING FORCED EVICTION
Update from Amnesty International on the families in Grace Village
June 15, 2012

Hundreds of Haitian families are facing forcible eviction from a refugee camp where they have been living since the January 2010 earthquake. Representatives of the landowner, and local police officers, have been threatening and harassing them.

BIRTHING JUSTICE: And You, What Are You Waiting For?: A World without Slavery

Submitted by admin on Sat, 06/16/2012 - 07:24

 By Beverly Bell
June 16, 2012

Helia Lajeunesse |Port-au-Prince, Haiti

The restavèk system is modern slavery. When a family takes in a restavèk to live with them, they stop doing any work in the house. The restavèk child has to do everything. If the child doesn’t work hard enough, they beat them. The child can’t eat with the family, and usually doesn’t even eat the same food – just scraps. He or she sleeps on the floor, often in the kitchen. They don’t pay the child; they just give them a little food. They never send him or her to school. The family views that child as an animal.