Other Worlds

In May, Other Worlds' Education and Outreach Coordinator, Shilpa Jain, had the great pleasure of working with Nuestra Escuela, an alternative educational experiment taking place within several cities Puerto Rico. Literally translated as “Our School”, it is founded on a mission of love, respect and the belief in the potential and power of young people. 

Gerta Louisama is a member of the Executive Committee and the National Women’s Committee of Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, Heads Together Small Producers of Haiti, Haiti’s largest and oldest peasant group. She is also head of the local Tèt Kole Women’s Committee in her village of Savanette. Here she speaks about the Tèt Kole’s efforts to win recognition, social equality, and economic rights for rural Haitians, especially women.

HINCHE, Haiti, June 28, 2011 – Last week, thousands of farmers and supporters of Haitian peasant agriculture marched for hours under the hot Caribbean sun to call for more government support for locally grown seeds and agriculture.

Jose Luis Patrola is a history professor, farmer, and member of the Brazilian land reform group, the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement, or MST. He has lived in Haiti for three years. There, he coordinates the MST’s program, an exchange of agricultural and technical cooperation between Haitians and Brazilians. In a departure from many international programs of “teaching” and “aiding” Haitians, Patrola speaks here about mutual learning and respect. 

Below are excerpts from the International Forum on the Crisis of Housing, held in Port-au-Prince May 19-21, 2011. During the forum, hundreds of Haitians, plus allies from around the Americas, developed strategies to force a solution to Haiti’s greatest crisis: homelessness. Almost 17 months after the earthquake, more than one in nine remain displaced in camps and in other dangerous and inhumane lodging. Neither the government nor the international community has offered any viable plan for resettlement of this population. On the contrary, government officials and private landowners are stepping up violent evictions of people in camps.

We, organizations of survivors living in internally displaced persons’ [IDP] camps, as well as social and grassroots organizations, assembled for three days (May 19-21, 2011) at Fany Villa in Port-au-Prince to reflect on the problem of housing within Haiti’s longstanding crisis. Following an exchange around the theme “January 12: Nightmares, Reality and Dreams,” we state:

We representatives from more than 50 [internally displaced persons] camps from Port-au-Prince, Delmas, Carrefour, Pétion-ville, Tabard, Croix-des-Bouquets, Petit-Goave, Grand Goave, Las Cahobas, and Jacmel, who have united together in Haiti from May 19-21, 2011 under the initiative of the Force for Reflection and Action on Housing (FRAKKA), together with other partners… We from camp committees, grassroots groups, and non-governmental organizations… We committed citizens, plus comrades from other countries who participated in the International Forum on the Crisis of Housing in Haiti… We denounce with all our might the acts of violence that are taking place in many camps to force residents to leave, without having anyplace else to go.

On May 23 and 25, police in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince destroyed camps which sheltered people who were otherwise homeless since the earthquake. Police and other municipal workers beat and arrested residents, and physically threatened the lives of a human rights lawyer and an advocate who had come to investigate. The mayor of Delmas announced that this is part of a new campaign to evict internally displaced persons [IDPs] from public spaces.