Franklin Graham to Bring 'Hope' to Haiti Sunday

The Power Of Religion In Those Giving And Receiving Help In Haiti's Recovery
By Kim Lawton Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- Driving through downtown Port-au-Prince, it can be difficult at first to see much change from a year ago, when a devastating 7.0 Earthquake devastated this impoverished Island Nation. The presidential palace is still in ruins, with thousands -- among an estimated 1 million Homeless Haitians -- living in massive Tent City across the street. Around the corner, a Tent City remains on the grounds of the destroyed Roman Catholic ...

Street music and voodoo art in Haiti
A year ago, a powerful Earthquake brought death and destruction to Poverty-stricken Caribbean country of Haiti, killing 230,000 people and leaving 1.5 million Homeless. Twelve months on, Mike Thomson from BBC Radio 4's Today programme returned there to meet a voodoo artist using the bones of Earthquake Victims in his work. But first, he witnessed the spectacle of a 'rara' street band winding its way through the streets of Port au Prince. To see the enhanced content on this page, ...

Haiti: One year on from quake
On Tuesday 12 January 2010, Haiti was jolted and broken by an Earthquake which killed 230,000 people. Today, despite pledges of billions and the presence of thousands of aid groups and missions, its people's plight is a festering global Scandal. Twelve months after the quake wrecked 350,000 homes and left at least 1.5 million people Homeless, 87 per cent of the survivors are still living in squalid, dangerous tented camps. Dozens of Rapes are committed every day, and so much rubble is uncleared...

Challenges Remain For Haiti A Year After Quake
Next week marks the one year anniversary of the devastating Haitian Earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people, left a million and a half Homeless and destroyed the capital of what was already the poorest country in the hemisphere. Huge challenges still face the Caribbean nation and the international relief agencies trying to help. Where Do You Start? Rubble removal? Housing? Water? Toilets? Jobs? A government? Enlarge David Gilkey/NPR A crew of four men are constructing the frame...

Crossover Dreams: To the International Community on the One-Year Anniversary of the Haiti Earthquake: Just Leave Us Alone!
At a recent demonstrator against waste dumping in the community of Troutier, a Protester's sign says "Yes to Health! Yes to Education! Yes to Agriculture! No to Trash! No to Waste! No to MINUSTAH!" (Posted by Ansel Herz) Ericq Pierre ([email protected]) is a Haitian agronomist who published the following op-ed in the Haitian journal Alterpresse today https://www.alterpresse.org/spip.php?article10490. With his permission, we re-print it here: The anniversary of the Earthquake is in one week...

Haitian: 'We live like hyenas'
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- A year after an Earthquake leveled Port-au-Prince, the cathedral in the Haitian capital remains a pile of rubble and the Presidential Palace is still in ruins. Across from the palace, about 500 families live in tents and shacks in Place Toussaint, the square named after Haiti's liberator, CNN reported. The Shanty Town has acquired small stores and even an Internet cafe. The 7-magnitude earthquake, centered about 16 miles from Port-au-Prince, killed more th...

'Journey through hell'
No overall plan to rehouse one and a half million people still living in tents has been made public - despite the creation in New York of an Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC). This body, co-chaired by Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former US President Bill Clinton, was set up to co-ordinate emergency and development programmes. Little rebuilding has been done. The poorest country in the Americas, Haiti has long faced chronic problems meeting its basic needs, and is in a cr...

Dominican Republic back to deporting Haitians
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- It wasn't so long ago when the president of the Dominican Republic visited neighboring Haiti, Protesters blocked his Motorcade by burning tires and hurling rocks. That was 2005, when Haitian laborers in the Dominican Republic were being lynched, deported, and their shacks burned to the ground. Called a Racist and a murderer, President Leonel Fernández canceled scheduled visits to Port-au-Prince and didn't return -- until January, when a massiv...

UN defends Haiti quake relief efforts
UN relief agencies on Friday defended their role in the much criticised aid effort after Haiti's devastating Earthquake nearly a year ago, saying they had faced "apocalyptic" scenes. "We had to work on a kind of apocalyptic ground, a disaster. That's why I think we did our job well with regard to the situation," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Several non governmental organisations have criticised International Aid over the pas...

Aftershock; Haiti, Hardship, Help & Hope
After Shock I wrote recently again about the neverending suffering of Haiti, and the remarkable resiliency of the people and the Children who live in conditions unimaginable to the rest of us: The question is always “what can we do?” and the answer always feels a little hopeless; yes, by all means, we can and should send help to relief agencies. We should keep the people of Haiti, especially the children, in our prayers. Reading stories like this, what can we do but keep them humbl...

Haitian migrants hide as DR pursues deportations
The Dominican Republic has launched its first major crackdown on illegal Haitian immigrants since last year's devastating Earthquake, rounding up and deporting hundreds of people in recent days, officials said Thursday. SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- It wasn't so long ago when the president of the Dominican Republic visited neighboring Haiti, Protesters blocked his Motorcade by burning tires and hurling rocks. That was 2005, when Haitian laborers in the Dominican Republic were be...

UN defends Haiti quake relief efforts
UN relief agencies defended their role in the much criticised aid effort after Haiti's devastating Earthquake nearly a year ago, saying they had faced "apocalyptic" scenes. "We had to work on a kind of apocalyptic ground, a disaster. That's why I think we did our job well with regard to the situation," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Several non governmental organisations have criticised International Aid over the past year for p...

Sexual Violence Against Haitian Women Increasing
The devastating Earthquake nearly a year ago in Haiti was one of the top stories of 2010, but the Island Nation is making headlines for more tragic statistics as we head into the new year. Amnesty International released a grim report today saying that armed men roving through unsecured Refugee Camps are making sexual violence a continuing threat in Haiti. As Amnesty summarizes: "More than 250 cases of Rape in several camps were reported in the first 150 days after January's earthquake, according...

Slideshow: The Haiti earthquake, one year later
Leonel Fernandez, president of the Dominican Republic, talks about the recovery effort in nearby Haiti, where more than 200,000 people died as a result of last year’s Earthquake. Fernandez has helped lead the reconstruction process, and hosted a World Summit on the Future of Haiti in Santo Domingo last year. As the one-year anniversary of the earthquake approaches, a report by Oxfam International has criticized world leaders and Haitian officials for the slow pace of the recovery. For ex...

Dominican Republic back to deporting Haitians
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - The Dominican Republic has launched its first major crackdown on illegal Haitian immigrants since last year's devastating Earthquake, rounding up and deporting hundreds of people in recent days, officials said Thursday. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and have a long history of cross-border tension. Relations improved in the aftermath of the Jan. 12 quake, with the Dominican government providing assistance and se...

Dominican Republic ousts Haitians
The Dominican Republic says it has resumed the Deportation of illegal Haitian immigrants, suspended after last year's Earthquake in Haiti. Dominican security forces set up dozens of road blocks on the outskirts of the capital, Santo Domingo, amid fears about the spread of Cholera. They say they stopped thousands of Haitians crossing the border in search of work, many of them illegally. Immigration officials say that this week at least 950 have been deported. The Dominican authorities sa...

Kalamazoo museum to celebrate art from Haiti
The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts is planning an event to celebrate the arts and culture of Haiti one year after a devastating Earthquake hit the Caribbean country. R 7 p.m. Thursday, the museum will host "Art in the Evening: Haitian Art: Vibrant Past, Perilous Future." The event takes place a year and one day after the Jan. 12 earthquake. The museum says docent and Haitian art collector Denise Wierman will discuss the rich legacy and current plight of the country's art. A short animated film titl...

Report criticizes Haiti recovery commission led by Bill Clinton
A resettlement camp at Corail Cesselesse, Haiti. Photo: Jane Beelsey/Oxfam World leaders and officials in Haiti have made little progress on critical reconstruction projects there, nearly one year after a devastating Earthquake killed more than 200,000 people and left another million Haitians Homeless, a leading international charity said on Thursday. “The humanitarian response that has taken place over the past 12 months has saved countless lives by providing water, sanitation, shelter,...

UN defends Haiti quake relief efforts
Source: afp AFP - UN relief agencies defended their role in the much criticised aid effort after Haiti's devastating Earthquake nearly a year ago, saying they had faced "apocalyptic" scenes. ... Several non governmental organisations have criticised International Aid over the past year for providing too little help too slowly. The charity Oxfam said this week that the recovery effort in the impoverished Caribbean country was put on hold by "a year of indecision" after 250,000 people were killed ...

An eye-opening experience
I was asked to come to One Herald Plaza to meet about a potential film on Haiti. The idea sounded challenging so I entered the meeting with piqued interest and left with the sobering feeling of ominous responsibility. The task was to direct a film that would contextualize the horrors of the Jan. 12 Earthquake by depicting the Haitian experience in a way that viewers might better understand and appreciate the hardships faced by the survivors of the worst Natural Disaster in our hemisphere. As dau...

Port-au-Prince Still Buried Under the Rubble of Competing NGOs
Today, the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced new grants and investments totaling $3.4 million that promise sustainability and are "aimed at planting the seeds of long-term economic opportunity across Haiti. Note that The Clinton Bush fund is a separate entity from the Haiti Interim Recovery Commission (HIRC), which takes a broadside from Oxfam. The OXFAM briefing paper reaches deep and does not flinch from indicting the Haiti Interim Recovery Commission, also led by former president Bill Clint...

Lost generation
In the dim late afternoon light, seeping through an upstairs window, the scars of ant bites are clearly visible on the back of a small baby boy. Jean was found covered in ants in a cardboard box half-filled with rain water near a busy Port-au-Prince market. "He was half-dead," says Nicole Dieudonne, director of an Orphanage on the outskirts of the capital. "If it wasn't for a hole in the box he would have drowned." Jean, who is wheezing terribly, is one of many Children...

Port-au-Prince Still Buried Under Rubble of Competing NGOs
Both Oxfam and the Disaster Accountability Project released reports this week that enhance already serious criticism of the relationship between the Government of Haiti and NGOs, and the inability of both to offer support to the Haitian people. The reports mark the one-year anniversary of the devastating Earthquake that took upwards of 250,000 lives, injured 300,000, and left 1.5 million Homeless. Ask yourselves what’s wrong with these pictures? Friday, the  Clinton Bush Hai...

Port-au-Prince Still Buried Under Rubble of Competing NGOs
Both Oxfam and the Disaster Accountability Project released reports this week that enhance already serious criticism of the relationship between the Government of Haiti and NGOs, and the inability of both to offer support to the Haitian people. The reports mark the one-year anniversary of the devastating Earthquake that took upwards of 250,000 lives, injured 300,000, and left 1.5 million Homeless. Ask yourselves what’s wrong with these pictures? Friday, the  Clinton Bush Hai...

Haiti
I happen to know two people who are venturing to Haiti next week, one acquaintance and one friend, to do good works, mostly of a medical nature. They do not know eachother. Haiti is in a state of anarchy. It was anarchy before the Earthquake, which is why it could not deal with an ordinary catastrophe. They tried socialism, but how do you do socialism without producers to take money from? There have been hundreds of NGOs in Haiti, and billions of dollars given, and it all goes into a black hol...