Personal reactions of women to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Discusses the psychic trauma of living in the Haiti's displacement camps after the earthquake regarding poor access to water, violence against women and instances of forced eviction.
Grassroots Haitian movements for social justice have set themselves a formidable task: not only addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis, but also challenging the reconstruction effort to include their leadership and avoid reproducing the conditions that helped make the earthquake so disastrous.
Part of a special journal issue dedicated to strategies for societal renewal in Haiti., Fonkoze, "the bank the poor can call their own," is a bank that provides more than just loans. It also sees access to reasonably priced savings, remittance transfer, and currency conversion as a right of even the poorest. This article tells the story of how -- after the devastation of the 2010 earthquake -- Fonkoze found itself positioned to serve Haiti's rural population before other banks were back on their feet.
Part of a special journal issue focusing on the role of the U.S. Foreign Service in Haiti., The work USAID and the State Department have done in Haiti after the January 12 earthquake shows why these organizations should take the lead in disaster relief.
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
46 p., In the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake of January 12, 2010, Haiti will receive unprecedented aid for reconstruction and for its promising economic strategy; but given the country's legacy of corruption, massive aid could simply result in another massive Haitian failure. As explored in this paper, success hinges on facing corruption squarely and developing a hard-headed, politically sensitive anticorruption strategy.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
23 p., The January 2010 earthquake devastated Haiti. The risk of rape and other forms of gender-based violence in Haiti's camps has increased dramatically in the past year. This report highlights the protection needs of women and girls in camps against the background of research undertaken by Amnesty International and other organizations on violence against women and girls after the earthquake.
Cohen,Marc J. (Author) and Gauthier,Amelie (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
Mar 2011
Published:
Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
7 p., Following the 20 March 2011 elections, Haiti faces a potential political stalemate whilst confronting the massive reconstruction needs created by last year's earthquake. Many organizations have criticized the government for its lack of leadership in addressing pressing issues of relief, relocation and reconstruction. This paper analyses the effects of the political situation on aid effectiveness, good governance and the strategies of the international community.
"I know he's looking down now on [President Obama] saying, 'Good job Barack, but you've got a lot more to do,'" said [Joseph Biden], who was introduced by the university's interim president, Sandra T. Thompson. "It's not merely the news reel, this is zeal," he said of the earthquake's impact on Haitian-Americans. "It's about their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers." Of his visit to Miami's Haitian community, the vice president said his attempt to participate in an "off-the-record" visit to a church so that he could attend a Catholic Mass in Little Haiti resulted in Haitian-Americans demonstrating tremendous generosity, "even in the midst of their grief."
In this context, the achievements of yesterday and of today are intimately linked. Sojourner Truth thundered against slavery so that Frederick Douglass could agitate. Douglass agitated so that Thurgood Marshall could argue the law. Marshall argued so that Rosa Parks could sit. Parks sat so that Martin Luther King Jr. could stand. King stood so that young people could march. Young people marched so that Shirley Chisholm could dare to aim for Congress. Rep. Chisholm dared so that Jesse Jackson could run. Jackson ran so Barack Obama could win. And Obama won because a majority of voting Americans - red, yellow, brown, black and white - were ready to finally say: Yes, we can!
"We are very pleased with the project, which will open up a wide range of opportunities to the university," they said. "Further, we believe that the proposed e-campus will have a lasting impact on Haiti's education system as a whole." [Frederick Humphries], now regent pro fessor at Florida A&M, says the effort grew out of his school's drive to collect donations for Haiti right after the January 2010 quake. He led a small delegation to visit the State University last summer, and afterward Humphries and Dr. Arthur Thomas, program manager at Morgan State, phoned a* number of black college presidents. "All of them wanted to help," Humphries says. Leaders of each consortium expressed a willingness to collaborate. "Where we can make common cause, we'll be very happy to do that," Humphries says. Alix Cantave, associate director of the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston, says such cooperation "makes sense."
Johnston,Jake (Author) and Main,Alexander (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
Apr 2013
Published:
Center for Economic and Policy Research
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
14 p., The U.S. government pledged $1.15 billion for relief and reconstruction projects in Haiti. Key U.S. actors, like the State Department's Cheryl Mills, acknowledged a "unique opportunity to build back better" and "an obligation to ensure that aid is actually effective." Over three years have passed since Haiti's earthquake and, despite USAID's stated commitment to greater transparency and accountability, the question "where has the money gone?" echoes throughout the country. It remains unclear how exactly the billions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on assistance to Haiti have been used and whether this funding has had a sustainable impact. With few exceptions, Haitians and U.S. taxpayers are unable to verify how U.S. aid funds are being used on the ground in Haiti.
Part of a special journal issue dedicated to strategies for societal renewal in Haiti., It's not the earthquake that kills people, it's the collapse of buildings that were poorly designed and built. This case narrative describes a building model that will work for Haiti and why it is critical to use a homeowner-driven model rather than a donor-driven one.
As President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) and Founder of the Haiti Support Project (HSP), I have just returned from leading a team to Haiti to allocate the first contributions from the IBW/HSP Haiti Relief Fund. A total of $56,000 was distributed to nine community-based/grassroots organizations including women's, youth and peasant groups for relief and capacity-building. Deeply concerned about the plight of Haitian children orphaned by the disastrous earthquake, our team also visited orphanages and assessed the progress of the Oasis Institute, an ambitious Initiative which is designed to relocate orphans and extended family members from tent communities to an interim camp with safe/secure environment, post-traumatic stress counseling and a world class education.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
10 p., On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti. As of January 20, 2010, 72,000 had been confirmed dead with hundreds of thousands more in need of assistance. The earthquake has left an estimated 1.5 million Haitians homeless. As discussed in this report, Congress has passed legislation with the goal of promoting charitable donations for the earthquake victims in Haiti. Tables, Figures.
According to the United Nation, Haiti is the poorest county in the Western Hemisphere and one of the poorest nations in the entire world, and the people were experiencing unspeakable hardships before the earthquake.
The Navy and Department of Defense are working with the academic and crisis-response communities in a series of exercises to explore and experiment with new coordinated information-sharing tools, techniques and procedures based on social science research on social media. The response to the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti demonstrated the value of information sharing during a disaster, whether it be in real time via Twitter, standard messaging service text messaging or in imagery posted on YouTube, Flickr or Facebook.
Heinzelman,Jessica (Author) and Waters,Carol (Author)
Format:
Pamphlet
Publication Date:
Oct 2010
Published:
United States Institute of Peace
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
16 p., Examines the role of Ushahidi, a crisis-mapping platform, in the disaster relief effort following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Explains that Ushahidi provided the international community with access to actionable intelligence collected directly from the Haitian population via text messages and through social media sources, allowing responders to quickly and effectively target resources in the rapidly changing disaster environment. Ushahidi provided a way to capture, organize, and share critical information coming directly from Haitians. Information was gathered through social media (e.g., blogs, Twitter, and Facebook) and text messages sent via mobile phones.
