WCCCI partner Free The Children provide an update to the disaster in Haiti

Prior to leaving Haiti, Craig Kielburger provides some final thoughts as he prepares to leave the country. Physically he may not be there, but having just met him back in Toronto, it was evident that his heart and soul are still with those who wake up finding courage to write a new chapter in their lives knowing that giving up is not an option, nor within their spirit.

“In the hours leading up to our departure from Port-au-Prince, no one from our group ate from our supplies.

Soon, we would be heading back across the Dominican border, back to the airport where tourists board buses taking them to all-inclusive resorts. Knowing that we were heading back to abundance, there was nothing to do but give what we had left to the kids who humbly asked for a single drop of water to quench their thirst.

As we slowly made our way through traffic, we saw the signs posted by people in IDP camps asking for help. Children came up to the windows of our trucks looking for any means of relief.

Through our limited correspondence with family and friend, we have constantly been asked about violence and looting. “Are you safe?” “Is it dangerous?” While we understand the picture painted on our television screens is one of lawlessness, we have to stress that these are isolated incidents.

They are acts of desperation.

Instead, kids like the ones who appeared at our windows and stood wide-eyed at our windows are more telling. No one is asking for much. They just patiently wait for relief.

We have to wonder how much that patience can be tested. The extent of the damage in Haiti is devastating. Seeing it compound with the already brutal living conditions is beyond comprehension. As, we mentioned in previous blogs, before the earthquake struck, 80 per cent of Haitians live in extreme poverty. The country has the highest rates of infant, under-five and maternal mortality in the Western world.

But, statistics don’t do justice to this tragedy. As we prepared to leave for home, we all asked, “How much more can people endure?”

That’s not to say the people we met over these past days are not strong and fiercely determined. Every day, we met community members emerging as leaders. While our help is desperately needed, it’s going to be under the guidance of Haitians that this country finds strength.

It is the people organizing the IDP camps and creating signs detailing their struggles who will give voice to the displaced. It’s people like Mona who stitched up a stranger’s foot with her nursing school supplies, who will answer their call despite their own pain and loss.

Those such as Brother Franklin will be instrumental in helping others build new homes. He will comfort them as they start new lives. Finally, the boys who turned back to help their injured friend during the aftershock we hope will use that courage to speak up for their country, ensuring they do not get left behind.

Thinking back to the day we crossed the empty Dajabón border from the Dominican Republic, I remember being taken aback by our security guard KK’s commitment to volunteering despite thinking his own family was dead.

The moment when KK learned his child was alive is something I will never forget. His words when he turned back alone to gather more supplies for the group of orphans will remain with me forever.

“I feel a sense of responsibility to the people of Haiti,” he said.

There is no doubt that each of these individuals will endure. My hope now is that the rest of the world will feel that same sense of responsibility going forward.

Our response to the crisis so far has been remarkable. But, we need to remember that rebuilding will have to be a partnership between North America and Haiti. Unlike during the tsunami, Haiti doesn’t have profitable resorts that companies will rebuild. It doesn’t have a large population of expatriates around the world, ready to send money home.

Instead, given our extensive ties to the country, it’s North America that will be instrumental in helping Haitians rebuild their country in the coming weeks, months and years.

We are getting close to the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games. As the attention of both the media and the public gets diverted, it is absolutely essential that we remember dressings still need to be changed on wounds. Children still need a school in which they can receive an education. People still need safe homes in which they can live and the means to lift themselves out of poverty.

Haiti is already fighting to do just that. On our way through Port-au-Prince, we passed by the Presidential Palace, its roof completely caved in. Across the road was a makeshift shantytown.

We arrived to find a group of university students gathered at the main gate with a long tree branch and a length of twine. They scrambled to the top of the fence, secured the branch and tied the twine between the posts and the tip.

Together, they hoisted the Haitian flag.

As it was being lifted, the gathering mass spontaneously broke into song. Hundreds of Haitians raised their voices, jumped up and down and pumped their fists in the air. Through embraces, tears and a mix of fear and pride, their love for Haiti was evident.

Today, we are all Haitian. Going forward, we have to remember we are all human. Never can we forget our responsibility to our fellow man.”

THANK YOU CRAIG & FREE THE CHILDREN FOR YOUR COMPASSION AND SPIRIT.

 

 

By bkalsi | January 21, 2010
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WCCCI partner Free The Children in Haiti reporting a week after the devastating earthquake

Craig Kielgurger, founder of Free The Children and his team are about to leave Haiti to return home to Toronto, Canada. In one of his final reports, Craig talks about the spirit of the people as they adjust to daily activities with a new focus: surviving one day at a time:

Velena’s bright-coloured dress stood out against the rubble surrounding her.

The shattered concrete is the remains of a landmark Caterpillar tractor shop that visitors once saw when they got off planes at Port-au-Prince airport. On this day, it bore no resemblance to its former self surrounded by one of the largest camps for internally displaced persons in the area.

Velena, about 7 or 8, led us with determination to her tent. We found it constructed of sticks she and the other children had scavenged with a tarp draped in between.

She is smart and resourceful. Already, she had dug a latrine behind the makeshift homes. The kids told us that the Haitian Ministry of Sanitation was coming around regularly to clean it out.

We were relieved to see Velena had taken these measures. In other parts of the camp the human waste was overwhelming. An aid worker told us he was thanking God this was not the rainy season. Haiti already has the highest rates of infant and under-five morality in the Western hemisphere. The wet weather would only contaminate what’s left of the clean water systems, leading to a spread in deadly water-borne illness.

Velena and her neighbours came to the camp from the impoverished neighbourhood of Solino in Port-au-Prince. The few possessions they were able to recover they brought to the camp in tattered pillowcases and old rice sacks.

When we got to her plot, Velena’s father Richard was returning with two aid boxes he had managed to retrieve for the family. They were marked with well-known logos like CIDA, USAID and Oxfam. The family crowded around as they were opened.

One box contained personal hygiene items like soap, toothpaste and maxi pans. The other was filled with pots and a few dishes.

Velena looked up asked, “What are we supposed to put inside the pot?”

We visited six IDP camps on this day. Only one had received a food shipment. That’s not to say other measures weren’t being taken. One man told us that people had been coming around to take names and information. He wondered if that meant aid would be coming.

Getting from place to place is Port-au-Prince is a challenge. Traffic is wild even with United Nations Peacekeepers and policemen directing people. A few inches of space is enough for people to cut you off.

Passing us was an ambulance being escorted by an officer with a loudspeaker.

“You! The yellow bus!” he yelled. “Stop there. Pick-up go up ahead.”

The ambulance appeared to be taking the wounded to the MSF field hospital. The view inside was blocked with tarps on two sides. Stretchers were set-up at the reception area in front. The doctors administered care as best they could.

This was an encouraging site. Others were not.

Corpses continue to be pulled from the rubble. Sadly, many remain alongside the road. Those on the street seem to have become immune to these images. People continue by on their mass exodus out of the city carrying what few possessions they were able to recover.

Money is running short. Despite that merchants are out of the street, trying to sell their supplies before they spoil. In some cases, they too are doing their best to find relief. One woman sold day-old hot dogs and small candies for half their usual price.

“People need something to make their children happy,” she says before admitting they can’t afford much more.

An orange merchant, about 45-years-old, told us she sold oranges on that corner every day since she was a young woman. She carried them in a bright yellow plastic bowl. We watch as she peeled the fruit, cut it into slices and handed it over to her customers with a grin.

She took no money in return.

“I can’t let them go hungry or thirsty,” she says. “Today I am just happy if I have helped to quench the thirst of a few.”

 

 

By bkalsi | January 21, 2010
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WCCCI partner Free The Children on today’s 6.1 aftershock in Haiti

Craig Kielburger speaks about the 6.1 aftershock in Haiti earlier today:

When we awoke to tremors this morning, the initial response was panic.

Our team had spent the night at an orphanage in Carrefour, the original epicenter of last week’s earthquake. Over the last few days, we have been travelling here to deliver food, water and medical supplies.

We have long supported the agency that runs this orphanage. Prior to the earthquake, it was home to mostly boys transitioning off the streets or from jail. Now, it is welcoming children whose parents were lost or injured.

There is a large wall still standing around the compound. The community has started taking shelter in its relative safety.

It’s impossible to get a proper headcount on how many people are here. The three people who run the compound are exhausted. Jeff, the man in charge, said they are working diligently at rationing.

He was extremely thankful when the convoy started to unload fuel for the generators as well as food and water. The kids formed a line to carry the packages to the storage area, sometimes requiring two or three of them to a package.

In the evening, we unrolled our sleeping bags next to the kids on the ground. As a precaution, everyone was staying as much in the open as possible.

As the sun began to rise at around 6 a.m., the ground started to shake.

Immediately, the children jumped up and started to run towards a soccer field. The force of this aftershock was clearly bringing back memories of the week prior. As the structurally unsound walls teetering around them, little ones clutched to kids a few years their senior for protection as they ran.

As the ground rumbled on, two young boys stopped and looked back.

On a mattress that had been pulled from inside lay a boy with his leg in a cast. He was unable to get up on the unstable ground let alone run for safety.

His two friends turned back and ran towards him. Each grabbed a corner of the mattress and half running, half dragging brought the injured boy to safety in the open field.

When the grounds stabilized, we were relieved to find everyone safe. But, this further uncertainty only added to the children’s worry. They were scared for their safety as well as their future in Haiti.

As the morning light brightened the sky, we did our best to reassure them that they were safe. We toured the buildings to see what was still standing.

But, the aftershock confirmed for us something we already believed to be true. While we reassured the kids that physical damage could be repaired and that the rebuilding would start soon, the emotional scars caused by the horrific and often gruesome images they have seen will take much longer to heal.

The kids are all accounted for. But, we had to wonder about other parts of Port-au-Prince. Many were sleeping on steps in front of their homes in order to protect their meager belongings. With many starting to sift through the rubble, they had further shifted walls.

While we haven’t received confirmations, we know with this tremor that more lives will be lost.

The aftershock brought each of them back to the events from one week prior. It left them and us worried about what would happen next.”

 

By bkalsi | January 20, 2010
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WCCCI partner Free The Children in Haiti - updates

Craig Kielburger, founder of Free The Children has been providing updates on the devastation in Haiti:

“We met Marie and her husband Ronald on the steps of the Mission of Immaculate Conception convert. The nuns here have long been friends of our organization, helping to give children in the area just outside Port-au-Prince an education.

Today, despite the structural damage, they are providing refuge for families rendered homeless by the earthquake.

Ronald is a tall thin man and Marie is a voluptuous woman still glowing from her recent pregnancy. Their daughter, three-month-old Manoueshka, sleeps peacefully on a mattress beside us. Without disposable diapers and with no means to clean cloth, the couple set up layers of old sheets on a mattress they were able to pull from inside the convent.

Normally, finding diapers wouldn’t be a problem for Marie and Ronald. The couple had good jobs and was quite well-off prior to the earthquake. But there money is tied up in banks which collapsed. They also lost most of their documents when their home did as well.

The bit of cash they normally kept in the house was drying up. They weren’t quite sure what they would do next.

Learning this, we couldn’t help but sympathize. Most of us in North America keep our earnings in the bank. If we woke up one morning to no power across the country and our institutions gone, our reserves likely wouldn’t go far either.

Our convoy is now making its way into Port-au-Prince and the destruction is becoming much more significant. Along the road, what can only be described as camps for internally displaced persons are everywhere. With little room in which to operate, the people are crammed together creating walls out of sticks and clothing.

Still there seems to be a solidarity to sleeping outside. Communities are emerging. Children play hopscotch in the dirt.

What we fear now is what happens when the rain comes. This is not the rainy season in Haiti so sleeping outside is feasible. But, once the rain starts people will likely head inside the unsafe structures. The weight of the water will likely cause more damage.

As we passed one camp, a sign stood out on the road.

It stated simply, “200 people. No food. No Water. Help.”

The sign itself was a simple plea for the basic necessities in life but symbolized so much more. There is order and governance emerging in these camps. We’ve seen no leadership from the government. While the institution may still exist, it has no control.

Going forward though, there will be a voice in these tents. There will be leaders who emerge. Some will good while others will undoubtedly become gang-like. Still, there will be a voice.

As we headed to the airport, the fuel shortage took on a new dimension. The cars are off the road and there is not a vehicle in sight. But the lineups at the gas stations are long.

The lineups are made up of people crammed together. They wait for hours in these lines, bodies pressed up against one another, with water jugs that they use to collect fuel.

We came across an aid worker named Jim. He is an American who has lived in Haiti for 15 years. He has a wife and kids in the town of Pignon and is doing his best to help out. Because he has spent time in both Iraq and Afghanistan, we were taken aback by what he had to say.

“Haiti is a failed state.”

Jim had harsh words on how the aid was being distributed and expressed how disturbed he was by the lawlessness on the street. He also estimated that only a fraction of the bodies have been found and could only speculate what that would mean for public health in the coming weeks.

That was his main outlook. Not today or tomorrow. What about next week? The month after that? Sure the camps were organizing in solidarity now. But, how long would that solidarity last as food and water becomes more and more scarce.

To him, this is effectively a warzone without the armies. United Nations Peacekeepers keep order in some areas as if there is a battle going on. This fact worried Erin a little. While their presence is important, she remembered seeing posters in UN headquarters following the 2004 coup stating, “Child prostitution is illegal even in this country.”

It definitely raised questions. What kinds of protections would be in place for women and girls as the basic necessities in life remain scarce and desperation sets in?

None of these questions have easy answers. Neither do those of Ronald and Marie.

Back at the convent, the symbols they once turned to in prayer did little to ease their worries. Haiti is a deeply religious nation with 80 per cent of the population professing to be Roman Catholics. Here though, the status of Jesus had lost an arm and the Virgin Mary cracked in half.

Outside on the hard ground, little Manoueshka still slept silently.

The baby is an American citizen. Marie flew to Miami six months ago to have her and she carries an American passport.

The couple went to the American Embassy hoping to be evacuated. Officials informed them that only Manoueshka and Marie would be able to leave. Ronald would have to stay behind.

We inquired as to what they would do. We received only silence.

Marie looked at Ronald. Ronald looked down at his sleeping daughter.

The question was one she couldn’t ask. It was one he couldn’t bring himself to answer.”

 

 

By bkalsi | January 20, 2010
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WCCCI partner Free The Children in Haiti

Craig Kielburger, founder of Free The Children is providing updates on the organization’s work in Haiti after the earthquake which devastated the country last week.

“This morning, a phone call came in at around 4a.m.

It was a call that was hours overdue. Through a day of visiting hospitals, orphanages and communities affected by the earthquake, it was always at the back of our minds.

We breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of KK’s voice. Two days ago, we left the policeman who had offered to accompany us as security, in the town of Cap-Haїtien on the northern coast.

Although, he had plans to meet with his family, he decided to turn back to the Dajabón border.

KK is a policemen whose real name is Kettelen Napoleon. When we met him at the border crossing, he offered to accompany our convoy as security. He believed his family had been killed in the earthquake and was looking to help out in any way he could.

It was as we loaded up the aid we hoped to deliver to orphanages and hospitals that he received his family’s call. For all of us, it was an emotional moment when the big man’s face broke as he learned that his three-month-old was healthy and unharmed.

This morning, we felt that same relief.

Although KK had made arrangements to meet his family outside Port-au-Prince, he was struck by the desire to help out as much as he could in the relief effort. So, the policeman headed back to Dominican border with plans of renting a truck, filling it with supplies and then meeting us at Mirebalais, a town outside Port-au-Prince.

“I need help,” he told us over the phone. We held our breath as he explained he was 30 minutes from our rest stop. But, his truck, laden with supplies, had lost control and careened into a ditch. Now, he needed help getting it out.

We quickly got ready in the darkness. KK’s supplies would be significant to the drop-off at the orphanage we planned on visiting that day.

We made our way to the spot he indicated. When we got there, we witnessed a beautiful sight against the morning sunrise.

KK and a group of about 30 to 40 people were moving the supplies and lifting the truck out of the ditch.

This is the culture of zanmi toay - a truly remarkable sense of community based on principle of helping your network of friends no matter what the situation.

This morning, it came together in full force. Of course, as we sat down for breakfast with KK, we learned this culture was being put to the test given the dire circumstances.

Upon returning to the border, KK found a much different scene than what we had witnessed days earlier.

The crossing guards were now inundated by people trying to make their way into Haiti. Most were individuals whose vehicles were filled beyond capacity. KK joined the lineup with bags of rice, beans and tomato paste – all staples of the Haitian diet. As well, he carried thousands of individual satchels of clean water.

KK patiently waited at the border. After hours, he managed to cross. It was then he realized he would need help with the thousands of pounds of aid he had overflowing from the truck.

The policeman came across a group of men listening to updates on a radio beside the road. Despite the fact that the region was virtually untouched by the earthquake, the power was off and schools were closed. Officials based in Port-au-Prince did not have the capacity to check on the rest of the country and assumed everything was unsafe. This radio seemed to be the only electronic device working for miles.

KK explained the aid was destined for a group of about 1,000 orphans at Petite Place Cazzeau, an organization Free The Children has helped support over the years. A few agreed to come along.

Their help was almost immediately welcome. Within two kilometers, they popped two tires. Jacking up a truck with nearly one ton of burden was not something the big man could accomplish alone.

KK knew the journey would come with some level of risk. But, he quietly told us the violence was unlike anything the sometimes unstable country had ever seen. Following the 2004 coup d’état, instability was political in nature or more men were armed.

Today, people are fighting for survival. Their actions are driven by absolute necessity.

As KK made his way down the road, he came to a bridge where a number of men were waving as if in distress. As he slowed down the truck, they raised sticks and began chanting that the food was theirs.

Quietly, the policeman reached for his gun and unloaded two warning shots into the air. The action was enough to scare the attempted looters without harming anyone. As KK explained, he understood where they were coming from.

KK hit the gas and made a break across the bridge. He knew he was losing supplies from the bed of the truck. But, the action was enough to get himself, his crew and the remaining aid out of harm’s way.

The truck miraculously continued the rest of its journey unscathed. Then, when KK was about half an hour away from our designated meeting point, he heard two loud pops and suddenly lost control of the vehicle.

It was around midnight and the road was pitch black. The truck had blown two tires on the same side and was completely out of control. KK steered the vehicle towards the ditch and soon KK and his crew found themselves dangling on the median’s precipice.

Fearful that he wouldn’t be able to complete his journey, KK and his team set out looking for locals to help unload the supplies and get the truck running again. The community responded in full force. By the time KK called us, the aid was salvaged and ready to be loaded onto our convoy to be taken the rest of the way to the orphanage.

Zanmi toay at its finest.

As we listened to KK’s remarkable story, we had to ask why he did it. Why put himself at risk when he could have just met his family outside Port-au-Prince?

He answered simply. “I feel a sense of responsibility to the people of Haiti.”

 KK with Craig

 

By bkalsi | January 19, 2010
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WCCCI partner Free The Children provide updates on Haiti

Craig Kielburger – founder of Free the Children provides updates on the organization’s mission to Haiti:

“Marie didn’t appear to be injured when we met her in at the Partners in Health hospital in Cange.

She was wearing a pink dress with blue and purple flowers. She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.

The doctors explained that while she had no physical wounds from the earthquake, she was gravely ill. They were trying to treat her for a heart condition. They believed it was caused by a secondary infection associated with HIV/AIDS.

Here in Haiti, more than two per cent of the adult population lives with the virus and hundreds more are infected every year. Due to the extreme poverty and lack of medical access at the best of times, mothers-to-child transmission through breastfeeding or at birth is quite common.

Our group is in Haiti dropping off medical supplies to our partner on the ground, Partners in Health. We have worked with them for many years in Africa and Haiti and are currently directing our relief funds to their efforts.

Part of the mandate of Partners in Health is to provide people with live-saving anti-retroviral therapy. Their system of doing so has been replicated in many rural settings and aims to eliminate barriers to continuous care. If someone on ARVs does not take their medication every day, this gives the antibodies time to build resistance rendering the drugs ineffective.

It’s been nearly a week since the earthquake struck. For some, a wait of the length is effectively a death sentence.

Prior to the earthquake, Haiti already has the highest infant, under-five and maternal mortality rates in the Western hemisphere. Partners in Health had been working for years to alleviate tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. Now, further barriers to clean water, food and medicine are only exacerbating these problems.

This is something we knew all too well. Since coming to Haiti we have been trying to get reports from the street youth centre Erin and her partner Lucas helped found in the coastal town of Jacmel. We had concern one of the boys they work with – a young man who goes by his street name Ti Komik – was not receiving his medicine.

Amazingly, after we highlighted the problem through an entry on twitter, a friend had emailed us within hours. She informed us that she knew of a doctor in the Dominican Republic who could help coordinate a truckload of ARVs for delivery across the empty Dajabón border.

Daily, we’re blown away by the response we are receiving through social networking. But it’s not just online - it’s through Haiti as well.

The Haitians live by a culture of zanmi toay – a culture of helping out friends in need. After years of having little access to electricity, telephones or the internet, we are amazed by how much information still manages to get through.

When Partners in Health ran out of fuel for their generator, word spread across the island, even into the Dominican Republic. There, a man went door-to-door looking for diesel fuel. He then loaded the valuable commodity into his truck and drove it across the border to help in his own private relief effort.

More remarkable are the 10-year-olds who recognize that the doctors are completely exhausted. They constantly ask, “How can I volunteer?” Whether it is moving supplies or relaying information, their help it critical. The fact that each of them does this work in a calm, precise and mature manner is truly something to behold.

Henry, a young doctor normally based in Rwanda, took us through the hospital to where we could drop us supplies. When we asked what he was doing in Haiti, he said he just wanted to help. Under his guidance, the hospital they set up in a local church was running smoothly and orderly despite open wounds, bones protruding from skin and the exhaustion that marked his face.

Calmly, he introduced us to some of the patients.

Like Marie, it wasn’t the wounds from the earthquake that struck each one of us so deeply. It was the pre-existing wounds that really told the story of how much farther this relief effort has to go now that the initial search and rescue is over.

One newborn we found lying in a crib was so malnourished her mother did not want to admit the baby was her child. It wasn’t until the other women around her told us that the baby was hers that she ashamedly revealed the truth.

Next to her, another woman cradled her tiny, premature infant in her arms. The baby was born just one day before the earthquake hit. As we watched her clutch the tiny life, we could not help but think of the thousands of other pregnant women due to give birth.

We’ve heard reports that all of the hospitals in Port-au-Prince were destroyed. Without them, most women will be forced to have their children in the street. Likely, they will lack the proper care and the sterile medical equipment needed to prevent infections like tetanus.

Finally, we came to a woman who had been extracted from a car in Port-au-Prince. Her leg had been completely crushed. Doctors on the scene did a quick job of amputating it at the knee in order to save her life.

Given the circumstances, said Henry, they didn’t do too bad a job. Still, there was a lot of work left to be done. She would require an orthopedic surgeon to properly finish the procedure and the field hospital didn’t have one.

Even if they did, they were running short on blood.

Transfusions themselves aren’t easy. As we’ve seen in Africa, it’s an incredible challenge to obtain a safe blood supply in a region where HIV is prevalent and reliable testing equipment is expensive and hard to come by.

This woman in particular will recover. The problem was where she would go next.

Many patients who had their wounds stitched or limbs placed in casts are ready to be discharged. Under normal situations, they would return home to recover. But today, they are effectively homeless. What they need now is housing and relocation services that will allow them to start a new life.

For the moment though, the exhausted doctors are letting them stay here. It’s not much but many say they are happy just to be receiving treatment. It’s that kind of hope that seems to keep order through the chaos in this small, makeshift hospital.”

   

 

By bkalsi | January 19, 2010
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WCCCI partners Free The Children take to Haiti

WCCCI is honored to work with Canadian based organization Free The Children (www.freethechildren.com) which was founded by dynamic brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger. The primary goals of the organization are to free children from poverty and exploitation and free young people from the notion that they are powerless to affect positive change in the world.

Free The Children has a school (Dos Palais Primary School) and other operations in Haiti, and following the devastating earthquake last week, Craig and a small team from FTC went to help out. Craig was also interviewed by Canada AM the day after the disaster. His interview can be viewed by clicking on the following link: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip255333#clip255333

Craig also sent this blog when he first arrived:

“Our convoy had just crossed the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic at the town of Dajabón when we picked up a new member of our team.

His name is Kettelen Napoleon, an off-duty police officer who prefers to be called KK.

KK had little hope left when we found him. He had yet to make contact with his family and assumed they were dead. But, the burly man was eager to help. With no central body organizing Haitians, he didn’t know how.

Unable to get hold of anyone in the chaos that engulfed Port-au-Prince, KK offered to accompany us as security the instant he heard our convoy was coming.

“Le pays est brisé,” he told us. “The country is broken.”

He had a point. Government buildings and schools were hit by some of the heaviest damage. Education Minister Joël Desrosiers Jean-Pierre reported 90 per cent of schools were destroyed. The city’s infrastructure hasn’t fared much better. When Port-au-Prince shut down, so did the rest of the country.

Since the Armed Forces of Haiti were disbanded in 1995, there is no military to keep order. Widespread looting has occurred in the streets. At this point, the U.S. Military was trickling in to restore order to the streets and the congested airport. It was reported 10,000 troops were due to arrive offshore on Monday – three days from when we met KK.

This is the situation we are finding everywhere. For all the promised aid, there is little getting through.

The day prior, our group flew into Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic to a jubilant atmosphere.

There was no cursing over a lack of food or fuel from the tourists who boarded buses destined for all-inclusive resorts. Here, the airport ran smoothly and efficiently while the all-you-can-eat buffets remained stocked and ready for consumption.

We headed out to the stores and buy the supplies necessary for the duration of our stay.

Our purpose in Haiti is to check on the status of the schools Free The Children has built since establishing a presence in the country in the late 1990s. We are also hoping to connect with our partner on the ground, an organization called Partners in Health, to give them medical supplies.

Partners in Health was founded by a doctor named Paul Farmer nearly twenty years ago. Since then, their presence has been invaluable. Partners in Health developed a system of rural healthcare based on community mobilization. Its hospitals are located in the rural countryside outside of Port-au-Prince and have about 700 nurses on staff.

They were there before this crisis occurred and will be around afterwards. Because they are not a global brand but doing such incredible work in Haiti, Free The Children has been using its charitable status to raise funds for their work. The next step will be looking at long-term support for education, clean water and alternative income.

We received reports that since hospitals in the capital were destroyed, Partners in Health was extracting the injured from Port-au-Prince so that they could receive treatment a couple of hours outside the city. We hoped in reaching them that we could provide medical supplies to assist in their incredible work.

Our small convoy made its way to the northern border crossing of Dajabón. We prepared ourselves for long lines and the possibility of having to bribe officials to gain access to the country.

Instead, we found nothing.

The border crossing was a virtual ghost town. No lineups of trucks brimming with food or bottled water. No doctors waiting get to an operating table.

The guards, who were all too happy to chat, informed us that there has actually been a decrease in trucks crossing the border. The roads in Haiti were too difficult to traverse so few had arrived intent on leaving. Everyone coming in, they said, was headed to the congested airport at Port-au-Prince.

That’s the problem with this strategy of delivering aid. There’s no emphasis on buying locally. Not only are North American goods expensive, the logistics of actually flying them to Port-au-Prince, unloading them and then finding security to get them to the people is downright inefficient.

Yet, in the Dominican Republic, aid was available in abundance while the crossing guards sit ready to process shipment through.

Soon after we started driving, KK received a call on his cell phone. He answered with trepidation and his face broke as he listened.

His family was alive. His mother, brother, kids. They had been unable to reach him due to clogged cell phone networks around Port-au-Prince. This is a difficulty we could attest to. Already we learned it was easier for us to contact our office in Toronto than it was our partners in Haiti.

It was an emotional moment standing with this burly police officer we had only just met. He made arrangements to meet his family outside of the capital. The city was too unsafe and they planned to head into the countryside.

We agreed to take KK to the meeting point.

KK’s was one of few happy stories we have come across. By this point, search and rescue has ended. Now, we have moved to search and recovery. Mass graves are being prepared to bury the dead. Very few are being found alive.

Like KK, those who have survived this catastrophe are eager help. As our convoy moved along the rough terrain, we came across one man leading his own relief effort.

His name is Guerby Garby Joseph, the owner of a small restaurant. When we met him, he was in the process over organizing three buses into Port-au-Prince.

This was the second convey he put together. On the way to the capital, the buses were laden with supplies. They came back filled with secondary school children who were in the capital to attend school. The first three buses weren’t enough, so he was preparing to send more.

Along the journey, Guerby came across others who opened their homes to victims of the earthquake. Touched by their generosity, he opened up his restaurant. Guerby told us he was offering to hire two people who had lost their homes and businesses in an effort to help them build a new life.

For each of these people, disaster relief will last long past when the immediate crisis is over. Coming out of this, we need more aid organizations to follow his example.

From KK to Partners in Health to Guerby, they were on the ground before the earthquake struck. Each of them will be here afterwards, working to rebuild the country.”

 

By bkalsi | January 18, 2010
Topics: News | No Comments »

Declaration by Dr. Shirin Ebadi - Unlawful and Illegal Action with the arrest of Dr. Noushin Ebadi

Declaration by Dr. Shirin Ebadi
I hereby declare that my sister Dr. Noushin Ebadi who is a Medical lecturer at Azad University of Tehran was detained by four officers from the counter-intelligence agency of Islamic Republic of Iran.

She was arrested at 9 pm today (28/12/2009) at her home in Tehran. At present, we have no information of her whereabouts.

During the past two months, my sister had been contacted by the elements within the government and told in no uncertain terms to contact me and persuade me to cease my activities as a human rights advocate. It was strongly suggested that she should leave her apartment which is within the same block as my apartment in Tehran. She was told that her failure to cooperate with them will result in her arrest. I initially did not take this seriously, but I’m sad and upset to see that this was not an empty threat.
It is important to note that my sister is not politically active nor is she a member of any human right organisation. Her only crime seems to be that she is my sister and her arrest is nothing less than a political blackmail and attempted pressure. This is another method employed by the authorities in Iran to stop my activities.

I hereby draw the attention of the Iranian judiciary to this unlawful and wrongful arrest of a member of my family for political gain by the government of Iran and I call for immediate release of my sister.

Iran is currently in turmoil and these unlawful and illegal actions will only have negative effect. What is needed in Iran is peaceful dialogue and tolerance.

Shirin Ebadi

 

By bkalsi | December 30, 2009
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Heartland PeaceJam and Honorary Doctor of Law degree – November 2009

Betty Williams challenged about 150 teenagers and college students attending the Heartland PeaceJam Youth Conference at William Woods University Saturday and Sunday to get involved in humanitarian efforts around the world.

The conference brought together youth from across the Heartland region (Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and parts of Iowa) to share their experiences in service, attend workshops pertaining to violence and refugees around the world.

As part of the conference, the youth, along with volunteers from across Missouri and the Humanity for Children/Rwanda Community Partnership constructed the mock refugee camp, which will remain intact for the remainder of the week for the general public to tour.

The camp had nine stations, including a hut, a school, a hospital, a cholera clinic, water source, cooking facilities, a cemetery and a latrine. Club members lead tours of the camp and explain each of the stations. Tour participants had been given an “identity” and the opportunity to experience life as a refugee.

Betty Williams was also given an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from William Woods University.

  

 

By bkalsi | November 22, 2009
Topics: News and Events | No Comments »

It’s All About The Basics… (from Mario Frangoulis - Sept 2009)

I just returned from the Dalai Lama Center’s 2009 Peace Conference in Vancouver where I was there with our team for the World Centers of Compassion for Children International.

I participated in two sessions: One was called “Conversations for Change” where we were in a conversation, 120 of us, discussing our own life experiences and how they relate to the Dalai Lama’s “call to action” for us, and the other was at a Laureate panel discussion on the meaning of “Compassion”. I performed at both sessions – songs of love, peace, compassion and reconciliation in Italian, French, English, Greek and Spanish.

As I was backstage after my performance, His Holiness came up to me, and looked into my eyes, held my hand and said, “Stay with me for a moment…” I could feel his pulse. He was like an endless river of love and compassion. For some reason I felt calmer being in his presence than, say, what it’s like when one watches him on TV. It was my own personal experience of the power of human interaction, and it was as though he read my mind in a sense, when he turned to me and looked straight into my eyes… connecting with me without saying a word, and then he leaned in and touched his forehead to mine.

More than anything else is the fact that meeting him in person and interacting with him for real was an extension of everything he said in his panel dialogue… and it rang true to me right then and there, in that silent moment. We heard him talk about compassion, love, understanding other human beings, and what it means to really reach out. He is for real, he is the Dalai Lama, and yet he is a person who dares to publicly say “I don’t know”… in his own Tibetan accent. He is brave and wise… and he wants equal rights for everyone.

He talked about 3 focal points:

1. The human basic level of understanding and interacting is the most important thing;
2. That all religions are essentially equal because they have a lot of the same ideas, and they ultimately want good things to happen to good people… it’s just that they are connected to traditions and each country has own traditions… I am Greek Orthodox and was raised a certain way, but it doesn’t mean I can not embrace the ideas in Buddhism as well… I accept and feel that everyone has their own place in this world and that we should be allowed to feel free, to breathe free and that we must all be connected, because we all live under the same sky.
3. In his Tibetan way, he is trying to support his people who are being oppressed and are not allowed to practice their own rights around freedom of spirit and existence. People deserve and aspire to live and love and have justice and a happy life, no matter what their religion or beliefs, these are universal things.

As His Holiness talked about, on a human level it all boils down to whether you have enough food on your plate and a roof over your head, and whether you are able to touch another human being and reach them on a deeper level. It’s very easy to just shake someone’s hand, but it’s not easy to reach someone’s heart. Power is to not misuse power. Power is to know you have it and never use it.

That is what we have to teach children of the world, and why we have to make the Declaration of the Rights of Child a reality.

Mario Frangoulis
Global Ambassador for Peace
WCCCI

 

By bkalsi | November 9, 2009
Topics: Updates from News and Events | No Comments »

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