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By Maria Sacchetti, The Boston Globe PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — On a steamy afternoon last month, Harry Emile entered the darkened foyer of a battered concrete house near the presidential palace. The house had been deemed safe enough to live in, but electricity was still scarce. He climbed the stairs past jagged cracks in the walls, to a second-floor living room, where his 3-year-old daughter Abby waited. She wore a T-shirt saying in English that “my heart belongs to dad.’’ Tears sprang to his eyes and he smiled broadly at her, arms extended. Abby did not recognize him. “Harry,’’ he said, pointing at himself. The girl clung to Yvon Daguilh, her uncle, a rough-hewn man who was one of her caretakers for the past seven months. “You don’t remember me, my love?’’ Harry said. “Your mother gave me something to give […]

By Isabel MacDonald, TheStar.com Academics, authors and activists from around the world are proposing a bold solution to the shortfall Nearly seven months after a devastating earthquake killed upwards of 250,000 people in Haiti, UN special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton told Associated Press on Aug. 6 that international donors have yet to make good on their promises of billions of dollars to help the country rebuild. Haiti’s rebuilding could cost $14 billion, according to a recent Inter-American Development Bank study. Yet only “five countries — Brazil, Norway, Australia, Colombia and Estonia — have so far provided $506 million, less than 10 per cent of the $5.3 billion pledged for Haiti at a March donors’ conference,” according to an Aug. 6 AP article. Today, dozens of leading academics, authors and activists from around the world proposed a bold solution to […]

Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alert: Summer Reading August 12, 2010 Be Part of the Solution for Haiti: Make a Difference in Half an Hour a Week   Updates Thank you to everyone who participated in our last action calling for an end to forced evictions of the internally displaced, we received over 1,000 signatures and it has provided a platform for continued advocacy. The last two months have been busy for IJDH. Our headquarters officially moved to Boston, we launched two new projects addressing gender-based violence and violations of the right to housing, and conducted a follow-up survey of camp conditions with a delegation of students from the University of San Francisco. We are particularly excited about our newly formed partnership with the Goldin Institute on the Rape Accountability and Prevention Project, which has allowed us to staff the Project with […]

By Claude Bernard Sérant, Le Nouvelliste (English Translation Below) Des sans-abri persécutés dans les camps d’hébergement ont tenu un sit-in aux abords du Palais national. Au cours de ce rassemblement clairsemé les manifestants ont fait entendre leur voix. Haïti: Une centaine de sans-abri, encadrés par les organisations de droits humains et d’associations de femmes, ont réalisé un sit-in près du Palais national le jeudi 12 août pour exprimer leur ras-le-bol contre le gouvernement en place. « Nous n’allons pas accepter cela. A Cité Soleil, des bandits armés ont forcé environ 200 familles à quitter la place Immaculée. Ils nous ont dit que ce site est une zone stratégique. Nous avons dû nous réfugier contre notre gré, à Michico sur un terrain boueux infesté de bêtes nuisibles qui peuvent nous rendre malades », fulmine le coordonnateur général du Camp Place Immaculée […]

Message from Jayne Fleming Many of you have written to me, wondering about my silence. I’ve been in Haiti for four days now, but so far not a word. “What’s up?” you ask. “How’s life in Port au Prince?” My mother taught me as a child that if I felt like blowing up about something I should count to at least 100 before speaking. “The mind works best at cool temperatures.” I’ve counted to about 10 million and I’m still boiling. But my mother also said “silence is acquiescence”, echoing Victor Frankl, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. So I’ll stop counting and send this report. I’ve been focused on three main issues: food, shelter and physical security – the greatest concerns of our clients here. Is Haiti making progress in these areas? Are the billions of dollars in aid […]

Click here to view the original: http://ijdh.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Haiti-EventRelease.pdf For Immediate Release Monday, July 26, 2010 Contact: Suzanne Offen, American Jewish World Service, 212.792.2889 Elise Young, Action Aid USA and Gender Action, 202.631.6335 Haiti: Groups to Press Array of Concerns From Education to Gender Violence Lineup to Address Gaps in Reconstruction WASHINGTON, DC — As Haiti passes the six month mark of its attempts to recover from a massive earthquake, Haiti Civil Society and Diaspora members covering different aspects of the recovery will press their cases Tuesday, July 27 on Capitol Hill. Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) board members Ira Kurzban, Esq. and Dr. Paul Farmer will both testify. Haiti’s recovery has been viewed as halting and in disarray by a growing variety of observers. Civil society organizations (CSOs) have been alarmed at the conditions for displaced persons, violence […]