the "restavec" system

When you have 20 minutes to spare, I highly recommend this short documentary from Al Jazeera's "Witness". It covers the story of a sister and brother who are bound within a social system in Haiti, and are known as "restavecs". This system is no secret, evidenced in households throughout the cities of Haiti. Along with 300,000 other children—or 1 in every 10 children—these two give their testimonies as the oppressed in a system of modern-day slavery, a system that has been implemented ever since the independence of 1804, and continues to increase today.

Stolen Children - Part 1:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/witness/2009/06/2009617134958921657.html

Stolen Children - Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fSLFMVYL3o

entrepreneurs meet for more than conversation and coffee...

Christian businesspeople recently met at a prayer breakfast where entrepreneurs shared their unique stories filled with a common passion for job creation in Haiti.



Within the network of Haitian Partners for Christian Development (HPCD), business owners of every background—local mentors and mentees, association board members, and micro-entrepreneurs in the “business incubation” program—mingled over some good coffee and conversation, prayer time, and personal stories of transformation.

Guest speaker Evelien de Gier, HPCD Board President and entrepreneur, shared her vision that morning of business as a Christian mission, utilizing the story of Ruth in the Old Testament, a woman who emerged herself and her mother-in-law from poverty with dignity and hard work (Ruth 2).

“Work is a biblical given,” said de Gier. “So often in our eagerness to help, we feel we have to seek solutions ourselves. Instead, we end up stealing the dignity of the poor by not allowing them to work toward the solution as well. […] In job creation, we are not handing something, but helping someone. We’re teaming up.”

Lives being transformed through these shared solutions were showcased as attendees watched a portion of a recent documentary film, created by MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti), which covered the story of each micro-entrepreneur within the HPCD business incubator program in Martissant, one of the roughest districts of the capital city, Port-au-Prince. One of the incubator entrepreneurs, Heliot Ferodin, also spoke about the ongoing effects job creation will have in that district toward the reduction of gang violence—a tool used by too many as the means to overcome poverty.



That morning, a network of Christian businesspeople found more than just coffee and conversation. Entrepreneurs of every sector came together and were re-inspired to pursue a shared objective: to close the gap of inequality between the poor and rich in Haiti and “to involve the rich in helping the poor to emerge from poverty.”

HPCD, along with the global network of business affiliates associated with Partners Worldwide (PW), implements events such as this breakfast to forge relationships and live out the mission of PW, to “encourage, equip and connect business and professional people in global partnerships that grow enterprises and create sustainable jobs, transforming the lives of all involved.”

Conference of Hope for a Sustainable Economy

May 1-2, 2009

Over 300 people joined for two days at the “Conference of Hope for a Sustainable Economy” in a city of Haiti still climbing out of hurricane disaster from nine months ago.

In Gonaives, a city on the interior gulf of Haiti, the leaders of the New Jerusalem in-country affiliate collaborated with their Brookfield Partners of Wisconsin to provide a new hope for businesspeople from regions and cities around the country toward sustainable economic development through job creation, youth empowerment, entrepreneurial training and the tool of local, regional, and international mentoring.



Over the last five years, the Brookfield Partners have walked alongside New Jerusalem through ongoing mentoring relationships with various businesspeople, including owners of a cement block factory, pharmacy, organic farm, poultry production project, and an elementary school. After learning so much, the members of New Jerusalem wanted to create opportunities for others to also learn, network and grow as Christian businesspeople.

Daniel Jean-Louis, Partnership Manager of Haiti, saw the immediate results. “The conference met its objectives by bringing hope to the businesspeople there, and also brought new enthusiasm to them, training them and showing them that people care. It was a great success because we laid the ground to create a viable network of Christian businesspeople in that region.”



“Within a network like that, people can now leverage on each other,” he says, “and complement each other by purchasing and supplying each other, which is good for business. They can also receive mentoring locally and regionally with ongoing encouragement.”

Pastor Josue Jean, Director of Community Management within Ebenezer Mission of Gonaives, describes the effects he saw on some participants following two days of plenary sessions, workshops, and worship, saying, “When I was collecting feedback, one woman who is the head of a co-op bank in the city, said, ‘What I got from the conference is so deep, I can’t digest it myself. I want to have some more round-table discussions.’ Others said they learned more over the two days than what they had learned over years—how to effectively become better Christian businesspeople.”

Gonaives was severely affected by repeated hurricanes over the past years which destroyed businesses, infrastructure, farms, and took thousand s of lives. For many, this time together provided not only a vision of sustainable economy, but also one of enduring hope.

“It was important to have the conference there,” says Jean-Louis, “because it showed the people that we care, and that there is a shared hope to revive the economy. The challenges in Haiti are so high that only when Christians come together can they overcome.”

“For the city of Gonaives, this conference is like a new era,” says Pastor Jean.

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To view more, see below:

Signs welcome people in from the main road toward Gonaives.

Dozens of people sign in on the first morning of the conference.

Pastor Jean and Daniel Jean-Louis lead a session regarding the struggle, and the greater potential, of businesses within Haiti.

North American and Haitian partners provide a workshop on developing a business plan.

Dennis Hoekstra, leader of water source and agronomy workshops, listens in on another training session.

North American partners visit the organic farm of their Haitian affiliates.

Gonaives' future entrepreneurs enjoy a Saturday off from school. But the learning doesn't stop there!

final voting verdict of 8%

Here's some follow-up on the blog entry below, "active citizenship".

Regarding the recent senate elections, a few different media sources have let me know that approximately 8% of the Haitian voting population submitted their ballots.

As low as it sounds, to each of these sources, it also appears to be a pretty standard turnout. Even if it had been an election without threats, still a low percentage of the population would likely have voted. There seems to be underlying cause of the limitations on active citizenship.

It's those underlying causes that are always the most complex to unravel.

For example, the limited media is difficult for the majority of the population to approach. With a literacy rate of 53%, many cannot read or even afford the newspaper or internet; in addition, many of the TV programs, radio stations, or political procedures made public are in French, compared to Haitian Creole, the language spoken by all. Others shunned the elections because the party they supported hadn't legally registered in time.

More alarming is that people aren't interested in voting if they already know that the elected officials will not fulfill their responsibilities. Manifest corruption in the past and present causes citizens to believe that it shall only continue; therefore, voting for a candidate who is no different from leaders past is simply not worth the effort.

It's a tough issue to comprehend... why don't people simply vote based on what they know? why don't people put on community education events to make citizens aware of policies and their rights? why doesn't anyone more openly challenge the media to improve its approach to the majority of the population? why doesn't anyone more openly pressure those elected to fulfill their responsibilities? where are all these "active citizens"?

At this point, threats go beyond the ones announced on the radio to voting citizens. In recent years, people who stand up for justice have been kidnapped until a bribery is fulfilled; others have lost a loved-one in uprisings and riots; human rights watchers sought refuge after being threatened by political and social leaders. Cause and effect seems so simple, yet in this case, is a challenge to understand.

To learn more, check out these links:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/200941818533746488.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/04/2009419224231220542.html

active citizenship

Before another week flies by, I've decided to write down a shred of reflection based on an interesting event (or prevention of any other related events) that took place last week Sunday.

Last weekend was the culmination of 2009 senate elections within Haiti, a biannual routine in which a portion of the senate is voted in for either 4-year or 6-year terms.

After walking for weeks down sidewalks surrounded by portrait posters pasted on nearly every building, to hearing radio announcements for any of the two dozen candidates running for position in one province alone, to speaking with coworkers or church members about their aunt, uncle, or supervisor’s second-cousin as the up-and-coming leader of the people, not a lot happened, something I’ll expound for a moment.

Senate elections are traditionally on Sundays, perhaps to draw as many people to the voting process as possible. Yet, this time, things got preventatively ugly when the federal government warned all citizens, for safety, to avoid driving on the election Sunday.

Now, the prevention took place, rightly so, as a response to one particular political party who, months ago, was found to not be legally registered within this campaign, and therefore, unqualified for this round’s election. They would argue otherwise. Instead of following a peaceful process and preparing to register for the next round solely two years down the road, the party instead publicly threatened to kill any citizen caught voting.

For this reason, limits of driving were ironically placed on citizens during election day, and statements were made that the Haitian police force and, or, United Nations Peacekeeping troops would be stationed at most corners throughout the major cities; drivers would be required to pass through each checking point with verification of the destination and purpose of traveling.



So, as usual, I still walked to church that morning. However, just outside the gate on the road behind my house, there were no tap-taps in sight, a crumbling gravel road typically packed by 6:00am with dozens of drivers waiting to drive the majority of the public to church, work, the market, or school. There were no vehicles, no exhaust in the morning air, no engines running, no horn-honking. As I walked down the hill toward church, I even greeted an older gentleman enjoying a good slow jog up the center of the street. A few others walking experienced a rare freedom to cross without looking both ways.

The church was about 1/4 full that morning. Due to such a small congregation, communion went twice as fast, causing the service to end much earlier than usual. And, without any place to go, I spent a good long morning, afternoon, and evening in the small garden at the house, read a little, talked a little, photographed some plants, caught a picture of a gecko before it disappeared faster than light, and enjoyed the first day of quiet I’ve ever experienced in Port-au-Prince.



The next day, from very little news on the radio nor those around me, my first guess was that no threats went through due to the driving restrictions and high security on every block. My second guess was that very few people voted.

I began to wonder how many people that day walked alone on the streets to their voting site and what portion of the population employed their right to vote as a citizen of a presidential republic, in spite of threats and policies.

From what I've heard, it was very few.

revealing evidence in the case of spaghetti

After a few surprises early on (e.g., regularly eating spicy spaghetti for breakfast), I was intrigued by the presence of pasta in Haiti. And, last week, after a day of interviewing business owners around the city, especially the owner of the largest pasta production company here, I came to my host parents with a question:

“Did you eat spaghetti as a child?”

This question in particular came to the surface that night over dinner, since that afternoon I had spent a good half hour talking with the owner of ITALA, the aforementioned business that produces pasta in nearly every shape and size. She claimed that her business, back in the 1980s, had introduced spaghetti to the broader Haitian public. I was curious to see if Haitians agreed.

The husband and father of the family I live with thought the question through, and, at first, recalled eating pastas out in the small rural town, Beledaire, in which he grew up. Yet, after another moment, he started recollecting that the pasta then was nothing like the pastas available now. Then it was just lasagna noodles, or so he remembers, whereas now, he notices more and more imports of every variety in every grocery store—imports from Lebanon, Turkey, France, Venezuela, and the U.S., many of them beyond the price range of most consumers to begin with, then complimented with high tariffs upon entering the country. Although these products meet the demand of a minority of the population—second and third generation Middle-Eastern and foreigners, along with a crowd of international organizational representatives (UN, UNICEF, EU, etc.)—the rest of the population has heard of the product, checks the price, puts it back, and moves on. (With a smile on his face, he also described that in worst case scenario these days, some traditional Haitian recipes are hard to follow, as many of the traditional ingredients available for purchase are being replaced with the worldwide variety that doesn’t quite fit the entrée.)

To put it plain, the basics, at times, are harder to find these days at an affordable price from Haitian suppliers. Over the years, the agricultural economy within Haiti has gone through some adversities, to say the least (political, environmental, climatic, mismanagement of public finances toward infrastructure). In many cases, the industries here haven’t been able to hold their own against such efficient suppliers of imports nearby, made possible within the Green Revolution of decades past.

While some industries are struggling to regain the footing they used to hold in the market, most of the basics in Haiti are now imported: rice, beans, coffee, oranges, limes, tomatoes, and even sugar canes, all on which the Haitian economy used to thrive. On the other hand, there are some products that Haitian businesses cannot compete in the near future—sunglasses from China sold for 1.25 USD on every corner (and most people wear sunglasses in this tropical climate), plastic sandals and clogs from the Dominican Republic at 1.00 USD per pair.

But, back to the spaghetti. So, on one hand, many products meet the demands of the top 5% of the population; yet, the opposite symptom is that in order to meet the demands of the other 95%, costs have to be the lowest possible, something Haitian businesses are struggling to meet in order to survive.

Case in point is what I learned after speaking that day with the owner of ITALA. Back in the 1990s, they waited 4 years for a necessary piece of machinery held at customs due to the international embargos on Haiti in order to oust Aristide out of power. Eventually, when things settled down, they got the machinery in place, and began producing once again.

Yet today, her business as the largest pasta production company of Haiti is still obliged to import the grains and other materials from France and the USA, surprisingly, in order to keep it affordable! The business can’t afford to invest in the Haitian agricultural industry, simply because of the lack of infrastructure (mostly due to poor roads and transportation that is supposed to be funded by tax money which instead often winds up in the pockets of political leaders) as well as the political instability and the related responses of civil society (as seen in her pasta factory's safety concerns since it is located in one of the most threatening areas over the past few years—the industrial sector—in which most riots and kidnappings took place due to the poverty, hunger, any anger against businesses growing, and political instability; these riots ironically hindered the local employers, and, in this case, the manufacturer of one the most affordable staples at the time… her pasta).

After importing the raw materials, they then add value in the production process in Port-au-Prince. Yet, even after that, they’re still able to target the broadest market of most consumers within the informal sector, selling the products in the stores to the small emerging middle class, but also in bulk to women and men who then daily sell in outdoor markets or on the streets. However, although her business has made pasta a staple (namely, affordable) throughout Haiti, it heavily relies on foreign raw materials, a reliance that will change no time in the near future. In the end, whether it’s manufactured in Haiti or abroad, that spaghetti, and much more, has ultimately come from another place for many reasons.

Describing just a few of the interwoven challenges she faces as a local manufacturer—the normalcy of corruption, the way it spills over into widespread poverty, the civic response in violence and riots, the hindrance to production and growth—she holistically summed it up that day when she described the following:

“Haiti has a lot of opportunities. We have sea, resources, we’re not in a war, we’re close to the States and to the DR. We have a very beautiful country with a lot of opportunities, yet the country has nothing! The problem of Haiti is the mentality of the people; they can’t come together. As for me, when growth happens, you’re happy and I’m happy. Yet, in Haiti, people often don’t like to see someone with success; when they see success, they want to put it down. We have to change the mentality.”

language learning: a delightfully frustrating endeavor

Over the past six months, I've daily crossed paths with my 3rd language, namely Haitian Creole, a delightfully frustrating endeavor. Let me explain.

Each morning, I wake up and head directly to shower in cold water (a temperature of water that enables me to better administer my supposed views on water consumption and environmental stewardship, especially since I can endure that temperature for solely 60-90 seconds each time).

Following the shower, I dress and head out toward the kitchen table. The first thing I do is pour a hot cup of Haitian coffee, strongly brewed, and add a drop of milk and a teaspoon of brown sugar (unlike most who add about 5-6 teaspoons and still consider it mildly sweet).

But, the best part is when the woman I live with sits down over our oranges, bananas, and French bread, then starts testing my Creole for the day.

See our typical morning conversation translated to English below:

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“Good morning. How are you?” she asks.

“I’m fine, thanks to God,” I answer. “And you?”

“I’m great today, thanks to God. Did you sleep well last night?” she asks.

“Yes, I slept really well. I was tired after work yesterday, especially when I rode home in the work vehicle,” I describe. “And did you sleep well?”

“Yes, I did. I slept very well last night.” she says. “Did you already eat a banana?” she asks in a caring, motherly fashion.

“Yes, I already ate a banana, one orange, and some bread, and drank some coffee and water. Would you like some coffee?” I ask as I pick up the pot next to me.

“Yes, please. But I need a coffee cup,” she responds.

“Okay,” I say, “and you need to take your calcium vitamins,” I then declare in a motherly fashion. “Do you promise?”

“Alright, alright, I’ll take the vitamins.”

--

And that is how each morning begins. At this point, we’re pursuing some expansion on my vocabulary (especially to impress a few family members who are on their way to visit a few weeks from now). But, since this gracious woman also speaks English, we have, multiple times, attempted to establish house regulations—a shared effort to avoid my native language English and actually communicate, at a much slower rate, in Creole.

More often than not, she and I disregard the regulation within 20 minutes, especially when we start talking politics, development, society, and on goes the list. Yet, many Haitians keep telling me that all I need is a few more months, and I'll be right there in the midst of Creole conversation, participating, adding, understanding, learning.

I agree. I think they're on to something...

May this delightfully frustrating endeavor continue!

the CRC of Haiti

A few weeks ago, I was blessed to meet with members of CRC of Haiti churches in the countryside near the Haiti/DR border, to learn their stories, and to share ours as well.

As we headed northeast from Port-au-Prince, we ventured for 30 km alongside a valley between two mountain ranges, a beautiful delta of bean farming by individuals working the ground with their hands below.





On the rocky, bumpy road along the mountainside, we also approached a portion that we coined "the luge". Since we were traveling in 1st gear, no faster than 7-8 mph, I don't think we could have placed in the Winter Olympics.



In the village of Savanette, we shared a day with people from the church, especially the youth and women, who operate a micro business to support their projects based on hand-made sandals, jewelry, and baskets. For their business, one of the biggest challenges they face (as you can see in the photos above) is that the transportation costs are too high to efficiently proceed in any contracts, restraining them from potential markets in larger towns and cities around the region, including Port-au-Prince. They also hope to purchase a small machine that will enable them to attach the sandal soles to their macrame weaving, instead of sending it to a man just across the border that fulfills that portion of the manufacturing process at a higher cost.









The next morning, they also welcomed us to worship our Lord Jesus Christ together.





The staff person of the CRWM here had not been able to visit these churches for over two years. Yet, after our time together, it was amazing to recognize that God continues to unfold growth and depth within the Kingdom of believers.